Category Archives: General AsianCajuns Info

Why, Hello 2013!

happy new year

Whew! What a year it’s been. 2012 was our first full year living apart. Being separated from your twin by an ocean for so long does not seem natural, but Lar and I have found ways to make it more bearable. I’ve busied myself with work, school, blogger events and travel (Denver and Edinburgh – duh) while Lar put down roots in Edinburgh, made new friends and travelled (Greece and Turkey). This blog has also been one of the best ways of staying in touch with each other and helping to ease those I-miss-my-twin-sister/best-friend-so-much-I-could-cry moments. So dear readers, thank you for sticking with us through our separation – your comments are such mood lifters!

Even though Lar and I will be separated for most of 2013, I’m excited for the year ahead – we’ve already started planning another family European vacation (whether or not we have enough money for it is a whole other issue!). But before I get carried away with posts about future hopes, travels and new year’s resolutions, let’s take a quick look back on the 2012 AsianCajuns blog. Below are the top five posts of 2012:

One: Lar’s post on her love of high-heeled Hunter boots. She still wears these almost everyday in Scotland and, IMHO, needs a new pair! Lar, I love these in Very Berry.

AsianCajuns Hunter Boots

 

Two: My post about the clothes worn by the women in Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. A few days after this post went live, someone from the company that designs the gold necklace that Emily Mortimor wears in the show (pictured below) contacted me with a direct link to the necklace. If you love this piece as much as I do and have, ahem, $1400 to spare, you can buy the necklace for yourself 🙂

 

AsianCajuns Newsroom Style

 

Three: My secret to avoiding really bad hair days. Psst: it’s a hair doughnut. I still use it at least once a week.

 

AsianCajuns Hair Doughnut

 

Four: Lar and Matt’s beautiful wedding was featured in Atlanta Magazine’s 2012 Spring Wedding issue. To see more pics from the wedding, click here.

 

AsianCajuns Atlanta Magazine

 

Five: Our Feiyue give away made it to the top five! Even with all of the entries, the winner ended up being a local Atlanta friend. If you’re in the market for the perfect pair of summer sneaks, I highly recommend these.

 

AsianCajuns Feiyue shoes

 

See you all next year!

_____________

Dearest Lar,

As I’m writing this, you’re somewhere over the Atlantic flying back to Edinburgh. I really hope Delta gives out free champagne to celebrate flying into the new year. Troy and I will be keeping it low-key tonight: dinner and a few movies with friends. The only thing missing is you and Matt. *sigh* I’ll never get use to you being far from me! At least we had a wonderful two weeks together. Skype date this Sunday?

Safe travels! Love and miss you!!!!

xoxo, Cath

AsianCajuns Together Again

Hi Lovely Readers,

We hope you are having a wonderful holiday season and hamming it up with family and friends. We apologize if it goes a bit quiet around here this week and next. Cath and I are together in Atlanta for the first time in 16 months and we’ve been spending every waking moment (which isn’t long for me — darn you, jet lag!) with family and friends.

So we apologize to you for being bad bloggers, but send you lots of love and AsianCajun kisses to make up for it. We hope you are having a wonderful time with your loved ones. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Newtown, CT and everyone for whom this holiday season is such a hard time.

Much Love,

Cath and Lar

Post-Turkey Link Love: Mary Kay Andrews

This post title could also be I GOT TO DESIGN THE COVER FOR A NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR!!!! But I didn’t want to put you off with a title in screaming caps and too many exclamation points — but that’s how I feel! (Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point!!!!).

More importantly, Fatal Fruitcake also happens to be a delicious short story to get you in the holiday spirit. And if you are like Cath and I, instead of braving the mass consumerism happening in stores today, we prefer to contentedly rub our post-turkey consumption bellies and curl up on the couch with a good book.

To get your hands on a copy of this short story, you can get the ebook version on amazon.com. For you local Atlantans, you’ll see copies at your local book stores. Mary Kay Andrews is donating part of the profits to the Red Cross in aide of those hit by Hurricane Sandy.

Hope you guys had a lovely Turkey day! Let me know if you read the story — I wanted fruitcake after, which I think is not the lesson I was supposed to learn.

 

Tied for Best Fashion Blogger

What a lovely jubly surprise Cath and I got yesterday. A fellow instagramer let Cath know we had tied* for Best Fashion Blogger in Atlanta by Creative Loafing! For those of you non-Southeasterners, Creative Loafing is the local newspaper/online blog source for places to eat, shop, tipple and who to see and hear (and where to be seen and heard).

Cath and I are so wonderfully chuffed! So, thank you Creative Loafing readers, from the very bottom of our AsianCajun hearts. You’ve made our day(s)!

And thank YOU, loyal readers, for not minding us whilst we horn toot a bit. We hope you have equally good news to lead you into your weekend.

P.S. Our contest to win tickets to the Urban Hoedown closes today (Friday, Sept. 21) so don’t forget to enter, locals!

*We tied with the lovely Witty and Pretty — whom we’ve just discovered and are so honored to share an award with.

TGIF Link Love

We added our names and would like to think talented illustrator, Sara Soderholm, was inspired by AsianCajuns when she painted this, but probably not. . . 😉

• A review of some of the best iPhone photo apps on Kris Atomic.

• In search of the perfect leather tote? Search no more!

• Don’t bring your old clothes to the thrift store, instead try one of these 13 options.

• Awesome illustrated animated gif.

• This DIY dip dye maxi skirt would look lovely with a chambray button up tied at the waist. Weekend project perhaps?

• Loose waves hair tutorial with a flat iron.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Happy Birthday, Cath!!!


Photo by Tim Walker

Dear Kitcath

It doesn’t feel like a real birthday without you here (or me there), but I hope you have a most wonderful day! I will be thinking about you while I eat cake (Sara is making me something delicious and flourless — yippeee!) and play skittles. We can reenact the day properly when you are here in August.

Talk to you on skype soooooon!

LOVE,

Lar

TGIF Link Love

Photo Credit

• For your daily dose of cuteness: Hamlet the mini pig going down stairs!

• Can’t wait to see this documentary on punk pioneers E.S.G. (locally made. in Decatur, GA by our super talented friends!)

• Want to dress like you live in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom? Check out Etsy seller Isabel Knowles: wonderful designs and it’s ethical fashion!

• The blog we go to when we need inspiration to clean and organize our homes.

• Cath will be attending the Style Bloggers of Color conference this weekend in downtown Atlanta.

• Shopbop sells Kate Mid’s ISSA wrap dress in red (the one she wore for the famous engagement announcement).

• A great beach waves hair how-to.

TGIF Link Love!

Shopbop’s Independent Spirit editorial vs. AsianCajuns November 2010

• Need some weekend tunes? Try Charles Bradley and the new (and most awesomest yet) Scissor Sister album Magic Hour.

• Going to Savannah, GA any time soon? Here’s a list of the top five restaurants you must try.

• Color-coordinating your book spines? Edison light bulbs? Drinks cart? Are you over-propping your home (NYtimes)? I’m certainly not [cough, cough] guilty of that (pay no attention to the paper-covered books).

• Atlantans, need to know where to go on Buford Highway? Check out Spatial Drift’s awesome eating adventures for tips.

• Are you guys on Google+? If so, let us know. We want to add you!

• Want to start thrifting, but don’t know where to start or aren’t quite convinced about wearing other people’s clothes? Read Eli’s tips and tricks to finding exactly what she wants when she hits the thrift stores.

• For those of you Atlanta bloggers who weren’t able to make it to the ATL Style Bloggers event at Fab’rik, you can catch up on the live tweets from the event here.

• The Atlanta Indie Craft Experience Summer Market is this weekend. See you all there!

• Last but not least, something to warm your cockles (that’s not what it sounds like): Sundays with Beatrice.

London: Spitalfields Market

I’ve always wanted to go to a market in London: inexpensive-ish clothes, food, books and odds and ends all thrown together sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

We spent most of our time around North London this trip, so Spitalfields Market was in my sights. I thought I was sniffing out a non-touristy part of London, but apart from this neighborhood becoming trendy of late, there has been a market at this location since the 1600s. So I’m about 400 years behind the times, but no matter. Chinese steamed buns taste delicious either way:

Just look at all this marvelousness! There are stalls of all kinds: indie seamstresses hawking their wares, vintage Penguin paperbacks, bowler hats, leather goods. The stall on the left (below) sells garlands for your hair so you can get your boho look down; pastries galore to the right:

Oh the food! Apart from the steamed buns, Matt and I consumed roughly three lunches in the span of three hours. We went to Leon (post upcoming) and fell in love with a stall called Rainforest Creations. Everything is raw and mostly sprouted. I know, I know, sounds terrible. I would have whole-heartedly agreed with you three months ago, but even though it doesn’t win you over with words like “butter” and “bacon,” I swear it is delicious. It was fresh and wonderful (who knew raw food could have so many flavors apart from “green” and “greener”?) and the colors are just amazing. We loved it so much we went back for seconds and bought thirds for dinner:

Still attempting to be a conscientious consumer on all fronts, I went easy on the buying: tricky thing when everything is fairly cheap and shiny (bit like a magpie, I am). I bought a summer striped dress for Cath (said it was made in England, so hopefully no sweatshop labor or labour) and an old Penguin edition of Gigi (when we were little, Cath and I wanted to be Leslie Caron’s Gigi. We had very little understanding of what a mistress/kept lady was, but it seemed to involve pretty dresses and walking around Paris. Done!).

I also got this sweater. It’s a brighter pink than this photo lets on.

And that was Spitalfields! Next London trip I hope to hit up another market. I don’t understand why we don’t have something similar in Atlanta. I mean, these British markets started outside and if they can have something outside in the rain and the cold, Atlanta can do it in the heat and humidity, right?

Update: Matt just pointed out this amazing blog to me called Spitalfields Life. I’m just dipping my toe in, but it looks to be amazing and is written daily by a Gentle Author. So even if you don’t have a London trip on the horizon, take a look at this blog to feel like you have your own Brick Lane tour guide.

—-

Dear Cath,

You would looooove Spitalfields and the whole east London vibe in general. It is pretty different from where we stayed in the past. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Decatur had something similar? I know there was that artist market, but it was missing the food and the vintage wares.

August seems much to far away.

LOVE,

Lar