There's something I really like about such a well-proportioned breakfast.
Whole wheat waffle (homemade) slathered in peanut butter and honey. Bananas on the side. And milk-chai to wash it all down.
create. and. consume.
Purposeful twentysomething.
Likes: the design of everyday objects, stories, crude garment construction, rearranging furniture, music in spanish, good movies, cooking and eating meat, cutting up fruit, costumes, redwood trees and rolling hills, recommending holes-in-the-wall, not paying full price on beautiful things.
The Corner: a new favorite restaurant in the Mission.
I am seriously loving Garry's new neighborhood because he lives, quite literally, 2 blocks from almost everything. Tartine, Pizzeria Delfina, Bi-Rite, Yamo, Urbun Burger... we'll never go hungry in this part of town.
Dropping in near the top of the list is The Corner, an enchanting little space carved out, appropriately, on the corner of 18th and Mission. The decor pleased me perfectly - not something I usually notice about a place, but I immediately loved the bird-and-branches wallpaper that made it feel like a forest, the natural wood paneling and exposed brick, and the whimsical metal light fixtures. It had personality without trying too hard, and above all it felt warm even though the evening was cold.
The servers were so so very kind and gracious - also not something I usually care about, but they were informative, helpful, and did thoughtful little extra things like give me ice along with my hot water in case it was too hot.
The food - very inventive, tasty, and flavorful! Garry had the slow-cooked pork shank (cheesy hashbrowns, pea shoots, poached egg & maple sauce which gave it a fascinating flavor dimension), I had the chitarra pasta with chanterelle mushrooms (tat soi, purple cauliflower, grana padano & lemon thyme), and we split a sunchoke soup (sourdough croutons, roasted figs).
The best part? The deliciously low prices! Between the three things we got, we spent less than $30 including tip (we didn't get anything to drink--it being a 'school night,' and the servers didn't give us any pressure about it at all). We'll definitely be back as there were at least five other things on the menu that I was keen on trying.
Sorry for the horridly grainy iPhone photos!
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Lessons from the movies: Game-changing dresses.
Posted simultaneously to wearability.posterous.com
I've been reading this excellent book, Audrey Style by Pamela Clarke Keogh, which is not a straightforward biography of America's most beloved silver screen star. Rather, it's about the life-changing events, relationships, and personal convictions that went into creating Audrey Hepburn's innovative, singular and influential way of dressing--most notably her lifelong 'style' partnership with the designer Givenchy.
So far I've learned some interesting things that make me respect Audrey more as an individual, even though I haven't really been a fan of most of her movies (I know--gasp.). Like the fact that from ages 12-16, during WWII, she practically starved and even tried to make bread out of grass. Or that she spent her entire life yearning for warmth and affection from her rigid mother.
Anyway, I specifically wanted to discuss the one film that really put Audrey on the style map, and made every woman in America want to dress like her. Most people assume that this film was Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), when in fact, Audrey's moment came much earlier, in 1954, in the original Sabrina.
It was a barely-known Audrey Hepburn that boldly made an appointment with Givenchy and dazzled him with the way she brought his designs to life, then proceeded to select three simple costumes from his 1953 Spring/Summer collection that would change everything:
1) The Glen Cove Suit: Audrey wore this with a simple white turban while waiting at the train station with her luggage and mini poodle. Dark gray, double-breasted, cinch-waisted, scoop-neck jacket and a simple slim, calf-length skirt.
2) The White Ball Gown (pictured below): For her first party back at the Larrabee mansion, Audrey's character donned a magnificent concoction of silk and embroidery that stunned the Larrabee brothers, and the world.
3) The Denouement Date Dress (pictured below): The truly original Little Black Dress, a good 7 years before the one she wore in Breakfast. Simple tea-length with boat neck and two sweet bows on her shoulders, it suited her gamine figure perfectly.
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Interesting stuff, but what really got me fascinated was thinking of other game-changing style moments in cinematic history, when things changed very tangibly for the character because of what she wore, within the context of the film, or when what she wore changed the way the world, and especially women, viewed themselves and their potential.
I'm thinking specifically about dresses worn at pivotal moments in film, dresses we still think and talk and dream about, to this day. Dresses that capture our imagination with their own breathless possibility. Here are some of my favorites...can you think of any others?
1 Sabrina's white Givenchy ball gown. 2 Sabrina's little black dress. 3-4 The gorgeous green silk dress Keira Knightley wore in Atonement. 5-7Drew Barrymore's Renaissance-style dress and wings in Ever After. 8 The climactic flamenco ball gown in Strictly Ballroom. 9 Anastasia's lovely dark blue opera dress and white gloves. 10 Kate Winslet in beaded finery in Titanic. 11-12 Princess Leia's slave girl chic vs. chaste white gown in Star Wars. 13 Penelope's wedding dress - corset and shredded skirt. 14 Nicole Kidman's satin confection in Moulin Rouge. 15-17 All of Maggie Cheung's gorgeous cheongsam-style dresses in In the Mood for Love. 18 I always had a thing for Maria's lovely, light-as-air frock in The Sound of Music. 19-20 Jennifer Connelly in an over-the-top concoction for Labyrinth. 21-22 Grace Kelly's opening scene dress in Rear Window. 23 Zhang Ziyi's debut in Memoirs of a Geisha. 24 Marilyn Monroe's classic halter in Seven Year Itch. 25-26 Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days - love the unusual yellow color. 27 Kim Basinger's cloak in LA Confidential. 28 All of Jennifer Lopez's crazy get-ups in The cell. 29 Dustin Hoffman's sequined wonder in Tootsie. 30 Renee Zelleweger in a super simple little black dress for her first date in Jerry Maguire. 31 THe gloriously over-the-top wedding gown in Coming to America. 32-33 Julia Stiles' simple, striking blue prom dress + red flower in 10 Things I Hate About You. 34 And finally, the magnificent Lauren Bacall.
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Won Park takes origami to the next level.
I guess I should pay more attention to the random forwards my mom sends me, because everyonce in a while it turns out to be pretty awesome.
Here's Won Park, a Korean-American origami artist that creates his own unique, intricate, and original designs using his medium of choice: the US dollar bill. He never cuts anything - everything is constructed completely out of folds.
Check out his process in this clip (apologies for the supremely annoying s/he host):
Filed under //
Art
Interesting Stuff on the Internets
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How poor management can ruin everything.
As recently as this past spring, the La Habra Ranch Market was a bustling local market, full of people jamming tiny carts past each other in their eagerness to trade their hard-earned money for a cornucopia of fresh, beautiful fruits and veggies.
I posted about the market a little over a year ago, noting the fantastic prices, variety, and bounty to be had. (Check it out here.) Watermelons for $2/each! Raspberries 2 boxes for $1! Just amazing.
Some time in the last year though, the original Mexican owners cashed out and sold the market to a Korean family (indicative of SoCal socioeconomics on a macro scale). And the market hasn't been the same since.
I don't know if it's because the suppliers are now different, but I was so depressed to visit the market last week and see its transformation/degeneration firsthand.
I wasn't even sure it was open that day, there were so few cars in the parking lot. Inside it was dismal, eerily silent and so very empty. And let's not even get into the produce - such poor quality stock, all shriveled up and on the edge of molding. Not to mention, the shelves looked like they hadn't been stocked in a couple weeks.
It's been less than a year since the changeover but I am flabbergasted by how poor management - poor supply, poor set-up, poor pricing, poor customer service/experience can completely run a successful business into the ground, and so quickly.
All I can think is, how sad, and what a waste!
Filed under //
Essays: Rants
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100% recycled white elephant gift.
A white elephant gift exchange is probably the only situation in which re-gifting is appropriate and/or encouraged. I'm involved in at least two of them this year; today I actually went and spent $ buying a new one because it didn't occur to me that I could find something relatively nice, if useless to me, gift lying around my apartment.
For tomorrow's exchange at work, I'm giving away a set of sushi plate + soy sauce saucer that I inherited from someone; it's actually quite cute but I don't eat sushi at home at all, so I've barely even taken it out of its original box.
In the spirit of re-gifting I recycled some old wrapping paper as well as some green tissue that I cut into rectangles and fashioned into little flower-pom-poms. They hide the wrinkles in the paper nicely, I think, and anyway I don't feel too badly about using wrinkled paper for something that will be torn into anyway. Adds a bit to the rustic charm, methinks ;)
Filed under //
Holidays
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Kicking off the season of Advent... with an Advent calendar of course.
I love Advent calendars even though mine has no mention whatsoever of the birth of Jesus or the "reason for the season" as they say. Every day I pop open a window and have some delicious milk chocolate courtesy of Trader Joe's. Hooray.
Filed under //
Holidays
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It was a modest Lim family Thanksgiving...
Having gorged on Wendy's pre-Thanksgiving feast the week before, and already eaten turkey leftovers all of that week, I was glad my parents kept it simple on Thanksgiving Day. We just had some family over for Burmese curry chicken rice. Yum.
I dropped by Taco Nazo with Karin, but somehow the tacos tasted kind of different. Good, but not quite as spectacular as I remembered.
Saw New Moon at the Grove with Lils, followed by burgers, beer and baskets of fries at Father's Office.
Had some down-home Hawaiian at King's Hawaiian in Torrance with high school friends. And closed out the long weekend with Mexican eats at Los Sanchez in Santa Ana.
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Foodie Tuesday: Cooking with egg whites, or, Don't let this happen to you.
Behold. A double-decker pancake? Mexican pastries? Some kind of odd flatbread? Oh no, friends. What you see here is my first and miserably failed attempt at making angel food cake. I only embarked on this strange journey because I happened to have 10 egg whites left over after I made my glorious homemade eggnog for Wendy's pre-Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday.
I used this recipe on allrecipes that got tons of great reviews, but with the caveat that you had to do things just right. I am usually a cook who likes to "wing it," "play it by ear," or even "cut corners." And the discipline of cobbling together an angel food cake just goes to show that in some cases, one must adhere to a very strict and deliberate process. One that I did not quite follow tonight. A list of my transgressions:
- The recipe called for cake flour. Not having any, I used mostly white flour with a tablespoon of cornstarch mixed in.
- The recipe called for cream of tartar. Not having any, I used 1 tsp. lemon juice as a substitute.
- I forgot, and added the salt to the dry ingredients instead of the egg whites.
- I forgot, and dumped all the sugar into the bowl in the beginning, instead of adding it to the already-whipped eggs.
- I didn't have an angel food pan, or even a bundt pan, and used a regular 9'x13' pan instead.
- I am not sure, but I probably overmixed. Even though I folded as carefully as possible. (That link leads to an excellent tutorial on folding by Chef John Mitzewich, the same ingenious and hilarious guy who brought us 'How to Eat a Chicken Wing." My favorite line? "You're not folding yet, you're just like, "Hey, how're ya doing, batter?'"
At any rate, the cake collapsed miserably and I'm really not sure which of my sins had the greatest impact on its inability to stand upright. I'm hoping some more experienced bakers (ahem...Reggie...Wendy) can tell me exactly how to avoid this sort of disaster going forward.
Filed under //
Cooking & Recipes
Foodie Tuesday
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'Vintage' Lady Gaga video: When she was Stefani Germanotta. Brunette. Normal. But still f-ing amazing.
My friend Lily forwarded me this clip of Lady Gaga performing 'Captivated' and 'Electric Kiss,' two rather lowkey original songs she wrote and performed for a student audience at NYU. This should answer any question her naysayers may have regarding her incredible talent.
And for us fans, it re-affirms why we loved her in the first place. Without all the crazy costumes, makeup and sexified style, her rich voice and freshness still shine through. It's no wonder she revolutionized pop music last year! I like how at the very end, one of the judges says, "Norah Jones, look out!" Hahaha. Little did she know that Stefani had bigger dreams than taking out little Miss Norah Jones.
In contrast, check out her latest video for 'Bad Romance,' which is a theatrical wonder. (In case you've been living under a rock and haven't seen it yet.)
Filed under //
Music
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