animal house

bonjourno! it's been hard to do outfit posts lately, as most of my clothing has been in a big scary pile on my bedroom floor (yep, despite the fact that i am an adult, married woman, i have my own separate bedroom which is basically a giant closet/clothes hamper.) work is busy, and i think i've been out of town for something like the last five weekends - the beach, quebec city, connecticut, etc - and we're heading to chicago this week, for a much needed vacation - and it just hasn't left a lot of time for cleaning. at least, not when i have six whole seasons of dawson's creek to watch.

but i'm trying to get on my grind a bit, and that means straightening my pigsty. in doing so i've started to notice a theme in recent, and not-so-recent, clothing acquisitions - animals, everywhere.





top: thrifted
necklace: marion vidal
pants: imogene & willy
shoes: comptoir des cotonniers

i've been wearing this necklace basically non-stop, but that's only the beginning. . .

from a swan-printed kimono,

to kitty cat flats,

lady bug wide leg pants,

my small charlotte taylor ant collection,

horse-printed jeans,

this skirt, and a gaggle of creatures in brooch form, probably the creepiest of which is this kitten.


i'm also noticing that for a dog person, i have an awful lot of cat clothing.

i'm super excited to go to chicago, it's been YEARS - i met sam just days before my last visit, when i was planning to move back shortly - i found an apartment and a job, and told all my friends i'd see them in a few short weeks - then realized i couldn't leave the guy behind and threw caution to the wind to stay in new york. of course, being me, i'm most excited to eat everything while i'm there - chicagoans, what's new in the city, and where must i eat?!

much love to each and every one of you,

xo audrey

oopsfish

hello! i'm still getting my bearings after a quick vacation this past weekend - me and a few friends booked a b&b in nashville, tennessee; i'd been looking forward to it for weeks, and i packed my suitcase carefully the night before - i'm a notorious over-packer, and wanted to travel light this time - and was headed out the door for work when i realized that i didn't have my passport. (i've lived in new york for nearly four years, and chicago for five years before that, so when i lost my driver's license a couple years ago i got real lazy and just didn't replace it.) sam had taken off for a fishing trip a morning earlier, and my passport had gone right along with him and was now residing in his jacket pocket somewhere on a river in connecticut. so. vacation was off to a rough start.

as it turns out, getting on an airplane without a photo ID is not as difficult as you may think. i brought along every piece of paper i could find with my name on it - birth certificate, marriage certificate, social security card, mail - even my wedding invitation! - and got a little extra TSA action, but got to nashville and back without a hitch. it was a perfect vacation - a few days with some of my very best friends, eating, drinking, dancing and vintage shopping our way through the city. we found a shop called savant vintage that was absolutely miraculous - jam packed with some of the most incredible vintage pieces i've ever seen, including these trousers.




blouse - vintage, from brooklyn flea
earrings - handmade by the owner of savant vintage
pants - vintage, savant vintage
shoes - madewell

so, while i was galavanting about tennessee, my sam was camping out with a bunch of his friends, and he brought home a bag full of trout of different varieties. i decided to pair one - simply prepared - with a dish inspired by one i had at city house in nashville.

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swiss chard, raisin and almond salad

1 bunch of swiss chard
2 thin carrots, cleaned and chopped
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup toasted almonds
1/2 small red onion, cut into thin slices
a splash of olive oil, honey, and white wine vinegar
kosher salt

turn the oven to 350 and place the carrots in a foil-lined sheet pan with a splash of olive oil and drizzling of honey. roast until soft, about 20 minutes.

from here it's easy - sauté the chard in the smallest bit of olive oil until dark green and limp; take off the heat and add a tiny bit of white wine vinegar, then stir in the raisins, almonds, and carrots. season with salt to taste.








the fish should be even easier - but i've been trying this new health-ish kick lately, and i didn't put enough olive oil in the pan, and i kind of mangled the poor thing. trout has such good flavor on its own that i like to prepare it simply, with a little lemon, salt and pepper; just be sure you put enough butter or oil in the pan that you don't ugly it up like i did.






ugly or not, it was utterly delicious and a nice pairing of mild and earthy and sweet.

hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and i promise more soon -

xo audrey

to be adored

happy friday! i had a very busy week - right smack in the middle, i was fortunate to get to sneak a peak at warby parker's upcoming line. i first started wearing glasses in high school, but my prescription was so weak that i never really wore them; finally, just recently, i came to terms with the fact that not being able to identify friends and regulars that come into the bakery and say hello, a mere 10 or so feet away, is totally unacceptable. i've been wearing contact lenses, but i'm excited to get a new pair of frames when the new ones come out! anyhoo, i have a new favorite blouse, and wore that to wednesday's jaunt:

 

top: tba
pants: zara (similar here)
necklace: vintage, thrifted
shoes: vintage, ebay

my hair is in the awkward phase of growing out where the only time it looks semi-okay is when i either sloppily throw it out or muss it so far out from my head that you can't tell how awful the haircut (or lack thereof) is. the last time stylist scissors touched it was back in august. i chopped my own bangs a couple months ago.

anyway, i've got a busy weekend ahead and more outfits and recipes to post, so more from me soon!

xo audrey

breakfast for dinner

hello! last night i scurried all the way to the upper east side, to an event thrown by decades to benefit sloan-kettering hospital's cancer center. basically, i got to sip champagne and feast my eyes on some of the most beautiful designer vintage clothing i've ever seen in person - none of which i could afford, of course. still, it was fun, and i got to catch up with a long-lost friend, which is always a good thing.
 

top: thrifted vintage
scarf: thrifted
boots & skirt: madewell
earrings: c/o charming charlie

 i got home and set straight to work on dinner - i'd scored some duck eggs and house-made corned beef hash from work, so i had a vague plan for breakfast for dinner. i heated up the oven, got some pizza dough rising, and set about chopping.

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breakfast pizza 

one batch pizza dough - i use this recipe
white or red sauce - i made a bechamel sauce (basic recipe here) with onions, mushrooms, ramps and fresh ricotta
toppings of your choice - i used baby heirloom tomatoes, duck prosciutto, avocado and an egg

heat your oven as high as it will go without broiling - mine was up to about 550. put your pizza stone or a sheet pan inside to heat up with the oven. make your sauce, then roll out your pizza dough on a piece of parchment so you can easily slide it onto your sheet pan/pizza stone. bake it for 2-3 minutes, then pull it out and spread your sauce over the dough, and add the toppings that need more time - for me, it was the tomatoes and prosciutto. bake these for 5-6 minutes, then pull out and add the egg and avocado; bake for five more minutes or so, until the white of the egg is fully cooked.
 

while everything was baking, i quickly threw together some corned beef hash.

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corned beef hash

 3 large idaho potatoes, scrubbed and diced
1 small yellow onion, diced
a spring of rosemary, finely chopped
1 cup of prepared corned beef hash (mine was dressed with some mustard and mustard seeds, salt, and pepper)
butter
3 eggs (i used duck eggs, just because.)

once everything is chopped, it's quite simple; use a cast-iron pan and add a couple tablespoons of butter. add the onion, and sautee until soft and transparent; add the potatoes, turn the heat down to medium-low, and just let those potatoes cook through. don't worry too much about them sticking to the pan; add a bit of butter if this happens (my favorite solution to any problem) and you'll just have some nice crispy bits. add the rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste, and the corned beef (chopped into bite sized pieces) once the potatoes have cooked through, and stir occasionally; i put mine in the super hot oven with the pizza, still baking, so they'd be ready at the same time. while the hash crisped up in the oven, i fried the duck eggs to place on top.
 

i didn't get home to start cooking until nearly ten o'clock, so by the time we sat down to dinner it was a rather unhealthy 11:20; it felt sort of right, though, eating breakfast in the pitch black, all sleepy-like. but instead of just waking up, i got to go to bed right after. bonus. have a wonderful week, and more from me soon -

xo audrey

back to black

so, i'd been rocking ("rocking" in the loosest sense of the word) the bleach-blonde-with-dark-roots look for a long time - i didn't really have a plan, i guess, i was just trying to get it long enough that i could pay for a cut and dye in one go-round. sam, after politely asking what, exactly, was going on with my hair, said, "you're diy everything else, why can't you dye your own hair?" i've never tried before, but i guess i figured i didn't have much to lose, so i set off to walgreens and matched a box to my roots the best i could. i didn't do it myself, actually - it turns out sam is an amazing colorist, about three hundred times more careful and thorough than i ever would have been. i couldn't believe how great it turned out! right back to my original color. so i kind of got a big head and decided i could cut my own bangs, too, which is never a good idea. but it could have been worse, right?

top: old quail
skirt: forever 21
shoes: nine west
necklace: thrifted

xo audrey

winner, winner, potato and kale dinner

hello! i know i promised a winner on friday, but i was seriously in the throws of the worst cold/flu monster i've ever had - three and a half days, no work, completely bedridden. did you know you can be in bed so long that your body is actually sore from being in bed too long? fact. finally, saturday night, i dragged myself out of bed (just in time to catch andrew bird at the bell house) and had a semi-normal sunday, if it is semi-normal to fall asleep at 8:45 pm. so i'm not 100% yet. but i'm getting there.


top: j crew
dress: thrifted
tights: urban outfitters (fleece lined! so warm!)
shoes: thrifted
brooch: thrifted
hair: lack of cut, dye or attention in 6 months and counting

so, anyways, i promised on friday that i'd have a winner and i am a solid three days late, so without further ado: dawn of turby and john! shoot me an email (homerunballerina@gmail.com) and we'll work out the details. congratulations, wear it in happiness and health! and thank you to all of you who entered - more giveaways soon.

it's been awhile since i posted any food - which feels so wrong! - so i have a quick, easy, and even pretty healthy dinner for you guys. for what it's worth, i've become a complete instagram addict - you can follow me @oddreigh - and post my daily goings-on at the bakery a few times a day there. so it's really not that i stopped posting about food - just that i switched to a quicker, more immediate medium.

i was in ann arbor last weekend, visiting family and getting to spend some all-too-rare time with my little sister and mom, and spent a lot of time at my aunt susie's place. aunt susie and i have a lot in common - both "creative" types, i guess, who love to draw, bake and create - and she had a library of cookbooks that made me swoon. i got to flip through quite a few of them (sneaking iphone photos of the ones i want to buy for myself) but one recipe caught my eye, and was so simple i was able to sort-of-memorize it, enough to make it for dinner tonight.

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potato and kale galette (adapted from an old gourmet cookbook)

1 bunch of kale, leaves pulled of the stem, torn up and washed
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T olive oil
3 T butter
2 large baking potatoes, cleaned, peeled and sliced very thin (i used a mandolin)

start off by getting your oil going in a pan, over medium heat; once hot, add the garlic and cook just until it starts to brown; add the kale, still wet from being rinsed, and cook it until it's very wilted, and much brighter green. turn off the heat, and set it aside.

now get a cast iron pan going. i used a 10 inch pan. melt about a tablespoon of butter in the pan, then mosaic about 1/3 of the potato slices over it, working quickly; add 1/2 of the kale, then another 1/3 of the potato slices mosaiced (salt and pepper this, and brush a bit of melted butter atop them,) then the other half of the kale and the last of the potatoes. basically, you've made a double-decker potato and kale pancake. brush the top layer of potatoes generously with butter, then butter a piece of aluminum foil and use a heavy pan to weigh down the stack. let them cook for ten minutes or so, over medium to medium low heat; once the bottom layer of potatoes starts to brown (you'll be able to see the edges start to brown and curl a bit,) grab a sheet pan and some oven mitts. this is the trickiest part. use a metal spatula to carefully slide the pancake out of the pan and onto the sheet pan, then invert the pan over it and flip it back onto the heat, so the browned side is facing up and the previously uncooked side is now being cooked. cook this for another ten minutes or so, and that's it! slide it off and serve. i was trying to keep it healthy and simple, so i ate it plain (i'm a fan of simple flavors, anyway) with lots of sea salt and pepper; it would be great with goat cheese, though, and sam doused his in ketchup, so there's that.







thanks a bunch for reading, and have a fabulous week!

xo audrey

work in progress

hi everyone! i hope you all had a fabulous valentine's day - mine was very low key, which was perfect. sam insisted on staying in and making me dinner, and i acquiesced - i'm so used to cooking for the two of us, and stubbornly set in my way of doing things in the kitchen, that it's really hard for me to sit back and let someone else take the wheel. fortunately we recently re-organized our furniture, so our sofa has a prominent seat in the kitchen (i finally admitted to myself that, while a sofa in the kitchen might be unusual, it is the place where it will get the most use) so i settled myself on it and watched him mix a batch of pasta from scratch, rest it, struggle with the machine and then proceed to make what was honestly the most divine fettucine alfredo i've ever had - topped with wilted spinach, sauteed mushrooms and crispy prosciutto. lesson learned: i should take a seat on the couch more often.

ever since setting eyes on the stella mccartney resort 2012 collection, i've been smitten. i've googled and ebayed obsessively, hoping to find the (seemingly not even for-sale yet) white dress covered in bows at an audrey-friendly price (i know this will never happen) - and it finally occurred to me that, of all the over-priced designer clothing i've fallen for, this was probably the most easily DIY-able. so i bought a spool of ribbon, picked a well-fitting but infrequently-worn dress from my closet, and proceeded to obsessively tie and pin ribbons onto it.



sadly, i'm a pretty good idea person and initial energy runs high; but after sewing on the first half of the ribbons, i lost steam, so i'm wearing this carefully so's not to stick myself with one of the many pins poking out of the skirt and sleeves.

dress: madewell
shoes: thrifted
bows: added by me

i'm pretty excited with the way it's looking so far. a good cocktail dress is so essential - you can tell i think so, as i have a closet full of them and yet 9 nights out of ten you'll find me at home with sam, wearing comfy pants and a t-shirt. still, i love having a cute, well-fitting dress to slip into - an outfit no-brainer for when i DO go out.

. . . which is where you come in! brooklyn industries contacted me not long ago to see if i'd like to do a giveaway for my readers (another no brainer.) i've loved the brand for a long time - my love for red pants started with a pair of theirs a few years ago, and i've admired their simple but flattering silhouettes ever since. i picked this cute dress of theirs to give away - yours, for one lucky reader who leaves a comment.



so. . . enter away, and i'll pick a winner this friday. be sure to take a look at their new collection, too - lots of good stuff to see.

so much to post, and what feels like so little [free] time. i'll be back soon!

xo audrey

days gone by

which, a simple google search reveals, is the english translation of "auld lang syne." (**the more you know**) (or at least, it was news to me.)



dress: jill stuart
shoes: c/o seychelles
tights: HUE
flower brooch: thrifted

just a quickie today! sam and i were back up in connecticut this weekend for new year's day - a good friend has the misfortune of a december 31st birthday, which generally means that there is no shortage of parties on his special day, but not-a-one for him. his lady changed that this year, renting out a party bus to drive us and several of his close friends around hartford. i'm more of a dinner-party, champagne toast, dance with friends type of girl on new years, but i have to admit i had a pretty good time hopping from bar to bar. and it was a perfect excuse to snatch up this dress that i've been coveting for months upon months, for a fraction of even the sale price it's listed for on shopbop - one of the many benefits of living in new york city, i suppose.





so. . . this is pretty much everything i could want in a dress. bright colors, whimsical shapes (yes, i used the word "whimsical" and yes, i do kind of hate myself for it), gorgeous pleating. . . if i could wear it every day, i would. and it was warm enough saturday night to throw my go-to sweater over it and walk out the door.

and i THINK i'm a couple steps closer to finding a way to style this overgrown pixie cut into something i like. it requires the assistance of a blowdryer, which is a bit more high-maitenance than i'm used to, but i think i'll suck it up until it's long enough to throw into a ponytail.

and i'll leave you with one last shot of some food porn - i wouldn't feel right completing my first post of the year without it. i thought these macarons matched my outfit pretty well, so here they are: grapefruit curd flavor, made just before the new year.



i hope everyone had a fantastic new year! 2011 had to be my best year yet - i married the love of my life, found my dream job and am pretty much as happy as could be. i wish the same to each of you.

xoxo audrey