Tuesday Things.
1. I actually have to return something to Target today. Like, RETURN. I’m not even going to walk around the store. Nope. No way. You will not suck me in.
2. Definitely on the menu tonight: raw sugar and vanilla margaritas. Best ever. Give me lots of salt.
3. The s’mores frapp… way.too.much. I tried it. I thought it was super sickly sweet. Maybe I just wasn’t in a good place. Obviously I’ll probably try it again. However… the cookie straw? OMG yes. Not for sipping so much. More for eating.
4. In this week’s “how basic can you be” point, my avocado toast game is out of control. You don’t even want to know what I’ve been putting on top.
5. My life is made because we ordered some outdoor furniture and all I want to do is sit outside and eat dinner every day of my life. It’s currently pouring rain, so that’s great.Â
6. Tips for beating writer’s block. !!!!!
7. Your best party-hosting tips? Go!
8. Holy freaking Mad Men. I’m sort of annoyed that they are spending a chunk of time on the waitress. And what about Joan?! WAAHH. Also, since I’m sucked back into Grey’s for the time being, I thought last week’s episode was terrible. I KNOW WHY AM I WATCHING. I didn’t even understand it and had to keep rewinding. And Nashville – why is it losing it’s charm?? The storylines are just so quick and changing constantly.
9. What looks are you loving from the Met Ball last night?!
10. Totally going to make this coconut butter coffee tomorrow. Oh hi, I’m dead.
49 Comments on “Tuesday Things.”
Wow, coconut butter coffee? That definitely sounds interesting, I might have to check that out!
That cookie straw is awesome!!!!!
& Meta Gala: Men: Dwyane Wade. Women: Bee shaffer, Courtney Eaton, Hailey Baldwin
I agree on the s’mores frapp, and I looooove s’mores! I guess no matter what flavor I’m drinking, I still need a strong coffee flavor and you’re right, waaaay too sweet.
Speaking of, that coffee has made the short list. MMMMMM
Last time I went to I asked them if they could make me a S’mores Mocha. They did two pumps mocha syrup, two pumps graham cracker syrup and then the Marshmallow whip on top. It. Was. Perfect.
Can’t be done. A person cannot walk into Target and return something without looking around. You will remember something that you NEED and then it starts…:))
I actually really liked Lady Gaga’s look which is weird for me and I want to wear Sarah Jessica Parker’s headpiece in my every day life. Loved it.
party hosting! yay my favorite!
make a pitcher or beverage dispenser of a signature drink
use cute paper napkins, always
put on a playlist (i use songza) half an hour before the party starts. that way it’s not like oh – first guest is here. this is quiet…
my most successful parties have always involved a food bar – nachos, tacos, baked potato, ice cream sandwich etc
i’d love to chat more if you want more tips – tweet me!
OMG JOAN!!!!!! I was almost crying when she settled .. 50 cents on the dollar?? NO!!!! And yes I would like to know what is on your avo-toast. Please and thank you.
Katie Holmes, Kate Hudson, and Amal Clooney all looked great and bore some relation to the China theme. But, I’m sorry, Sarah Jessica Parker is starting to remind me of Donatella Versace, which is not a good thing.
LOVE this! I need to go get a smokes frap NOW! For party planning, I have a lifestyle section of the blog (on the top menu) and I have a couple of parties there and plan to add more :)
Party tips!
Have a drink / bar set up ready to go when people get there, have at least some type of app ready for people to munch on and if you’re planning on finishing up a dish when people get there – make it a dish that literally just needs to finish baking in the oven so you don’t have to pay attention to it and you can enjoy the party!
I’m a MAJOR stress case but i love love love hosting dinner parties. enjoy it! Leave the dirty dishes until the next morning OR use fancy-ish paper plates / plastic cups etc. so you can just throw it out! If the food is good and the drinks are flowing no one will care if they are eating off paper plates!!! :)
I love the photo!!! It looks so delicious and the cookie straw is amazing!
Giulia
http://www.leggitea.it
http://www.leggiteablog.wordpress.com
I did a fair bit of event planning in my previous 2 jobs and these are some of the best tips I’ve ever seen: http://cupcakesandcashmere.com/decor/party-planning-tips.
I’m looking for a new apartment and decent patio space is high on the list; can’t wait for sitting outside weather, you know, all 10 weeks of spring/summer/fall.
Party tips…
– Start the party with an empty dishwasher! That way if you need to put any dirty items in there during the party, you can do so quickly. And it helps make clean up faster at the end of the party.
– Make sure you have back up toilet paper in sight/obvious spot so a guest doesn’t have to dig through a linen closet for more if they run out!
– Poo Pourri spray is also a favorite to have in the bathroom. Can make for some funny conversations. http://www.amazon.com/Poo-Pourri-Before-You-Go-Toilet-2-Ounce-Original/dp/B0014DP9Y4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430841762&sr=8-1&keywords=poo+pourri
poo pourri – OMG – love it!!
hahaha… my mom just gave me some as a “gift” for when I host parties!
I’m THOROUGHLY disappointed to hear that the s’mores frap is too sweet! I haven’t tried it yet and I was super worried it would be. ughhhh. also. those writer’s block tips? kind of just what I needed! xoxo
That coffee sounds amazing, I’ll be giving it a try too!
xo, Liz
http://lipstickandconfetti.com
Jessica, at the coffee shop my daughter works at for an extra $2 you can add BUTTER to your coffee – they call it the invincible? Crazeballs!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-04-21/buttered-coffee-could-make-you-invincible-and-this-man-very-rich
As for party hosting, I try to prep as much as I can the day before. I make a menu list and leave it on my fridge so I don’t forget to serve any dishes (we also have a 2nd fridge so I’ve left stuff in there by accident). Also, I take out every platter/bowl/plate I’m using to serve food and label it with what I’m going to serve in there the night before.
Uh huh, yeah – be sure to update us on your target haul tomorrow ;) lol jk – I wish you lots and lots of willpower
Jessica, try ordering the s’mores drink with fewer pumps of the syrup. In grande drinks Starbucks usually uses 4 pumps (which, I’m guessing is about a tablespoon a pump). I always order 2 pumps instead of 4 when I get the Cinnamon Dolce, it may help with the S’mores, too.
I just made it home from Target,I had a list and I only bought 3 things over it.
That’s not bad…… I had to have the nail polishes , they were new colors!
Can’t stop listening to a Nashville song by Aubrey Peeples!
Awesome! For party hosting, I always round up, sometimes way up, for all food and drink. Way better to have more than enough than not enough. Booze especially, nothing kills a party faster! Make/prep as much ahead of time as you can. If you’re serving a meal, have snacks available in case people are hungry before it’s ready, something takes longer than you expect, and so people don’t get trashed before the meal :) I have more on my blog via Lifestyle>Entertain!
This episode of Mad Men broke my heart for sooo many reasons. Steller performances all around, specially Christina Hendricks who said so much with no words. Her face killed me! LOVED Peggy skating through the empty offices
Best party hosting tip? Never run out of alcohol ;)
Seng
http://www.sengerson.com
I agree about so many things in this post! I just had to go into Target as well for a return. I barely made it out,,,or to think about it, I didn’t and ended up looking around! Also, I totally agree about Mad Men. I am so devastated about Joan. I can’t believe it is just about over.
I love how much SJP loves to dress up. While I’d never wear what she wore she always sticks to the theme and goes all the way.
Totally Off Topic:
For the past hour I’ve been going through your old fitness posts because I need more exercise ideas. I’m just starting out (I workout every other day because I hate sweating and can’t imagine washing my hair everyday) and I love doing it so far. It’s nice just to do it for health reasons and not freak out when I see a donut.
In one of the fitness posts you said young adults these days don’t seem to have much of a work ethic anymore and I agree…..I would know because I’m one of them. I’m SUPER jealous of your insane disciple and I DREAM of getting where you are right now (loving exercise, food, and work). I don’t know if disciple is something that can be taught later in life but if you have any tips do you mind writing a post about it or something?
Thank you for simultaneously inspiring me to be a better writer AND forcing me to spend my entire day NOT Googling Mad Men spoilers because Joan is my favorite character and I have to wait for it to come out on Netflix. =)
My favorite thing from all the Met Gala photos – Colin Firth holding a pair of white gloves, like a proper English gentleman =)
Nashville would be such a great show if they would let a story line truly develop over the course of a season. I mean seriously… they have smashed a lot of stuff into 3 seasons. I am way behind on Grey’s -like haven’t even seen the episode about Derek- but some how the show keeps me coming back
Call me crazy, but I thought most of the looks from the Met Ball were hideous. Creative, yes. Daring, sometimes. But mainly really ugly. So surprising to me when these people can wear the most magnificent clothes in the world. I guess it’s that shock value. And also a little bit of “I’m wearing it so it must be fabulous”.
Oh, my party tip! I always write down a list of when I have to put things in the oven. I kinda back-track and figure out how long everything will take, and make a kind of schedule. I makes me feel more organized, which I am not… Then I read that Ina Garten does it too, so I feel better!
Poppy Delevingne, Tory Burch
Gong Li and Anne hathaway…stunning. Solange and Jennifer Lopez…what in God’s name were they thinking. someone needed to look at them before they went out the door and say, “Girl…love you too much to let you go out looking like that.” Was Rhianna able to sit down in that thing? Or Beyonce? Some looked like Chinese costumes, not gowns. Sarah Jessica Parker is looking very…something…like a younger version of Donatella Versace. Not a good look. In love with Colin Firth.
Parties: I like to make a note of where people moved chairs and seating things. I set the partyin accordingly next time. Big basket of blankets outside for people who want to chill out there. Special bathroom for the girls where u put out all sorts of creams and perfumes so they can feel pretty (candlelit, natch). I make notes after of what got eaten and drank and what didn’t. I reference this file to accommodate my guests tastes.
I heard from tons of people that the new smores frapp is super sweet, I probably won’t get one now….
Wait, but I do want to know–what’s on your avocado toast?!
I got two amazingly ripe avocados on Monday . . .and then woke up sick on Tuesday and haven’t been able to eat them. Obviously, this is a TRAGEDY. Avocados are totally part of a BRAT diet right? :-/
The best party planning top I ever found was when I was struggling to plan a menu for our families and didn’t want to do the normal fare (pulled pork, chicken salad croissants, baked potato bar, etc.). The advice was to think of your favorite restaurant and what you usually order there. I plan menus and events for a living, and I’d never really thought to do it that way before. There is a little salad/sandwich/soup restaurant chain that’s really popular here, so I drew my inspiration from that. I ended up making a Mexican chicken soup with tons of mixed berry salad and some other sides and desserts that just fell into place with the mains (chips and salsa, guac, brownies).
I cannot. wait. to try that Starbucks cookie straw! I don’t know about the s’mores frapp, though……..
Agreed about the waitress. I don’t get what the fascination with her is. She’s boring and sounds like a huge mess. MOVE ON, dude! Also agreed on the S’mores Frap. It’s like Wilfred Brimely in a cup.
I have been making coconut butter coffee this week. So. Good. The spices make it extra dreamy.
My favorite party tip- hire a bartender. My husband and I have done this for years and surprisingly, it’s not as expensive as you think it might be. It’s nice to be able to hang out with your guests instead of making cocktails all night.
totally agree with the party tip about having music playing (not too loud) when the first guests get there. also inviting the right amount of people–not too many, not too few–is key.
also, I don’t know about your friends but I’ve learned I just have to assume at least one person will show up 15 minutes early. I totally don’t get it because I NEVER do that, but it happens without fail!
if it’s a theme party, give people ideas, and have some random fun accessories on hand for people who don’t show up in theme but then decide they want to get into it.
if a dinner party, I found this post super helpful: http://www.thekitchn.com/dinner-party-planning-scheduli-50877
(basically like what someone said above about planning a timetable for putting stuff in the oven)
and I also love this post for dinner party tips/ideas:
http://howtorunyourlife.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-have-fancy-dinner-party-without.html
truthfully I NEVER worry about decorations, fancy napkins, or anything like that. maybe it depends on your friend group but really all it takes for a good party are the right people, food, booze, and music (with the relative importance of the last 3 components varying depending on the party)!
oh and side note related to the people showing up 15 minutes early– if I think of it, I like to have a good friend (we have one who lives up the street so that’s convenient) show up a little early too, so if someone I don’t know AS super well is the early arrival, there’s not this super awkward period where it’s just me and my boyfriend trying to entertain them while probably also trying to get some last minute thing done (my boyfriend will pretty much clean the bathroom until the last possible second, LOL).
Dinner party- a good guest shows up 15 minutes after the party starts. Just give the hostess an extra minute or two! Agree with posts about the music. Please please don’t wash dishes during the party, it is so tacky. Prep as much as possible the day before. Great comment/idea about the toilet paper. Don’t be absent during the party, enjoy it! I think guests notice if you are stressed about it…have fun!
I really liked the s’mores frapp?!?!
Wow! Those Met Ball pictures… fashion is out of control. And entertaining as ever! I still love the classier looks, not too into the “nude, and wearing only diamonds on my body” look.
<3
for the Raw Sugar & Vanilla Bean Margaritas: under “for margaritas”: that seems like a lot of sugar – 1 cup raw sugar + vanilla bean syrup? Please let me know.
On another note, was in Las Vegas this past weekend and had the best cocktails I’ve ever had. One was called “Thin Mint” and the other was a “Peanut Butter and Chocolate”. Awesome. Am hoping you can figure out recipes? Thanks so much and love your blog.