Blueberries

Blueberries and shortbread for breakfast--I love summertime at the Farmer's Market!

Vanilla Bake Shop

On Saturday we checked out the Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica before heading over to celebrate with UCLA's cutest, English graduate of '08. The Boy got the black-and-white, but I opted for the namesake and it came out lookin' like this. I can't remember which flavor Mama chose, but Dad picked out the frozen "dessert shot" in key lime and it ended up being the real winner. The shop offers a bunch of flavors: meyer lemon tart, triple berry short cake, dirt cake and southern banana pudding. I think this would be an excellent dessert or hors d'oeuvers for a summer wedding or party...what a COOL idea. Here are some recipe ideas:

Strawberry & Macaron
Brandied Peaches
Tiramisu
Banana Cream
Key Lime

Fun & Funky Crafting

(Photo from Julie Reed via Design*Sponge)

I'm catching up on life in blog land and thought I'd share a few favorite crafting finds:

• Crocheted bath mat
• Felted rocks (for much mo' beautiful photographs check out hers)
• Sculptural pendant lamps
• Printable pocket albums (via HAO of course)
  

City Bakery + Dwell

Today we attended the Dwell on Design Exhibition in Los Angeles. On our way there, we first stopped at The City Bakery for a pretzel croissant (seriously one of the best things I've ever eaten in my life--thank you D&H for introducing me!) I liked their use of yogurt containers for table vases and thought I'd share...

The show was good. Great prefab set ups by Marmol Radziner (Leo M. spoke as well) and HOM. Outside of the structures I also enjoyed:

• Huset (Scandinavian)
• Madison & Grow (wall paper)
• Eco Tots (surf collection)
• Charley Harper Prints
• DWR's Kithaus
  
• Food Map Containers (for edible gardens)
  

Hope you do too!

Marni Blarney

Marni is one of my most favorite clothing brands. At $400-600 per shirt I don't exactly own any of Consuelo C's creations. I just admire them from a distance. Today I was in Target though and spotted this which has a similar look--not that you can actually tell in this horrible photo--you'll just have to go see for yourself. It has a great fit.

You can't really replace Marni, but another line with a similar look is Vera Wang's new collection for Kohl's. Kind of reminds me of this.

Salad

Salade Nicoise

I love how inspiring summer produce can be for salad making. I'm not 100% over of my antipasto salad habit, but nevertheless was thrilled when summer truly arrived last week and I just looked around the kitchen and tossed together some mixed greens, cherries, sliced almonds and shaved fennel bulb with a sherry vinaigrette. Very nice--try it!

I'm reading the biography on Alice Waters by Thomas McNamee at the moment and loving it (you can always tell when I'm reading because sadly I can't seem to blog and read at the same time.) Anyhow, I thought I'd share this excerpt below, taken from a conversation the author had with Alice about creating a Farmer's Market Salad...

For any salad greens, you're looking for the ones that have just been picked. Ones that have an aliveness about them. Ones that don't have any little discolored ends. I don't mind the ones that have a little dirt on them because they just came out of the field. They didn't even have time to wash them. You'd be surprised where you can find greens like that. If I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I would make friends right away with a gardener who was part of one of those community gardens.

Super Stash

PurlSoho.com has some great fabric on sale. Check out what I got from Amy Butler, Joel Dewberry and Tina Givens above! I'm branching out beyond my normal fat quarters only and going for yardage. So beautious. Andrea just got some too...

I saw this fabric at Quilt Market and finally found it at Superbuzzy. They send you Japanese candy with your order. How cute. Love these little pachys!