my friend jess

is an amazing photographer and wanted to do a shoot with me; she did last week and i got to see some of the shots this weekend. more to come, but i just wanted to do a quick sneak peek.



more to come!

xo audrey

tory burch, two ways

hello! happy monday (oxymoron?) monday is actually my tuesday, which i think lessens the blow a bit. how was your weekend? mine was really nice, if a bit exhausting - my parents came into town on friday night, so we went out for really good senegalese food and then came back to my place for fresh fruit galettes. (a recipe i've been meaning to post for some time, actually - i have this amazing recipe now for really buttery, flakey galette dough. will post this week.) (in fact, as i think over this post, i'm pretty sure it's going to remind me of several recipes that need posting asap, so stay tuned!) saturday afternoon my mom and i met up to do some bridal shopping. i was so happy to get to see her and getting to do a bit of wedding shopping was really wonderful, since i just bought my dress online and didn't get the experience of dress shopping with my mama. we checked out the j crew bridal shop first, which i have to say was a bit of a disappointment - very small, with a very limited selection. i'm letting my bridesmaids choose their own dress, and i already have mine, so there wasn't much for me to see there. my shoes, i think, will be a challenge; we're getting married outside, in my future in-laws backyard, in fact, so i want to be careful to get shoes that won't turn their lawn into swiss cheese - but sam is a good 6 or so inches taller than i am, so a little height will be helpful when it comes to that whole "you may now kiss the bride" part. any suggestions?

we DID find a perfect place to get a veil. bridal veil falls is run by a very sweet woman named margaret who makes all of the veils and headpieces herself; i walked in there with no clue what i wanted. i showed her my dress and she immediately showed me some lace that matched it almost perfectly; within twenty minutes we'd come up with a design for a perfect little veil. i'm super excited.

stayed up late last night baking stuff for a meeting i had this afternoon with tory burch. the meeting went really well and i think (and hope!) i'll be working with them in one way or another soon. here's a peek of what i made. . .



malted vanilla cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream and a sprinkle of peppermint



cinnamon thumbprints with caramel apple kisses



apple pie lollipops

along with some others. coincidentally (or is it?!) this is national women's business week, and i want to mention the tory burch foundation. the non-profit helps provide loans to women who are trying to open their own small businesses, which is certainly a cause i believe in; take a look, shop or donate, and just leave a comment below to be entered to win their cd.

okay. so much more to come, i promise!

xo audrey

pop cakes

i have a few email subscriptions that i can't quite bring myself to get rid of, but 99% of the time i delete them without reading; i do the grand majority of my email reading on an iphone, so it's gotta be good to get me to squint at that stupid screen. (i really need new glasses.) but this story on flavorpill caught my eye and i thought it was worth a quick link-up.

pop culture cakes! some really awesome, clever (and some pretty sloppy and uninspired) cakes derived from books, movies, music, tv, and art. a few of my favorites:

the hungry caterpillar & where the wild things are (and, if you follow the link, several very cute others):



andy warhol(another great cake goldmine):


damien hirst:


and a beautiful mondrian:

show your stripes

or in this case, your zig zags. i got this skirt at the brooklyn flea a couple weeks ago and i WISH i could bake it in. i love it, and it's nice and insulated for winter, so i think it may actually be a pretty practical purchase. i wore it to the snl after party a couple weekends ago - okay, this is silly, but kanye west was the musical guest and i had the vaguest hope that he'd spot it and come talk to me and learn that i'm an amazing whistler and i'd end up backing him up in his next music video or something. not that i'm a huge kanye fan. at all. but it struck me as something he'd like. (of course, he was nowhere to be seen at the after party. wop wah.)



something about the bright colors and pattern of this skirt defies my camera. i cannot seem to get a crisp photo of this thing no matter what i do.

blouse: courtesy of natori
skirt: vintage, flea market
belt: from my mom
shoes: seychelles (take my word for it.)

all right. really, i'm just wasting time in lieu of finishing the last few save the dates because i am soooo tired of threading little hearts onto fishing line. but i'd better get on it.

have a lovely evening!

xo audrey

friends in high places

hello! i hope everyone's had a good couple of weeks. mine we spent first living the life of someone much cooler than myself - a friend came to visit two weeks ago, and through his savviness we were able to attend a jimmy fallon taping (the one where justin timberlake was the guest and belle and sebastian were the musical guest - a fantastic preview to the next night, when we saw them play in williamsburg [a heartbreakingly wonderful show. i don't know if i've ever left a concert happier]), a saturday night live dress rehearsal, and then, ridiculously, the snl after party. it was fun, but incredibly surreal for a bunch of reasons - i think there were more celebrities of one caliber or another than there were every day joes such as ourselves; every table was reserved by one of the aforementioned celebrities, so we were forced by default to stand awkwardly in the middle of a bunch of celebrities; and i had, at this point begun to develop a pretty nasty cold, the party didn't start until 1 am, and i had to work at 7 the next morning.

so. week 1 spent in a fury of activity, and most of week 2 spent in bed, surrounded by used kleenex, watching show after show on hulu and eating nothing but chicken noodle soup. i guess everything balances itself out. i'm still nursing away what must be the worst cold of my adult life (15 days later i still have a cough and the sniffles) but i've started to dig myself out and get to work. with the wedding 8 months away, and on a saturday in june, i'm anxious to get save the dates in the mail; i've almost completed the pile now. i changed the colors to match what i guess will be our wedding colors (although i don't really see myself sticking to just two) and i've been writing out the addresses with a kind of crappy calligraphy marker. i think i need to upgrade.








but anyway! the goods. a recipe AND an outfit! in one day! i'm trying to make up for lost time.

squid ink fettucine a la audrey

so! i made my own pasta for this one. it sounds like a pain, and it kind of is, but i'm telling you, fresh pasta is so so so so SO much better than anything you can buy at the store. so much. i put squid ink in here because i'd picked some up at a fish market a few weeks ago and intended to use it for, i don't know, something (buy random ingredients at stores and force yourself to use them. i find it gets me making things i never would otherwise) and decided to throw it in here. you can buy little packets like the one i used here. they're cheap! and while they didn't make a huge difference in taste that i could tell (i think it did make the pasta a bit saltier,) they sure do make it look good.

so! for the pasta.

3/4 c semolina flour
1/4 t salt
1 egg
1 T water
1 T olive oil

whisk salt & flour and make a well; add egg, squid ink, water, and olive oil. mix with a wooden spoon until it's combinded, then knead for about 8-10 minutes, until it's pretty smooth and elastic-y. wrap it in plastic and let it rest for at least 20 minutes. then use a pasta machine (or roll it out if you are a better woman than i) to roll it out, bit by bit, until it's pasta thin and cut into fettucine. let it dry while you prepare. .






2 egg yolks
1 large portabello mushroom cap, cut into bite sized cubes
2 small zucchini, washed then sliced into ribbons with a peeler


boil a pot of water. once it's at a rolling boil, drop in the pasta and cook until tender with a splash of olive oil in the water. strain pasta but save some water; get a sautee pan heating up and add in mushrooms and a splash or two of pasta water. once mushrooms start to cook, add zucchini; keep adding pasta water as needed (whenever it's all cooked off, add another splash until the zucchini and mushrooms are sauteed to softness.) add pasta to sautee pan, mix together, then turn off heat; immediately mix in the two egg yolks, stirring quickly so they don't cook at the bottom of the pan. season to taste and voila! few ingredients but tons of flavor. my new go-to pasta.



aaand lastly, outfit! i went to the flea market saturday with some long-lost friends and had a really nice time, despite snotting and sneezing all over the place the whole time. my outfit for shopping (although i didn't buy anything. . .)



shirt (red): urban
slip: vintage
bow tie: shoe clip
tights: american apparel
shoes: pour la victoire
not pictured, but totally wearing: purple bloomers from american apparel. just in case.

my parents are flying in this weekend and i get to go bridal-shopping with my mama. i'm hoping to find a veil and some shoes, and i've been looking for an excuse to check out the j crew wedding shop on madison ave, so. . . yes! more soon!

xo audrey

pink pony

hello everyone! i'm a little late on this, (how out of character!) but i wanted to wish the ralph lauren/polo pink pony campaign a very happy tenth birthday. this is the tenth year they have been raising money to fight cancer; i was asked to participate in their blogger campaign, and i am happy to accept. the cause hits close to home for me; a few months ago, my father found a lump behind his ear and our family went into a bit of a tailspin. after weeks of torturous wondering exactly what the prognosis was, he had surgery and was told that he wouldn't even need chemo - his cancer was basically the least amount of cancer you could have. we were so lucky, but so many aren't; please, if you can afford it, text PINKPONY to 501501 to donate $10. you can find the photo gallery of bloggers in the polo and all other information here.

and, for my part, here's what i did with the polo -



dress is from dalaga in brooklyn; shoes aldo.

all right. i have so much more to post - belle and sebastian was last night and amazing, jimmy fallon was wednesday and also amazing (i'm having trouble with words this morning) and big plans for today and tomorrow as well.

much love!

xo audrey