When Your Laundry Bin is Full

We have all been guilty of laundry laziness- leaving our dirty clothes off on the side of the room to collect in heaps. We vow to go do it this weekend, but a fun party comes up that only needs us to throw on a sparkly skirt or a dress shirt and we're good to go. Those fancier items, it may seem, are always clean, waiting, beckoning. But when Monday rolls around, we rummage through our reject clean clothing--you know, the clothing we wear to the laundromat--the clothing we are no longer proud of, questioning the designer or our buying decisions. So, our Monday mornings sometimes look like this:

Oy. But if your Monday, or any day, does NOT look like this more power to you! We gift you with an invisible crystal award shaped like Valentino's head, because that man has impeccable clothing. Don't believe us? Read this awesome Harper's Bazaar article: http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/fashion-designers/24-hours-with-valentino-0913

M'am, Aren't You Cold?

Sometimes we walk around New York City and realize that no, it is not actually the Fashion Capital of the World. Case in point: we saw this woman walking on Madison Ave a few weeks ago and were not sure what she tried to accomplish. Or perhaps...she got dressed in a hurry to deliver the documents in her hands?

In any case, there are many women who think wearing flats any time of the year is perfectly fine.
But here's a rule: if it's cold enough to reach for a fur coat, it is probably smarter and fashion-forward to wear boots. This is just tragic.

The Quest for the Perfect Pickle

It all started this summer when my mom and I went grocery shopping on a blistering hot Saturday during one of those infamous New York City heatwaves. You know what I'm talking about.
We were really there to buy some spring water and somehow found ourselves in the aisle where pickles are stocked. I'm not sure what came first-my mom wanting pickles from the get go or wanting pickles after finding herself in front of the countless glass cans. I think it was the latter, because sometimes you just can't help but picture eating a burger...but it needs...a certain something. A good pickle, dang it.
Mom looked around and commanded me to find a good brand of pickles. I was the wrong person to ask as I am not a very big fan of pickles or pickled anything, really. We must have stood there for more than five minutes, hopelessly reading the labels. And this must be said-I felt myself in a pickle, darn it! Finally, I took a glass can of Vlasic, that proudly read "That's one crunchy pickle!" on the cap and walked to pay hoping I made the right decision.
Well, when we came home and tasted a pickle each, we didn't even finish what we had bit into. The pickles were sour, too vinegar-y, yucky and gross and the taste took away from finding whether or not they were indeed crunchy.
Enter the very awesome Tent October 2013 List-an option to order pickles from mouth.com-an indie food start-up that really seems to know pickles. I was impressed with the selection but ordering food online is tricky. It's like shopping for jeans. Online. Oh, the horror. I wanted something unusual, but not too unusual, nothing too spicy and something that my mom might like too, so I settled for Lynnae's Sweet Dill Spears from Tacoma, Washington, promising to be sweet and a little tart.
They arrived, I opened them without refrigerating them. Usually, they say the fantasy is better than the reality. But not these. They were the best pickles I had ever tasted. My mom would sometimes come home with a small plastic container of home-made pickles from a polish store in my neighborhood, and those were just OK. Lynnae's Mrs. Pickles pickles are flavor layered: first sweet, then sour, then a bit spicy. Just perfect and taste exactly as I had craved. This is the pickle I had been waiting for my entire life. I recommend them and think sometime in the future I might come back to purchase more. Even my mom likes them, and my mom is one tough, hard to please critic. She knows food and pickles-my grandma and her used to make their own pickled everything when they lived in the mother country-Ukraine-before coming to New York.
Plus, take a look at the super cool packaging, bag and a hand-made note the Mouth.com team provided with the shipment. They also attached a small chocolate sample for me. I really felt special. Good job Mouth.com

Only the best pickles warrant a peace sign.

Look at this cool canvas bag with a small wooden spoon/spatula attached!

My holy grail of pickled goodness!

Thanks for reading an stopping by! Also, please take a look at all the cool seminars the Tent Program has in store for 2014 for all you twenty-something Jewish kids interested in fashion, food, journalism, comedy, music, etc. I had a blast this summer, take a look on why.

These Shoes Were Made for Walkin'

These are the very amazing Dolce & Gabana shoes I tried on today ideal for man-repelling in the rain. The rubber ballet shoes are stitched to the long socks. So that you can at once feel like Cinderella and Mr. Darcy. If they had somehow fit into my life wardrobe I would totally buy them, but seeing as how I own no previous D & G, I'm sure they will just be lonely in their chic little box. Perhaps, this could be the start of a D & G collection? I would honestly wear them with anything. That's just the kind of girl I am.

I couldn't find them anywhere online-these were being sold at a Century21 store in New York, but I did find a similar pair, although these are heels, from D & G here.

Judah Friedlander at the Mermaid Parade

Now that our nation has turned 237 years yesterday-we thought we should finally share some photos from Coney Island's Mermaid Parade that happened June 22nd or otherwise it might have taken us another 237 years to post the photos. Can you spy Judah Friedlander? He was King Neptune at this year's parade.

Love her cotton candy hair! Don' t you have a weird impulse to eat it?

Body-painted Mermaid

A group of Mermaids. They might be from Japan considering the umbrella's.

Judah Friedlander being whisked by the crowd in his "King Neptune Throne on Wheels." Judah, not so fast!

That's better!

Pet Costume Pageant!

There's the annual MET Costume Gala and then there's the annual Coney Island Pet Costume Pageant! We were there this weekend on the famed red carpet boardwalk to see the cuteness in action! And we're glad to say that all the pets and their owners enjoyed the event and will hopefully be back next year, unlike some people. We're looking at you, Gwyneth Paltrow.

Little girl Chloe and her cute guinea pig Cookie Dough won 3rd place wearing a pink and purple tutu!

Little Chihuahua Pepito won 2nd place in his Uncle Sam costume and yellow booties. How patriotic and fashion forward! 

And the 1st place winner was a poodle named Baby, also a 1st place winner two years ago, arrived  in peace via flying saucer wearing the color du jour  for all poodles this season: green!

We would also like to give props to the hostess and her very shiny dress, hair and makeup. Work it!

A Little Bit Patriotic

In all honesty, we are not really surprised by what we see on the NYC streets anymore. Growing up in NY, we feel like we have seen everything. And then some. So it was a huge surprise, and a bit of an adrenaline rush, when we spotted this girl walking, dressed all patriotic. Ish. Kind of.  We should have asked her what her inspiration was for the outfit-was it a political statement or a personal statement? Does she collect Americana clothes? How did she come about to own these pieces? Did she dress like so because "she can?" Oh, heck, the lines have blurred. Better yet, what would John Stewart and Stephen Colbert say? Do you think this takes the stars and stripes into uncharted territory? Tell us!