I’m a bit of a reluctant party-thrower. I usually get so overwhelmed thinking about how much I have to clean my house that I end up talking myself out of hosting. However, every year I’m overruled when it comes to throwing a Super Bowl party because Troy loves football and is the commissioner of his fantasy football league. Yes, for these reasons, we host a party once a year.

Troy and I spent all of Saturday and Sunday morning prepping, cleaning and cooking.

Troy made a ridiculous amount of food. If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen my post yesterday listing everything we ate prepared. On top of all that food, my mom made cupcakes, a cinnamon cake, a strawberry trifle, and wings – she’s amazing!

Everyone did their part in eating as much as possible and barely made a dent in the food. Troy and I now have enough food to last us for at least a month. Leftovers FTW!

While I didn’t get a chance to watch all of the commercials (or much of the game for that matter), I was super pumped that the locally made Doritos Goat commercial we mentioned in a recent Link Love made it on the air during the game. Did you see it? Which commercial was your favorite?

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Dearest Lar,

There is something so American about football and I think it has more to do with the type of food you consume while watching the game than the actual game. I mean, wings? Genius! And then you can never forget the Velveeta and Rotel dip – I don’t even think any of the ingredients are real food!

Was the game played anywhere in Edinburgh? I bet you were sound asleep by the time the game started. I don’t blame you. The Super Bowl won’t be worth watching until either the Redskins or Falcons are part of it

I don’t know why, but I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever – even though we just Skyped on Saturday. When can I “see” you next?!

xoxo, Cath

Even though Lar and I have been blogging for about five years, I’m always overly ambitious and think I can keep up with our blogging schedule during the holidays. How naive of me! I should have known that when Lar came into town I would want to spend all of my time my sis and not sitting in front of my computer. So here’s a quick run down of what we’ve been up to for the past week and a half.

We both spent the night at my parents house (husband and bf included) on Christmas Eve and then woke up together on Christmas morning to unwrap presents. It felt just like when we were little – except not quite as early in the morning:

Probably about 90 percent of the time that Lar has been here we’ve been eating out and eating in and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating…

Lar and I also got matching highlights and haircuts:

We took a family trip to Rock City:

We went to a Warby Parker party:

Ate delicious Peking Duck that my (cajun, not Asian) mom made on Christmas Eve:

Reminising about our bunhead past:

Lar and Matt are still here for a few more days. They’ll be flying back to Scotland on New Years Eve and I’ll be drowning my sorrows in pints of Ben and Jerry’s. I’m thinking Phish Food. But until then, Lar and I will be doing a bit of shopping, visiting with friends and more eating!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Stay tuned for some quality sister time posts

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I have three more days of set design courses and then it’s off to Istanbul! So I totally apologize for just cramming this blog full of set design, set design and more set design. But as I say, only three more days… and then you’ll get to experience a massive number of mosque and falafel photos!

While doing all these things, I will not be dressed in interesting ways, so forgive me for not putting any outfit photos up. I’ve been totally panache-less these past few weeks. My brain power has been devoted toward using mechanized scenery flats in a Brecht opera, and deciding what to pack for a place that’s literally 20 degrees hotter than our hottest Edinburgh summer day.

So do you mind seeing a few more models of set design? Last week I worked by myself on a Tennessee William’s one act, this week I worked with my classmates to design Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. This is what we used:

A model opera house!

Do you guys know Brecht? I feel so dramaturgy and theater-y (the-ate-TAH) when I say his name. I didn’t know diddlysquoo about him before Monday, but I’d love to see an actual performance of The Threepenny Opera now (opera usually intimidates me because I get tired during all the singing and then feel like a philistine by the end of it all, cross-eyed and blinking).

There are nine scenes total in the play, and we had to figure out how to make the scene changes work and where to place things, and most importantly WHY. We had to get inside Brecht’s head a bit. I felt like I should have been wearing all black, smoking a cigarette, and sounding like Marlene Dietrich.

When we weren’t busy Brecht-ing, we were drawing whores. Mine are the ones that are wearing too many layers. I blush when I have to draw people in under things… or less.

I also drew a massive version of Queen Victoria’s head for the final scene:

Before hearing the opera, I had no clue that the song Mack the Knife was from The Threepenny Opera. I’d only ever heard Ella Fitzgerald sing it — and mess up the words (so good! Listen here). Who knew it was originally written in German!

Voila! Opera designed! What do you guys think? Are you crazy about set design yet? Any new Brecht fans? If you are totally not in to all this stuff, I promise to take some photos of full-scaled, real life things in Istanbul for the next post.

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Dear Cath,

Oh so good to talk to you on skype today! I can’t believe the next time I talk to you we’ll be in Istanbul and THEN I’ll be seeing you in a week!!!! SO awesome!

Sorry I’ve been so distracted with this course. I can’t wait to finally see my sistah in just a few days! 16 to be exact! Woohoo!!!

xoxox,

Lar

There have only been four episodes of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, but I’m already a big fan. I love the wordy, quick-witted characters that I’ve been missing ever since The West Wing ended its seven season run. Then there’s the pretend world of an honorable cable news station that I really wish existed – like a Bartlet presidency. Another reason I’m a fan? The clothes!

There aren’t too many photos showing off the outfits online, so below is a mix of images from the official site and a few screen captures I took. Are you ready for a superficial look at a substantial show? Here goes!

Emily Mortimor’s character takes the (fashion) cake with her uniform of button-up silk shirts, pencil skirts, pumps and simple necklaces. If I had money to buy a brand new work wardrobe these are pieces I would get:

Mortimor wears this gold necklace a lot. I’ve Googled like crazy to find out who makes it, but no luck:
Update 8/25/12: The wonderful people over at Dominque Cohen emailed me to let me know that Mortimor wears their 5 Coin Drop necklace – amongst a few other lovely pieces. Now I’m lusting after her wardrobe even more!

Alison Pill’s character has a pretty similar wardrobe. During one episode both she and Emily Mortimor are wearing similar blouses with small puff sleeves. Pill’s character wears more dresses. My favorite so far is the brown shirt dress she wears during the first episode (below left).

The show also has some really nice – and practical – hairstyles that I want to try if I can manage to wake up early enough before work:

Olivia Munn’s character is a bit more conservative. Her wardrobe so far has mostly consisted of blazers and Roland Mouret-ish dresses.

To round off this post, below are some Newsroom-inspired pieces that you can purchase now:

1. Vince blouse
2. Gap pocket shirt
3. Stella Dot layering necklace
4. J.Crew pump
5. Gorjana layer necklace
6. Banana Republic pencil skirt

Anyone else out there a big Newsroom fan? Have you noticed the clothes too?

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Dearest Lar,

I hope The Newsroom becomes popular enough to cross the pond so you can see it. Didn’t the West Wing air in the UK? Do you remember we used to watch West Wing episodes on DVD when we were studying in Scotland?

You only have two more classes and I’ll be done with class in week – and then I’ll be flying over to see you in no time!!

xoxo, Cath

Thank you to everyone who entered the Shabby Apple Dress give away. I used Random.org to choose a winner and the lucky lady is. . .

Congrats Calli! Below is the dress she mentioned in her entry, the Frabuous dress:

Calli, shoot me an email asiancajuns (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll get you set up with our Shabby Apple contact. Congrats again!

Hello dear readers! Thanks for entering our Feiyue contest.

The winner is Parker Cross! Here’s the proof:

Congratulations, ParkerCross! I’ll email you the details soon. I hope you enjoy your new pair of Feiyues!

To everyone else, don’t worry! We have another contest coming next week. Stay tuned.

I know a lot of you well-traveled readers know about Airbnb already, but isn’t it fantastic? Cath used it last year when she went to L.A. for vacay. Matt and I used it when we first got to Scotland — we needed a temporary home for two weeks and a hotel was too pricey. And we turned to Airbnb for our recent trip to gorgeous lovely Paris.

Airbnb works two ways: you either rent an entire flat/apartment/house from someone or you rent a room and stay with your host. I know both of those options can sound sketchy. Staying in someone’s house, with their things? Or with them? Strangers?! Airbnb is based on trust, testimonials and reviews. And so far the system has worked really well. I know it might still sound sketchy, but that’s why I wanted to mention it here, and to show you some pics of the flat we stayed at in Paris.

(Those are linen sheets on the beds — ooo lala indeed!):

Don’t you love this chair I’m sitting on? I wanted to take it back with me, but it didn’t fit in my carry-on:

All our Airbnb hosts have always been super-informative about where to eat, how to get around, and provided us with clean and beautiful places to stay. Mark, our Paris host, left us with maps and detailed information on how to get to the grocery stores and use the washing machine. On top of that, his flat was just as beautiful as the photos we saw online (the photos in this post with the airbnb watermark are Mark’s) and Mark himself was such a sweet guy — we can’t wait to go back and stay at his flat again!

He even had fancy diptyque room spray in all the rooms:

There was a gorgeous back patio that looks like this in the summer (it was too chilly to use in December):

But still beautiful, with herbs in pots and lanterns with candles:

Cath blended right in:

Have you guys ever used Airbnb? We’re thinking about trying it for London, but they are a bit pricier there (i.e. the same cost as a hotel). Tell us your stories too!

p.s. Thanks you guys for all the encouragement about our new “diet” plans and all the helpful tips! I’ll let you know how we’re feeling in a few weeks time.

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Dear Kitcath,

Doesn’t it feel like we were in Paris together months ago? It’s been just about a month now- booo, too long!

I hope you have a really awesomely relaxed weekend — you so deserve it after the crazy, busy, stressful week you’ve had.

Oh, I’m still on my CSD cleanse even with this cold, but I’m doing more raw rather than cooked veggies. Something about uncooked spinach going down a sore throat makes the soul go cold, doesn’t it?

Love you!

Lar

p.s. I added this photo to our About page:

I apologize for things being a bit quiet around here these last couple of days. Cath and I have been making some changes that are taking some getting used to. We are trying to exercise more and go vegetarian/vegan.

Vegan?! This from a girl who dreamed in high school of becoming a pastry chef and marrying Jacques Torres (just to eat his chocolate and sugar sculptures — sorry, Jacques!). You know Cath and I love food — all food! Even the kind with cute faces — we just kind of liked to forget where our delicious maple syruped bacon comes from because it tastes soooo gooood.

In fact I’m stepping it up a notch and going vegan (mainly raw- gak!) and gluten-free and sugar-free for the next little while. I know that sounds fairly crazy. I mean once you cut out gluten, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, meat, cheese, milk, butter… heat! what and how do you eat? And more pointedly, what the hell do you live for?

(Arugula and quinoa, you sooo don’t taste like mac and cheese):

I’m not a big fan of diets (especially this one!), but I’m not doing this to loose weight and I think that’s why I might stick to it. The much more convincing reason to eat veggies, veggies, and then more veggies is to ease some chronic health problems and pain. I’ve always had a rummy tummy and on top of that I have some tremendous endometriosis pain. Will lettuce and tofu “cure” me? Maybe not. But pills don’t work, so I’m willing to -gulp- cut out croissants and cookies for a while to see how I feel.

(breakfast of champions who dream of buttery crumpets: juiced cucumber, celery, kale, romaine, and apple):

It really helps I’m not doing this alone. My mustachioed man and twinsie are following similar plans. I got the omph and encouragement to try this wacky (but very healthy — full of nutrients even though it doesn’t sound like it) diet by reading Kris Carr’s Crazy, Sexy Diet. She is my new guru. Haven’t heard of her? Check out her fabuloso blog.

(there are 14 cucumbers hiding under this stash – I kid not… we only have four left in our fridge):

We don’t usual talk about health foods and diets here on AsianCajuns, but all this stuffs (veggies, being kinder to the planet, curing my ails) have been on the forefront of my mind for a long while. Are any of you guys vegan or have tried cutting out foods for allergies or inflammation? Do you think Cath and I are nutso for giving up such delicious things even for a short while? (Erm, I kinda do!).

Kisses and Kale (and broccoli and spinach and cucumbers and carrots and..),

Lar

Oh! And I found this video of me, showing you how I feel about 98% of the time:

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Dear Kitcath,

So glad you are doing this with me! You would be so proud, I haven’t had a cookie/biscuit in three days. Three days! I definitely have the non-cookie grumpies though!

Love you!

Lar