Cajun Style

Aside from blogging, wearing pretty clothes, and working on my thesis, I love good food especially from local restaurants.

We hit a local restaurant on Saturday called Jimmie's Ladder 11 which is located in an old fire house. The theme of the dinner was Cajun and was sponsored by a Louisiana beer company. There were five courses and each course was accompanied by a beer sample. I don't drink beer so I can't say yay or nay on any of them but on to the food!

First course was gumbo which was delicious! Not too spicy with lots of meat.

Salad was nothing special. I do not like fruits or nuts on my salad and this one had both. But it gets points for feta.

Paisano past chips-deep fried pasta covered with cheese and topped with sun dried tomatoes, onions and green peppers. Nom nom nom.

The next course was a chicken over pasta with a vodka tomato cream sauce, but I forgot to take a picture of it. :(

Lastly was cheesecake with strawberry sauce. Again, yummy. 

I wore a 50s vintage dress for this evening. It's a smidge too big, but that's a good then when you're going out for a five course meal!

Overall, it was quite a nice evening!

Better Late Than Never

 I had planned on showing you guys my February Dressing Downton piece today but there's still a kitchen table in my kitchen and one in my living room and I have an exam tomorrow and my poor husband has caught some kind of funk. :( So instead, here are some pictures from Saturday evening post thrifting.

I made this rose print jersey dress a while back and never got around to photographing it. So when my husband surprised me Saturday night by taking me out, I made him snap a few pictures of it.

There's a little place where a chef teaches cooking classes and on Saturday night, there is live music and dinner. I'd eaten lunch super late so I didn't opt for the dinner but my husband gave me dessert. It was a yummy chocolate moose and I was sad when it was gone.

Wait-Is that another dress? Nope. This is Secret Agent Dress #2.

I accessorized with my purple suede wedges and keep it simple.

Valentine's Dinner

 The hubby and I went out for our Valentine's dinner last night to The Melting Pot. It's a fondue restaurant and always delicious!

We decided on a four course option (which is really two courses more than I needed to eat but so worth it!). I didn't get any pictures of #1 (spinach and artichoke cheese dip) or #2 (salad) but this is the main course. We had lobster, steak, chicken, pork, shrimp and mushroom ravioli. Nom nom nom.

And there were veggies but we didn't exactly save room for them.

Desert was by far the best. Bananas Foster fondue which the waiter pour flaming Bacardi 151 on top of.

The dessert spread! Now, by the time you get to dessert, there is really no room left but you just eat it anyways because it is soooooo good.

I went modern in a pink jersey dress (Macy's), gold cami (NY&Co.) and teal cardigan (Limited). I even managed to snag a pair of teal fondue forks for the dinner course, because I'm cool like that.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sewing and Cooking Fun

Yesterday and today I had off school and dove into all things domestic! My first project was my circle skirt!


Here's a close up of my fabric. It's a really pretty floral that is sort of stiff. My other circle skirt is stiff too, so hopefully they'll lay the same.


The skirt was simple and easy to make. I've finished except the hem and the hook and eye on the waist band. The vintage pattern I got from Casey's Elegant Musings says to let the skirt hang 48 hours before hemming. I'm assuming that this is to let things settle. (Anybody have any thoughts on this?? Because without this step, the project would be a super easy weekend project.) Although, it's probably a good thing that I can't finish till Saturday because I'm planning on wearing it on Sunday, but it's so cute, I want to wear it right now!

The most difficult part of the skirt was putting in the zipper. Never having put in a zipper before, I didn't know you needed a special foot for your sewing machine, which of course I didn't have.... I made it work though. The zipper is in-functional, if not super pretty. But it's on the side and I don't care if it's pretty. I will, however, be getting a zipper foot before I do any more zipper projects.


I also started some Christmas present projects for people. I'm not posting the finished projects, but I loved this fabric so much I wanted to share with you. I know I'll have to find something cute to do with the leftover fabric. Any thoughts?

Today, I cooked some freezable breakfast burritos for my hubby. (I might have to steal some though.) They were super easy.


1. Scramble eggs.


2. Cook breakfast sausage (or bacon, if you prefer.)


3. Build your burrito. Add cheese. You could also add peppers, but we didn't have any.


4. Wrap in foil and freeze. (I forgot to take pictures of this step...oops!)

Much Ado About Sewing

Today was the first day of Va-Voom Vintage's sew-along. Bright and early this morning, she had a very detailed post with pictures and directions. Not only did it make navigating the pattern directions much easier, Brittany wrote her post in a way that took the training wheels off slowly. It was a great help.

I have had some experience sewing. My grandma is a big quilter and I've done some quilting with her. Over Thanksgiving weekend 2008, I even made two quilts-one for me and one to send to my then fiance now husband while he was in Iraq. I also once hand sewed on a seemingly endless amount of lace to the hem of a vintage wedding dress that I removed the train from to turn into a Christine costume (that'd be Phantom of the Opera Christine, not crazy prom killer Christine). So, I'm pretty comfortable using a sewing machine and hand sewing.



But I'd never used a pattern before! I was pretty nervous last night, but after reading Brittany's post, I bravely charged forward! It was kind of difficult cutting the pieces out on my living room floor, but I think I did ok. We'll see tomorrow I guess.


While I cut pattern pieces, I watched the 1936 Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Having already seen the 1968 and 1996 versions, I was still impressed. The costumes were lovely and the acting was great. I really liked the death scene at the end. I'm not a fan of Juliet's death in the '96 version (her last line is one of my favorites!) but this one past muster. It was a nice little film for me to watch while I was working on my apron.


Speaking of aprons, I could really have used mine today as I made peanut butter sandwich cookies to take to a friend's tonight. yummy!