Beckley Boutique

Beckley's beautiful new location on West 3rd St. will be having an event where 20% of the proceeds will go to American Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Relief. As you can see from the flyer, there will be other things to do besides shopping, so it will definitely be a great event. I will be there photographing on behalf of Refinery29 (Brenna, one of the event's hosts, is the Refinery29 LA editor!). So come out on Tuesday (Dec. 2nd) for a good cause, and a good time!

Sautéed Veggie Pasta

I'm not sharing a recipe per se in this post because it's such a simple and known dish to make; I mainly just wanted to post the pictures I took of the meal. But if you are dying to know: Simply sauté your vegetables of choice (I chose spinach, asparagus, white onion, and zucchini) in olive oil and crushed garlic, add cooked pasta like linguine or spaghetti to the veggies, and mix! Add salt, pepper, and your cheese of choice (I love shaved pecorino), and you've got yourself a light and healthy meal!

The Five Late-Night Restaurants Article

The day I went to the Grove to photograph the new Madewell store was also the day I ran around the city to get pictures of five popular late-night restaurants. I wanted to finish all five restaurants before my meeting at Madewell at 3 (which I did), but due to so much traffic in LA because it was two days before Thanksgiving, I had to hustle my butt off. At one point I had to stop to get gas and I swear I suddenly morphed into a pitstop team at a NASCAR race.

Anyway, here is the article. I really liked Red Medicine (I actually tried the drink, #73, that Sarah suggests in the article - SO GOOD) and the decor of 25 Degrees was really cute - there's also one in Chicago! Here are more photos of the restaurants:

Red Medicine

25 Degrees

101 Coffee Shop

 

BCD Tofu House

 Swingers

Simple Fudge

This is my third time making fudge and the third fudge recipe I've tried... the first two recipes were okay but nothing amazing. Luckily I found this Martha Stewart recipe because compared to the other two, it was the easiest to make AND the best tasting! I didn't add the nuts because I'm not a fan of nuts in desserts (brownies, cookies, etc.), nor is the person I made this for. Fudge is perfect for a quick gift for friends, family, or for the host of a holiday party you're attending. Or for yourself.

 

Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving this year was strange. I didn't have to travel (aka sit in the airport for hours because my flight was delayed); I didn't have to worry about doing papers or studying for finals coming up; and I wasn't exposed to any cold weather leading up to the day nor on the actual day. I'm not saying I miss any of those elements (maybe the last one - the only snowy Thanksgiving I've had was in Cleveland and that was nice), but I feel like they make Thanksgiving all that more important and exciting. Nevertheless, I had a mid-70 degree Thanksgiving filled with a beautiful hike and delicious food. Not too bad.

Madewell at The Grove

Yesterday I was probably in my car for a total of 7 hours. I was working on an upcoming article that will feature a handful of restaurants so I was running all around LA going from one place to the next, then I had to stop at The Grove to shoot the new Madewell store (which is open today!) and then I sat in traffic for THREE HOURS getting back to Orange County.

It was a painful day but nevertheless I got some pretty great pictures. The Madewell store is amazing and it was cool that I got to see it before it was open to the public. I was dying walking around because I wanted to take/buy everything! I was secretly hoping that the Madewell people would give me a gift for taking pictures of their store, but sadly they didn't! I was eyeing this bag the whole time:

The Camden Bag

I took about 140 pictures of the store and only seven were chosen for the Refinery29 article (here), so I'm going to share my favorites.