{Music Monday} CocoRosie for a Spooky Halloween

One of my favorites, I listen to CocoRosie all through the year. But for newbies to their music, these two sisters may be more suited for All Hallow's Eve. Enjoy! (Their music is gorgeous and addictive and I bet you'll be listening to it every day of the year!)

New Diana Lens

I ordered a Diana lens and adapter from Lomography and did some experimenting this weekend. I used it in harsh noon light and I'm liking the outcome for the most part. I need to spend some more time playing with the settings, but it has certainly offered some much-needed inspiration :-)

More Urth and Real Food Daily

Cool, I've been to Urth more than I've been to the library this week. But it's been good for my soul :-) I just can't get enough of the Spanish lattes so Vivs and I studied there on Tuesday and got a cheese platter (brain food obvs.)

Yesterday, I met Tawsh for dinner at Real Food Daily after we perused the Anthro sale. Last time we were there together, we saw Rachel Bilson and almost died. After drooling for a little bit, we toddled over to RFD for some wholesome goodies. After debating for like half our lives, we decided on the Winterfish IPA (definitely a brighter, seasonal IPA) and then embarked on the seacakes, which were sweet potatos, sea vegetables (?) with an aioli and and pesto. Heavenly. The thing with vegan food is that vegan chefs try so much harder to create complex and delicious flavors to compensate for the lack of animal products. And it pays off. The texture was amazing and bites just sort of exploded on your palette. GET THE SEACAKES. Then we had vegan pizza on cornmeal crust. I love cashew cheese and this pizza was no exception to my vegan pizza obsession. I do have to say that I prefer Pizzanista or the Pizza Research Institute in Eugene, OR (cool name-dropping), but this was definitely a strong contender.

After inhaling our meals, we rolled down to Barney's with Grant and I order the Seadog Blueberry beer, which essentially smells and tastes like a blueberry muffin. Yum. And Veronica met us! I just can't get enough of her - she is so funny and sweet.

I had to peace early to drive home, but I love my honeybunnies.

Tawsh and Grant are embarking on an amazing trip to Costa Rica; they leave Tuesday and won't be home till December 14. I really don't know what I'll do without them. Those two keep me laughing, grounded, and inspired on a daily basis. But at least I'll have finals to distract me, right? I'm so happy (and a tad jealous) that they get to go on this phenomenal trip and I know they will have an absolutely fabulous time! Love you, TG!

xoxo

{Inspiration Wednesdays}

1. The new Black Keys song/video, Lonely Boy. Put me in a good mood this morning :-)


2. My friend Lorna sent me this article from The Atlantic, "All the Single Ladies." Uh, it's not what I would call inspirational, but certainly thought-provoking on the issues of single women, dating, and balancing one's career.

3. Angelina's directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, now has a trailer. Must see.


4. Refinery29 posted about this personals website, n + 1 personals, which is sooooo funny and yet somewhat understandable, but then again also hipster-y and slightly pretentious. The blogs says: "This is a project of @nplusinterns for all you people smart enough to place an ad in the nyrb but maybe just a bit too young. We at n+1 are true believers in love, especially that which is fostered over books and, uh, beer." And some of these ads are priceless.

5. Check out these gorgeous photos from Laura Makabresku

6. I want everything from Ganni found via Wit + Delight

7. Pretty photo from Lyla and Blu

8. This fabulous dandelion installation via unruly things

9. Some seasonally appropriate photos from Folkloric. Gorgeous. Also makes me miss Santa Cruz.

10. Some pretty photos from Confetti Garden.

Urth and Dinner at Katherine's :-)

Yesterday morning, I met Seds and Mandz at the Urth Downtown for brunch. They are just a joy in the morning. Pure joy.

I miss waking up to those faces and every time I'm with them, I just can't stop laughing, to the point that my side ached all day. I actually think I pulled something in my side from laughing so hard. Then we took photos for several minutes and then realized that, as Seda put it, that we didn't really know what kind of "scene" we were going for.

In other news, I had an AMAZING Spanish Latte and I should have gotten a second one, it was so delish. On Sunday night, my mom, Tray and I went to Katherine's for dinner and it was sooooo fun. With the three of them, I feel like I'm living in an episode of Sex and The City, Fullerton style. They are just so sarcastic and clever and make fun of their kids (including me) all the time and they make great food. Plus, they give me great advice, both warranted and unwarranted, but I'm so grateful for our dinners :-) Katherine prepared a hemp seed salad with jicama, snow peas, bell pepper, avocado and tomatos. I literally inhaled five servings of it. Then there was a hearty beef stew, brussel sprouts (my fave), and mashed potatoes. AND THEN MY LIFE CHANGED. From every other blog post you know I love figs. Katherine made a balsamic-fig compote over vanilla ice cream. It was heaven. No other words to describe it. I have to stop there, because nothing else can compare to the beauty of that dessert. Ok cool. I'm a fatty. Sorry 'bout it.

*The pics turned out terribly. Whoops.

*Also I DL-ed the iPhone IOS5. The graphics, the improved maps, the better looking apps. SO LEGIT.

*Also, from all my capitalization, it looks like I need to calm down on the coffee this a.m.

{Music Monday} Some Folk For the Fog - Wild Child

A beautiful start to my day! I parallel parked successfully the first time (don't judge - it is hard to learn!) And had a delicious brunch with Seds and Mandz at Urth Caffe in Downtown (post on that tomorrow.) This fall weather has me into my folk music to an absurd extent. Right now, I have Wild Child on repeat and love the song PIllow Talk:

Pillow Talk (full album available Oct. 25) by WildChildSounds

Enjoy
*Google Readers click through for music player

{Things I Adore} My Week(end) in Photos

This weekend went by all too fast and now I'm rushing off to dinner with the fam at our friend Katherine's house. Here are a few things that made me happy this weekend:

1. My puppies (being six years old, they are not actually puppies, but they will always be my babies) - I just made this video really quickly (the song is Tighten Up by the Black Keys). I love my munchkins (as you can probably tell by my ogre like laugh and my high pitched: "PUPPIES, ARE YOU READY FOR A CAR RIDE!")

2. Last night's charity event on campus, PILF Noir, and how chic our section is.

Gillian and Me

Aviva, Me and Nima

3. My mother's garden :-)

4. My mother's apple tart for breakfast this morning. Yum.

5. Visits to the Pooch Park. There are dogs and dog people. My favorite things.

6. And catching up with Cass on the phone today, as well as making plans to see my roomies, Seda, Mandz, and Alene tomorrow for brunch. Plus, receiving a great video from Grant of Tawsh dancing in the grocery store, coffee with sea-salted caramel ice cream, and walking the trails with Kelsey. <3.

Church and Farm

From the title of this blog post, it may sound that I moved from the metropolis of LA to some rural area in Ohio. (But if it was Ohio, I would probably mention lions, tigers, and bears and the complete ineptitude of law enforcement to save the lives of those poor animals. People are dumb.) Then Vivs, G and I went to a judge who spoke on the death penalty at a speaker event hosted by the Criminal Law Society. Let's just say our politics and the judge's politics most definitely do not align, especially when he referred to some witnesses as being "the dregs of society." Yeah, not a fan. Moving on from my rant and my anger and sadness, which I will hold on for a long time, and despite the awful news from this week, the last few days have been personally less stressful than last week. I've been feeling under the weather, but with my herbal tea and 13 hours of sleep a night, I think I'm staving off (for the most part) my cold. And I've had some great food this week.

On Tuesday, Veronica took me to Church & State, where we ordered lavender honey goat cheese Le Chachat and a tarte with figs, caramelized onions and more goat cheese, and finished off with steak and frites with bearnaise sauce. So delicious, so rich, so amazing. If you read my blog, you know that I am obsessed with a) lavender and b) figs. Very rarely do American restaurants really utilize these ingredients so it was a wonderful surprise :-) Church & State is off of Industrial St., which is in the middle of nowhere, and is in this gorgeous, renovated brick building with ethereal ambient lighting. The service is tremendous, a lovely maitre d' even asked us if we needed to be walked to our car. GO HERE. (It's a perfect date place.) And it was perfection to see Veronica. We have been meaning to see each other for weeks and I am so grateful that we got to sit down for a couple of hours and catch up. I am very lucky to have such a positive person in my life :-) (photo c/o their website.)

Then tonight, Vivs, G, and I decided to take an hour or so and have dinner together at The Farm at LA LIVE.

We haven't actually done anything solely socially together since, uh, law school started. So anyway, we toddled over there after class and inhaled the cornbread appetizer as we watched preteens in neon high-top Reeboks saunter to the Chris Brown concert.

Vivs and I split a goat cheese salad, which had a couple of crostinis with olive tapenade, caramelized onions and tomato pesto as well as crispy goat cheese and a green salad. And as if that weren't enough, we indulged in truffled Mac and Cheese. Generally, I hesitate when ordering simple pasta dishes because, like, I can make them at home, from a box. But this dish changed my life. At $4, it was GREAT. And made my drive home in traffic much more tolerable (as did my soy PSL.) <3 my girls.

Then I came home to sugar cookies stuffed with fig jam. I can feel my arteries clogging, but since I'm sick, I'm just going to relish the fact that I can still taste and that I've lucky enough to have such legit dining experiences this week.

Tomorrow is a bright and early day for the LGBT symposium, which I will debrief you all on later. Until then,

xoxo