Coffee Break: Strappy Pump
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You know me: I love a good strappy pump like this one from Ann Taylor — and it's surprisingly edgy for AT! I think this one pushes the idea of “pump” kind of far — it's such a tiny heel it's almost a flat.
The sharp point, the double straps that crisscross on the vamp… love. There are a lot of sizes left in the black patent, and lucky sizes in the beige patent — there's also a fabric denim version. The shoes also come with a slightly higher heel in black, silver, a beige/black version, and a snake print.
The black ones were $158 but are marked down to $77 today; the other similar shoes are $88-$126.
Sales of note for 5/26:
- Nordstrom – The Half-Yearly Sale has started! See our roundup here. Good deals on Veronica Beard, Vince, Reiss (esp. coats), as well as Wit & Wisdom and NYDJ
- Ann Taylor – 25% off + 30% off sale items
- Aurate – 25% off with code (ends 5/26)
- Bare Necessities – Up to 40% off, including tons of bra-sized swimwear (also, 10 panties for $10)
- Boden – 15% off new women's wear styles with code
- Express – Mega Sale, 40% off everything!
- J.Crew – 40% off your purchase and 50% off swim
- J.Crew Factory – Extra 70% off clearance + 50-70% off everything else
- Loft – 50% off one item
- Mango – 30% off everything, and free shipping with $260+
- M.M.LaFleur – Memorial Day Sale, up to 70% off this weekend only! (Try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off)
- M.Gemi – Memorial Day sale, prices up to 60% off
- Nordstrom Rack – Clear the Rack! Nice selection of Vince, Veronica Beard, Reiss and Rag & Bone, a ton of affordable work basics from Calvin Klein and dresses from Maggy London, Eliza J, and Donna Morgan
- Talbots – $29.50 sunny must-haves
- Theory – 25% off sitewide (see our notes here)
I am like the last person to try pickleball. Is it like ping pong where you can just do it and have a pretty good time, including borrowing the paddle things? Or is it more like tennis, where you can have the wrong size racket and need to be pretty matched up for it to really work? I would play for fun, but have no interest in adding another sport I’ll just be mediocre at and need more special equipment for.
Yes, you can just do it and have fun. I’ve never played tennis and had fun with pickleball.
I wasn’t playing with super intense people, though.
The former, definitely. You can just use any paddle. I’m terrible at it and still have a good time. Of course, if you play with someone who is good and wants a competitive game, they may not enjoy it as much if you are terrible, but if you play with another beginner or someone good who is patient, it will be great.
I haven’t played it since high school gym class, but we played it all the time in PE as kids in the 80s and 90s precisely because it’s super easy for anyone to play with anyone with no skill and whatever crappy equipment your school has. I’m sure it gets better if you play with people who know what they’re doing, but you can definitely play with minimal investment.
It’s in between, if you’ve played tennis or other racquet sports, you’ll find it very easy. The paddles are more akin to ping pong (same for everyone). There’s more hand eye coordination and ability to move around needed than in ping pong but you don’t need to play against your level to have fun.
To me (not a paddle sports enthusiast), it’s more akin to backyard badminton. If you are playing just to have fun with people who also just want to have fun, it’s great and approachable. Less running than tennis, less chasing wildly careening balls than ping pong.
Especially if you are playing doubles.
People have gone so wild for pickleball in my area that there are now a number of lawsuits about the resulting noise! We’re moving to a new place near the courts and we can’t hear it from our house but the houses farther down the street (closer to the courts) are dealing with a true onslaught. I don’t blame them for filing lawsuits but I also think the game looks pretty fun.
I need tops. I have to travel for 2-3 months. I gained some weight and need to be polished. Thinking I will buy 7-8 tops. I will wear these to work with a skirt or dress pants and bring a non-matching blazer that will normally stay on my chair. I am striking out big time as almost everything is ribbed!
– No ribbed fabric. No satin. Not sheer/no tank needed under.
– Prefer a small detail, like a structured pleat, peplum, asymmetric neck, etc.
– Will machine wash on gentle even if it says dry clean only, unless it is mostly silk.
– Must cover bra straps
– sleeveless or full sleeve only, like covering my bicep. No cap sleeves
– I am a D cup so button is ok but can’t gap
– No super deep V or super high neck (no high crew or mock)
– Length doesn’t matter, I’m open to variety
– solid colors preferred
What retailers or clothing lines have you tried, and crossed off your list?
What’s your budget per top?
Are you in straight sizes or plus sizes?
I had luck with Calvin Klein tops for this look at a recent professional meeting – I got one at Nordstrom Rack and one at Macy’s. This isn’t the exact one I got but close: https://www.macys.com/shop/product/calvin-klein-printed-pleat-neck-blouse-regular-petite-sizes?ID=10484928&swatchColor=Black+Cream#BRAND/Calvin%20Klein
I have about 4 or 5 of this type of Calvin Klein top in my closet from over the years. They’re real workhorses for me.
They’re often on steep sale too – I’m the one who got them for the professional meeting and they were even flattering on my tricky postpartum shape. It was the one easy win from my shopping efforts!
What’s your budget?
And would any of these at BR Factory work? Not incl links bc they get stuck in mod but easy to search:
– Shell tank (might be too high-necked)
– Gathered-neck top (100% cotton)
– Seamed hourglass top (v-neck might be a touch low)
Links don’t automatically get stuck in m0d – I just posted above and it didn’t. It goes right through 99% of the time.
What was the best thing you ate over the long weekend? One of my favorites – we grilled some salmon for the first time and added fresh dill from the garden
Meal: deconstructed ramen (I put all the goodies into individual serving bowls so the kids could avoid contaminating their broth and noodles with tofu and veggies.)
Dessert: cheesecake with berries and whipped cream.
Trader Joe’s patio chips.
If you’re ever in Canada try the OG storm chips.
We didn’t have the weather for the Memorial Day classics, so probably the Trader Joe’s pistachio gelato eaten out of the carton with a spoon.
Dry brined convection baked chicken breasts (since it wasn’t grilling weather). I honestly didn’t miss the grill and will be making these again.
I had a pretty great sandwich on homemade focaccia with arugula and pesto from our garden, tomatoes, and these chickpea cutlets (to second the rec below for Isa Chanda Moskovitz):
https://www.theppk.com/2010/11/doublebatch-chickpea-cutlets/
A rice bowl I’ve made many times that combines a miso-based dressing, white rice, rotisserie chicken, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and arugula, but this time, I made it with arugala I grew myself and cut from the garden minutes before combining everything. Absolutely took it up a notch. The recipe is on Carlsbad Cravings.
I need a good week’s worth of sun here to ripen my tomatoes, and then I am eating nothing but tomatoes.
A surprisingly ripe watermelon.
A Nicoise-style potato salad with redskin potatoes, haricots vert, pickled red onions and Kalamata olives with a mustardy vinaigrette.
I need to make a vegan dessert for a friend’s birthday – any suggestions for really good vegan dessert recipes? I’m an experienced baker, just not vegan.
I’d do an olive oil cake with Bob’s red mill egg replacer. The olive oil is strong and will probably hide the lack of real eggs.
No don’t do this. Signed a vegan who has politely had to choke down a lot of gross olive oil cakes
Oh really? Is it just because you don’t like them or does the egg sub not work?
The texture and flavors are no bueno. Just use canola it’s fine I promise.
Oh I love olive oil cake for the olive oil flavor but make mine with eggs. Sounds like it’s an oil issue for you, not the egg substitute?
Mix in the pan chocolate cake. There are lots of recipes out there–here is the King Arthur one: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/king-arthurs-original-cake-pan-cake-recipe
You can make frosting with vegan butter.
Anything from Isa Chandra Moskovitz is going to be good.
https://www.theppk.com/
There are a lot of vegan chocolate cake recipes that I like just as much as non-vegan ones, though I’m not into super rich chocolate cake. I’ve tried a few, but I think the one from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World that’s also in NYT Cooking and other places online is fine? It’s also pretty easy to make a decent fruit crisp by substituting the butter, either with vegan butter or oil. If you want to try something a little different, the NYT chocolate pudding pie with silken tofu is actually pretty good (my meat eating husband who doesn’t particularly like tofu asked me to make it again), but some people might find the idea off-putting.
Long term vegan, and super baker. If you want to make the cake from scratch use a depression cake recipe and make frosting from ‘it doesn’t taste like chicken’ or ‘the Viet vegan’.
If you want to go the easy route (but equally tasty) buy a boxed cake mix (most are vegan) use the oil but replace the milk & egg 1:1 with blended soft tofu of equal volume (ie 1 c (250 ml) milk + 3 eggs (3*50 ml) = 400 ml blended soft tofu) but do your own math since not all box cakes require the same volume of liquid. Canned frosting is basically all vegan, read the ingredients, but you should be good, note ‘may contain’ is for traces on shared equipment, it’s an allergen statement not an ingredient.
Aqua faba based pavlova with berries, or tropical fruits and coconut or oat cream custard?
The Smitten Kitchen chocolate olive oil cake is very good, and it’s naturally egg-free so no egg replacer is needed. I like to make it with a coconut glaze (you can use the recipe from the SK coconut plush cake recipe) and shredded coconut, for a Mounds bar-style cake, but any glaze or frosting will do.
I have also used this recipe for a depression-style cake (again, naturally vegan) that makes two layers, to be frosted as you like. My SO’s favorite is German chocolate cake and I made this for him once with a coconut-milk-based German chocolate frosting and NGL it was the single best thing I have ever baked.
Chocolate Picnic Cake
Dry:
3 c. all purpose flour
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
Wet:
2 c. cold water
1 c. oil
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. vinegar (optional)
Also optional 1/12 c. chocolate chips
Grease and flour pans.
Sift dry ingredients together. Whisk together wet ingredients in separate larger bowl. Whisk dry into wet until batter is smooth. Divide batter among (3) 8″ pans or (2) 9″ pans or put in cupcake tins with paper cupcake wrappers. Sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Bake in preheated 350 oven until toothpick comes out clean, 25 – 30 minutes.
And if you’re time-strapped, the Marie Callender frozen fruit pies are vegan and are really excellent. I once took to a dinner a homemade mango cake and a Marie Callender cherry crumble pie and people could not stop raving – about the pie.
How about poached pears or some really good fruit + nuts?
Nooo, fruit and nuts are not a birthday dessert!
I think both would need to be chocolate dipped probably!
+2
Ha, anyone remember that thread from ages ago where someone suggested a bunch of grapes as the perfect elegant dinner party dessert?
peak granola mom
I mean if I didn’t have a dog, I would love this myself.
I don’t eat desserts and also wouldn’t consider plain grapes a dessert (fruit and cheese plates are great though!).
General thought as a vegetarian who sometimes encounters vegan desserts: I vastly prefer coconut milk or oil as substitutes for butter and fats, rather than olive oil or vegetable oil.
Other thoughts:
S’mores can be vegan: vegan marshmallows, dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate, Nabisco graham crackers.
Poached pears with a nut mixture stuffing.
How many of you love cooking? I don’t mean “like it better than other chores” or “sometimes enjoy the tasty results” but how many of you would spend a surprise day off work cooking just for yourself?
Heck no to cooking, strong yes to baking.
No way!
Meaning that I would never spend a surprise day off cooking for myself.
Same! Never.
I love it sometimes? If there is something I really want to eat I love it. If I just need to get food on the table, PBJ is a meal anytime.
Cereal, milk, and fruit is dinner at least 30% of the time in my house.
not me. but i will sometimes spend an entire day cooking like 8 different dishes for the freezer (with multiple servings of each) so I can just grab something and reheat it.
I like eating more than I like cooking, but I find cooking most enjoyable on a free day when I don’t have other things I want to get done.
I love cooking, so yes, I will cook fancy meals for only myself if I feel so inspired. Not sure I’d spend the whole day cooking, but I wouldn’t mind a big chunk being taken up by browsing the farmer’s market, visiting the wine store to inquire about a good pairing, snipping herbs from the garden, leisurely prep, etc.
This is my exact response, not the whole day, but yes a good portion of it. Also left to my own tastes, what I would chose to make for myself is generally not overly complicated aside from bread making.
Is it ‘fun’ cooking? As in – do I get to get up and wander the farmers market without a budget, grab whatever looks yummy/fresh, stop by the butcher/wine shop for proteins/wine pairing and then leisurely whip up a yummy meal for a few friends, Ina Garten style? Then yes, that sounds great.
IRL, I like food, and care about eating something healthyish, that doesn’t cost a fortune, and doesn’t involve takeout 5 nights a week so I cook quite a lot. Is it my favorite activity? No, but I do derive satisfaction from providing a tasty meal for my family and showing my kids how to meal plan, prep, and cook for a family while having 2 working parents. Prior to kids my dinner most nights was girl dinner interspersed with day long ‘projects’ that would generate leftovers for a few days (bread, pasta making, pizza making, etc.).
Yes, this is me. I have taken time off work to cook for my own enjoyment. I asked for a gift card for a local cooking school for Christmas, and I am taking a class in a couple weeks about making focaccia from sourdough. I have a small hydroponic garden to provide fresh herbs.
Absolutely. Not all day, but I definitely chose to cook or bake as a way to take a break from things. On the flip side, I’m not big on cooking when I’m actually hungry, so I prefer to cook when I have time and then have a fridge and freezer full of meals, bread, baked goods, and other ingredients prepped and ready to go so I can just throw together a meal within a few minutes when I want it.
+1 – most Sundays I’ll spend at least a portion of the day making something for the week. Most commonly bread, stock, or a dessert. If I’m feeling really together my family will get dinner, homemade bread, and a homemade dessert but usually 2 cooking projects per day is my limit.
But you’re doing that for fun or to make meals for your family for the week?
Not that anon, but nobody “needs” to make stock, bread, or dessert. If you’re making those things at home, it’s at least partially because you like to cook, though I also think that a lot of the things I bake at home are significantly better and cheaper than I can easily get at a store, especially when it comes to things like whole grain breads, healthier muffins, or homemade cookies fresh from the oven. But I’m still mostly baking because I enjoy it. If I didn’t, I’d buy my bread at the store or eat something else.
Anon at 4:15, don’t forget medically prescribed diet and allergy households. I do not like to cook, but there are no restaurants and very few pre-fab foods that accommodate, so this is what’s left.
I’m not sure I love it, but I like it and will sometimes decide to try more elaborate recipes on days off. I’m more a fan of baking and will do that just for fun.
I really like sharing and couldn’t eat enough to justify most recipes on my own, so wouldn’t usually do it just for myself (though I maybe would if I didn’t usually have someone to share with), but I really enjoy and look forward to spending an afternoon preparing a project meal.
I give away a ton of food. If I make too much for dh and I or forget that my teens are grown and flown I post on FB that I made too much of x and does anyone want some. I almost always have takers. My next door neighbors are two working parents with 3 school aged kid so they are always willing to take baked goods off my hands.
No.
I might want to cook a couple of times a week, max. I am down with leftovers and easy food.
Baking is the devil because I make giant flour clouds.
If I were single I think I would more enjoy cooking when I did it. And I would have far more cereal-for-supper meals because I don’t usually yearn to cook.
Thankfully my spouse enjoys cooking. I get to eat and don’t have to think about whether a recipe will suit the whole household, worry about messing it up, shop for all the right ingredients or scramble to find a suitable alternative at the last minute if it turns out inedible.
I think people who enjoy cooking don’t think this way. They are usually working with a known base of ingredients and then mixing up the flavors to find new ideas. It’s rare that they are working in a brand new food arena or that their food is inedible.
I love cooking and baking. I love spending a day wandering at a market and then puttering in the kitchen. I also like poking around in my cupboards and freezer and creating a few meals out of nothing.
I might not spend a surprise day off work doing it just for myself, but I would absolutely take more cooking classes to learn different cuisines. And I would love to go to a cooking school or on a cooking trip for myself. I also love to bake and should bake more. I think I don’t do it more because of laziness, and not dislike which is how I feel about every other chore.
anyone have a favorite purse sized umbrella? going to seattle soon and rain is in the forecast and could use a new one or two. since living in a driving city i rarely use umbrellas
A project at work is not going well.
I am a mid level manager. I am not involved in this project in any significant way.
But long story short they needed something from my team and now I have insight into why that project has gone so badly.
It’s a small company and the CEO knows everyone. He’s been asking people what happened with the project and knows I would know – but I shouldn’t say anything right? Keep it bland and let someone else name the problems? Not my circus etc
I’m sure there’s a way for you to chat w the CEO about this in broad terms. Why wouldn’t you?
How can this guy actually lead if he can’t get any information on what’s happening and what might fix it?
There has to be a reason nobody is telling this guy the truth. Is he untrustworthy? Is there someone he’s close to who is messing this up? Is this a pet project of his and he’ll react badly to hearing the truth?
In games of internal politics be careful. Are you going to make enemies by sharing? Are you sure you’re right? Are you prepared for backlash?
Agree. Unless you need to answer for your team’s involvement specifically, I would tread carefully here. I have had times when the CEO of a small company came to me directly wanting feedback on why things weren’t working well, and even then I was told I should have stayed quiet by my boss, who felt defensive about anyone admitting to any wrongs or areas of improvement. I didn’t go out of my way to share my input. I was asked by the top person at the company. And I was still reprimanded. Just saying, people can be defensive and territorial, and you don’t want to be in the middle if it’s not your responsibilty.