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Coffee Break: Strappy Pump

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black patent strappy flats with teensy heel

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 6/12:

124 Comments

  1. 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.

    1. 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.

    2. 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.

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. 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.

    6. 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.

  2. 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

    1. 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?

      1. 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.

        1. 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!

      2. Thank you for reminding me about these! These used to be my MVPs before I changed sizes.

    3. 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)

      1. Links don’t automatically get stuck in m0d – I just posted above and it didn’t. It goes right through 99% of the time.

    4. Look at ME+EM, if that’s within your budget. They are high quality fabrics, and the product pages show garment measurements, so you can see if you think you’ll be all right for bust. I’m a G+ cup and they work for me.

    5. PSA for light summer tops – red bras will not show through a white top. A white or greige one will, but not red.

  3. 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

    1. 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.

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    6. 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.

    8. A Nicoise-style potato salad with redskin potatoes, haricots vert, pickled red onions and Kalamata olives with a mustardy vinaigrette.

    10. My husband smoked a pork butt for 24 hours, so we had that, corn on the cob, watermelon, cucumber tomato & feta salad, and ice cream for dessert. Definitely rushing the season, but it was amazing.

    12. I rolled and cut spaghetti noodles from scratch, made a garlic and lemony red sauce, added cod fillets, and did a side of roasted fresh Brussels sprouts with a balsamic glaze.

  4. 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.

    1. 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.

      1. No don’t do this. Signed a vegan who has politely had to choke down a lot of gross olive oil cakes

          2. 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?

          3. The egg substitute doesn’t work very well either tbh. Most omnis just can’t do vegan baking well, so it’s better to use a recipe from an actual vegan creator and do not deviate. There’s a lot of chemistry involved in baking the average person just doesn’t get.

          4. That’s super fair. That smitten kitchen one below that’s already vegan sounds great to me.

    4. 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.

    5. 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.

    6. Aqua faba based pavlova with berries, or tropical fruits and coconut or oat cream custard?

    7. 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.

        3. Ha, anyone remember that thread from ages ago where someone suggested a bunch of grapes as the perfect elegant dinner party dessert?

          3. I don’t eat desserts and also wouldn’t consider plain grapes a dessert (fruit and cheese plates are great though!).

          4. Ahaha, that must have been a lovely, even-tempered discussion. I would actully prefer grapes to chocolate cake… and if I could get some cheese with the grapes, I’d even call it a dessert. But not as a vegan birthday treat!

    9. 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.

      1. Is dark chocolate considered vegan? I lead an activity with a kid who has a dairy allergy and I have to buy special (expensive!) dairy free chocolate when I bake for her because even semisweet chocolate chips have milkfat in them, according to the label. So I wouldn’t think vegans would eat it?

        1. Semi-sweet isn’t dark. Milkfat isn’t vegan. In my experience is easy to find dark chocolate without dairy ingredients (not sure about cross contamination that allergy patients may need to worry about though).

        2. What? Dark chocolate is defined as being cocoa solids, cocoa, and sugar. Maybe some really cheap brands have milk fat, but I promise you can find normal dark chocolate at Market Basket or Kroger.

    10. NYT bittersweet chocolate mousse with berries on the side. Or a blueberry cobbler with coconut oil instead of butter.

    11. Coconut milk ice cream with vegan brownies and berries. I can’t find the vegan brownie recipe I use, but it uses coconut oil.

  5. 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?

      2. I lean this way even though I have never enjoyed a baked good (but I don’t like to eat my own cooking anyway, and I grew up baking cookies and cakes for younger siblings, so I guess it is a comfort zone!).

        I also liked all the baking snobbery in Robin McKinley’s Sunshine.

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. 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.

    6. 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.

      1. 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.

    7. 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.).

    8. 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.

    9. 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. +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.

          1. 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.

          2. 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.

          3. A little of both. I’ve got a kid at home with dairy/egg allergies and it’s easier to make most baked goods vs. pay the insane markups at vegan bakeries. My older doggo is not eating much and putting homemade broth on her food every night helps with the amount she’s able to eat and provides some extra calories.

          4. I make stock weekly because it’s better than what you can buy at the store with less waste. It isn’t hard if you already plan on roasting a chicken that week.

        2. +1 this is my style as well. I love a cooking project, and will do fiddly stuff, experimental stuff, frugal stuff, amazing home made versions of staple stuff for hours during days off or weekends. I love planning cooking projects, shopping for them and doing them. What I do not love, at all, really not at all, is the everyday cooking. I love cooking, but not as an daily chore. I rarely cook more than twice a week, but I cook a lot at once, and keep a well-stocked pantry of staples and fun stuff, and fridge freezers with homemade stock, bread, jams and dinners. If it’s just me, I’m happy with a tin of sardines or an avocado with scrambled eggs for dinner.

          1. Help me! How do you eat your tin of sardines? Plain? With mustard on toast? I don’t mind the taste or the bones—just can rarely get myself excited to do it.

          2. Different anon, but I really like sardines with garlic, sesame oil, and kimchi over silken tofu, sometimes with a little cheese.

            I also sardines them with chopped up preserved lemons, sometimes with a little harissa.

          3. I have the sardines on plain crackers or multigrain crispbread from the pantry. The tins of fish in tomato sauce are great like this. The fish needs to be cold, though, so I keep a few tins in the fridge. For plain fish, you’ll need lots of pepper and some olive oil or sour cream.

    10. 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.

    11. 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.

      1. 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.

        1. Yeah, I imagine if I lived alone I would do that (and freeze a ton, too). But it’s pretty rare for me to be on my own and have time, so I can pretty easily scratch my desire to cook and share together.

    12. 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.

    13. 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.

      1. 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.

        1. That’s where we differ. I enjoy learning new techniques, finding new cuisines and trying to replicate them at home, and generally like to experiment. However, when under pressure to get food on the table by a certain time, or when it turns out the chicken was off and so we are pivoting to beans on the fly and the results are a little strange, I don’t enjoy that.

    14. 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.

    15. 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.

    16. Yes, I love cooking labor intensive recipes on a slow day off. Homemade pasta dough while drinking wine is my default activity when I don’t have weekend plans.

    17. I like to spend the day cooking labor intensive things that require lots of time–fully homemade lasagna or pot pie, homemade tamales and tortillas, curry with naan (where absolutely everything is homemade). I also love to bake and will gladly spend a weekend baking with my daughter.
      But the nightly dinner grind wears on me. I’m tired after a long workday and just want to eat bread and cheese lol. I make dinner most nights because I still have kids at home. But now that they are getting older there is more “fend for yourself” or I ask them to help get things started. My husband will also grill usually once or twice a week and that helps. So I love leisurely cooking but I dislike getting a meal everyone will eat on the table quickly after working all day.

    18. I love cooking because I don’t do it every day. DH gets home before me during the work week so I tend to do family meals on Fridays and weekends only. The extra time also allows me to put more effort into the preparation.

  6. 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

    1. We don’t really use umbrellas here! You’ll blend in better with a raincoat. :)

  7. 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

    1. I’m sure there’s a way for you to chat w the CEO about this in broad terms. Why wouldn’t you?

    2. 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?

      1. Closest to the last one. The main problem is that another senior person really dropped the ball in measurable, demonstrable ways. But the CEO was very very into this project when it started, more than made sense imo

    3. 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?

      1. 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.

    4. Is there a diplomatic way to respond to the CEO without throwing someone under the bus? Especially if it points the CEO in the right direction while remaining neutral and factual? If the CEO knows you would know I don’t think playing coy is necessarily the safest path to take.

      1. I can be neutral and pretty matter-of-fact. There are some clear things that weren’t done that should have been done. The only issue is that the person who didn’t do them is pretty high up. But I guess the CEO needs to know that he is bad at his job and it is genuinely possible that he doesn’t know right now.

      2. Not throwing him under the bus is a little hard. I can say XYZ wasn’t done and so-and-so was the project lead.

        1. You don’t have to point fingers or gossip. Just keep it factual, say that XYZ was incomplete. Then leave it alone and let the CEO figure it out from there.

    5. One thing I’ve found helpful in similar circumstances is naming the department rather than the person. “I think there were some holdups with Finance, but I don’t have good visibility into what they were. I think Krista was closer to that part of the project than I was and would know more.”

      You cannot do this if you are actually involved with the project. You should not do it if the cause is something that is a profound threat to the company, like someone is stealing or drinking on the job or harassing people. But for run of the mill incompetence, this kind of splits the baby on giving the CEO the right direction and person to talk to without regurgitating gossip. Because unless you were involved, you don’t really know.

      1. Oh, and this is only if you are directly asked by the CEO about this. You should not offer this up without being asked in your current role and level of involvement in the project.

      2. This is perfect actually. I can pretty much say exactly this. It’s run of the mill incompetence, nothing crazy. And yeah, I won’t say anything unless I’m directly asked. I just needed to figure out how to handle that direct conversation.

      3. +1 million to the last sentence. I would love a dollar for every time someone thought they were 100% right and weren’t, I’d be very rich.

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