Some days, it's all about the accessories

I had a lazy Monday since it was a work holiday.  My one outing other than the gym was a bite in the 'hood for dinner.  The sidewalks were super icy and treacherous and this winter wonderland makes me want to crawl into the boring parts of my closet.

Necklace and bracelet from Elisha Daniels, YSL arty ring

I may have succumbed to practical and boring in my clothes, but at least the jewels spruced it up a bit.  Besides I hadn't worn my new YSL arty ring yet and I thought it went perfectly with the chunky gold necklace and bracelet.

J Crew chambray shirt, J Brand black jeans, Cole Haan boots

I wore a basic chambray shirt from J Crew, black J Brand jeans and Cole Haan riding boots. 

It's still only January and I am quite ready for this winter wonderland to pass us by. 

Birthday Baubles

The birthday weekend was a whirlwind of so much fun spent in NYC with my family and friends.

Canon G12

Let me start by showing you my super fancy new Canon G12 camera that was a gift from my sister and brother in law.  I'm hoping this will bring great improvement to my blog pics since the picture viewer flips around so I'll be able to see how the picture looks as I'm taking it.

J Crew cuff bracelet

They also gave me this J Crew cuff bracelet with emerald stones that I had seen on our trip to Charleston a few months ago and posted about here.

Necklace from Elisha Daniels

Elisha gave me this multi-chain necklace with three beautiful large stones and an even bigger silver clasp. 

YSL arty ring

My other girlfriends gave me this YSL arty ring with the bright blue stone that I had posted about last month.

Plus the ladies gave me these two Italian cookbooks to provide more inspiration for my culinary pursuits.

Kenneth Jay Lane pin

As if that all wasn't enough, my brother and sister in law found this Kenneth Jay Lane art deco brooch from Net-a-Porter.  How on earth they knew I had been eyeing this, I will never know.

Chanel ring

As a gift to myself, I tracked down this gold and pearl Chanel ring that I've been wanting.

I love every one of my gifts and can't express how blessed I am to have such over the top generous friends and family.  Even better than all the gifts is the time that I spent this weekend with my great friends and my family.  Elisha, my sister and I had a lovely boozy lunch on Friday at Locanda Verde and if you haven't been and have the chance, I highly recommend going.  Every bite of every morsel we ate was so delicious with the highlight for me being the porchetta sandwich that my sister ordered.  Mmmm mmmm.

Even though the whole weekend was spent celebrating, my official birthday dinner was Saturday night at Fille Ponte in Tribeca.  But my birthday cake was my favorite dessert ever which is the ricotta cheesecake from Pepolino.  Years ago we got a taste of it when we had a dinner there and it now often shows up at many family birthday dinners.

I'm sad to see the end of such a wonderful weekend with my family and friends.  But I'm looking forward to wearing all of my new baubles and photographing them with my new fancy camera!

My Christmas Back in Boston

There's an impending blizzard supposedly on its way to Boston but as of now, the snow is still falling relatively lightly. Elisha and I celebrated our Christmas today nestled in on one of the couches at the Bristol Lounge at the Four Seasons.  It was so lovely to be toasty inside and watch the snowfall.

Lands End cashmere turtleneck, J Crew skirt, Cole Haan boots

bracelet from street jeweler in SoHo, ring from Cadillac's Castle, belt bought in Charleston

I wore a cozy Land's End cashmere crewneck sweater, bright pink J Crew skirt and Cole Haan riding boots that are perfect for trekking through a limited amount of snow.

For the sake of keeping Christmas about spending time with family and friends and less about consumerism, my family and I for the most part have forsaken gift giving with a few exceptions.  One of my exceptions is my annual celebration with my dear friend Elisha.  She's over the top generous and here's what she gave to me.

I love these long hot pink leather gloves that she sells in her shop.  I bought them in brown but she knew I love the pink so she gave them to me.

Dior nail polish in Timeless Gold and City of Gold

These shiny gold Dior nail polishes are just oh so much fun.

I got home and put on Timeless Gold.

 

She also gave me this fabulous bracelet from her shop that goes with this necklace I bought awhile back.

As if that all wasn't enough, I got this gorgeous Louis Vuitton inclusion ring (the pic just doesn't do it justice).

How lucky am I?  All the jewels and baubles are so fun but only the icing on the cake to having such a wonderful friend to spend the holidays with.

Merry Christmas from Florida

The Florida sunset from our backyard

I'm just back from having spent the holidays in Florida at my Dad and Susan's house.  The first dilemma of such a trip is always what to wear.  Packing for someplace warm(er) this time of year is always a challenge to me.  Especially when the warm Florida weather wasn't really all that warm. 

Chanel bag, Milly top, J Brand jeans, Chanel flats

This is really the only outfit you'll see from this trip and it's what I wore on the plane over.  I wore this Milly eyelet top that I bought a few years ago on sale, J Brand black jeans that I just recently bought from Rue La La with my trusty Chanel bag and flats which are ever present when I travel.

Chanel necklace and J Crew necklace

Hermes belt, leather and studded bracelets from SoHo street vendors

The rest of the trip didn't really lend itself to showing you all what I wore since we stayed in most of the time cooking and eating.  So the rest of this post will be about the food.

I'm a good cook and I love to get creative but baking has never really been my thing.  My first night in Florida, Susan and I were up after dinner anxiously awaiting the arrival of my sis and brother in law so we decided to fill the time by baking some cookies.  We were going to bake sugar cookies but most recipes call for making the dough and then chilling it for hours before baking and we just didn't have the patience for that.  Instead we made thumbprint cookies (recipe here) and we used strawberry and fig jam. 

Before baking

The finished product

One word of caution, baking after drinking too much wine can cause a few mishaps such as mixing ingredients together that shouldn't have been or softening butter in the oven with the residual heat from dinner (or so you think) but then you realize that the oven is pre-heating for the cookies.

After baking, but while still waiting for the arrival of my sis and brother in law, we watched a few episodes of Bobby Flay's Throwdown.  One of the episodes was an empanada throwdown and having never made them, we got the brilliant idea to make them the following night.  We were having the neighbors over and instead of doing the normal for us Italian menu we decided to mix it up .

There were leftover shortribs in the freezer from my brother in law's last trip to Florida so we stuffed the empanadas with that.  I should re-phrase and say by we, I mean my brother in law tried his hand at the empanadas, very successfully I might add.

We used store bought pie crust, rolled it out a bit thinner and used a martini glass to cut out rounds of the crust. 

The stuffed empanda pre baking

The delicious end result

We also made homemade guacamole.

 

The guacomole was made with three ripe avocados, red onion, half of a jalapeno (seeded much to my father's chagrin) and salt and pepper.  I would normally have thrown in a bunch of cilantro too but we had some cilantro haters in the crowd so we skipped it.

For the main course we made Mexican lasagna a la Rachael Ray (recipe here) and a basic salad with a very vinegary dressing.  We modified the lasagna a bit by skipping the beans (we had refried beans on the side instead), using ground turkey and using a different combination of spices.

And if all that wasn't enough, the neighbors brought over a homemade ricotta cheesecake.

 

For Christmas eve dinner, we followed the tradition of the Italians who celebrate the feast of the seven fishes.  We didn't quite have seven but we certainly had an abundance.

We started with some shrimp cocktail and followed with a feast cooked by my brother and Susan.

Susan made calamari salad.  She cooked the calamari ever so briefly and then cooled it in ice water to stop it from cooking.  This kept the calamari ever so tender.  She chopped up some celery, red onions and carrots and then we dressed it with a very lemony dressing that I made with lots of olive oil, the zest of half a lemon, the juice of the whole lemon, some fresh chopped oregano, about a clove of garlic and salt and pepper.

My brother made a very delicious linguine with clams.

The clams sauteeing

Very garlicy and delicious linguine with clams

My brother also stuffed two whole red snappers with loads of onions, lemons, garlic and whole sprigs of rosemary, sage and oregano.

All in all, a lovely few days with my family filled with more than plentiful and delicious food.  Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Ruffles and Sparkles Are Back!

Ann Taylor top, Kate Spade cardigan, J Crew skirt, Chanel bag

It feels great to be three days into the week with the nightmare of a flu from last week well behind me.  This was actually my Monday back to work outfit and it felt good to put something on other than pajamas.  I bought this ruffled Ann Taylor top a few years ago and it always cheers me up.  I guess anything girly and ruffly has that effect on me.

Kenneth Jay Lane necklace, Ann Taylor top

This sparkly multi-strand Kenneth Jay Lane necklace is so much fun though it almost fell off of my neck.  I think it's time to take it in for a new clasp!

It's All About the Shoes

When you're as shoe obsessed as me, shoes serve so many purposes.  They're memories of things you did when you wore them or souvenirs of places you've visited.  For the better part of my twenties, my family traveled at Christmastime to Europe; most often to Italy but once or twice we went to France or England.  I got these shoes on a trip to Nice one December over ten years ago.  They were a gift from my father.  As a family we long ago stopped the exchange of Christmas gifts but birthdays are still giftworthy and since my birthday is shortly after the holidays, I picked out many a gift for myself on these trips.  

J Crew jacket, Banana Republic pants, Kenzia shoes

These shoes sat ignored and untouched in my closet for I don't know how many years but they recently popped into my consciousness and today I dressed for them. 

Hermes belt, leather and studded bracelets from SoHo street vendors

On another note, on my last jaunt to NYC I popped down to SoHo to check out the street vendor wares and bought a few versions of these fun leather and studded bracelets which I wore today.

Bundled!

Winter may not officially be here yet but it sure feels like it!

Tahari coat, LV bag

I love my new Tahari coat but it's not the warmest coat I own so I layered a chunky BCBG sweater bought many years ago at the BCBG Outlet in Wrentham. 

BCBG sweater, J Crew T, Hermes belt, J Brand jeans, Chanel necklace

And it's a good thing I bundled up because my office today was FREEZING!

Basic Black: It's All About the Accessories

Kooba handbag

I wake up each day with visions of different outfits dancing in my head.  But sometimes the grand visions don't sync up with what actually comes to pass in the never ending rush to drag myself out of bed and chain myself to my desk where I sit for hours on end each day.

Fabric/tulle covered beads from Elisha's shop, Chanel brooch

I ended up throwing on a basic black long sleeve J Crew t-shirt and Banana Republic pants but I spiffed it all up with this flower print jacket that I am now reminded has a matching skirt.  I accessorized with this fun tulle covered bead necklace that I bought in Elisha's shop some time ago, my Chanel pin that I've been wearing to death and a hot pink Kooba bag that I rediscovered in my closet in the recent hangbag reorg.

Me Too booties

And since this was one of those days where I couldn't seem to pull it together, you end up with faceless pictures of me.  I almost forgot to put my makeup on today that's how out of it I was.

Orange Pop

J Crew sweater, H&M t-shirt, Paige jeans, Rachel Zoe for QVC bag and necklace, Hermes belt

Yesterday was a lovely relatively short workday; I actually left at 5:30 for a change.  It's starting to feel like winter so I dressed for it.  I bought this navy J Crew sweater a couple years ago on sale and it has been a winter staple.  I paired it with jeans, tall boots and my orange Hermes belt for a pop of color.  I was going to wear the orange bag and coat that you've seen before here but I happened upon this Rachel Zoe for QVC bag that I bought months ago and had never used.  I love the studs and the chain strap but I especially love the clever design.  It's a foldover envelope clutch but the top also has a zipper so you can get inside two different ways.

Then as I was reaching into my coat closet for my orange coat, I noticed this multi-color fur trimmed number that I don't think I've worn in a couple of years.  It's a little too big for me but it does work when wearing a bulky sweater underneath.

I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving holiday!