This past Saturday July 13th a few of my friends came out to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of this blog with a sit down dinner at Caulfield’s in Beverly Hills and Tsubo, one of my favorite shoe brands. Ok, fine, so I just use the anniversary as an excuse to get people together so we can eat great food, drink amazing wine and be showered with presents. Life is short, and I believe in the positive power of sharing food and gifts, especially when you can do it with good friends. Chef Stephen Kalt, who relaunched the Caulfield’s menu late last year prepared our five course meal which, included fried squash blossoms with sonoma goat cheese and pumpkin seed mole, heirloom tomatoes with watermelon, watercress, and fresh goat cheese, lamb meatballs with cana de oveja sheep’s milk cheese paired with their gorgonzola, roasted grape and caramelized onion pizza, duck fried rice with roasted maple leaf duck breast and cherries and for dessert, fresh doughnuts and chocolate mousse roll. Before dinner we had a cocktail party and fittings for boots (see below…) from Tsubo’s fall 2013 collection by Timo Weiland as well as lace ups for guys and girls from their main line. Kat from Art + Farm sent beautiful bottles of wine as always, The Messenger white and red as well as The Girls in the Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon 2011. And of course there were gift bags. My personal obsession is creating a gift bag that is packed with stuff people will not only love but also use and maybe even not think of getting for themselves. Everything from books and CDs to beauty products. This year Sundance Channel sent us DVDs of their new show “Rectify,” which I love! Mute Records sent CDs of The Knife and Polly Scattergood, and I also got all kinds of amazing beauty products: Arcona Eye Dew, La Roche Posay moisturizer and sunscreen, and Rodial Glam lip balm. A coffee table book on California Luxury Living by John Finton, St.Martin’s Press’ “Inventing Elsa Maxwell” biography by Sam Staggs (one of my favorite reads from this past year), Loft sent us gorgeous art deco inspired earrings, Sisters of Los Angeles sent LA candles and it all went inside a sweet clutch from the girls at Shoemint and a large tote from Tsubo. All of the guests also got gift cards to Vered Salon and a VIP Membership to Thompson Hotels, which works in all of their locations (pool rooftops and all!) We even got a shout out today on InStyle magazine’s Tumblr page!
Guests got to take home a pair of shoes and also ordered boots from the new fall 2013 collection
Merle Ginsberg, Marcy Medina and Sara Stein during cocktail and fittings hour
Brooke Blumberg, Me, Beth Andrews, Ali Forman and Danica Smith trying on shoes
Wine from Art + Farm accompanied each course
Marcy Medina, Samantha Slaven-Bick, Ali Forman, Jim Agnew, Loren Koss, Karen Levy and Danica Smith
Justin Pace, Khanh Tran, Sara Stein, me, Rory O’Connor and Merle Ginsberg
Samantha Slaven-Bick and Justin Pace from Tsubo
Kendra Gratteri, Megan Duffy and Victoria Gomelsky
Justin Pace and Khanh Tran
Karen Levy, Brooke Blumberg, Beth Andrews and Ali Forman
Danica Smith, Karen Levy, me, Rory O’Connor and Merle Ginsberg
Me with Angela Robins and Evan Ferrante
Rory O’Connor and Merle Ginsberg
Brooklyn Weaver and Kira Nasrat
Ali Forman and Jim Agnew
Michael Diaz, Danny Mancini and Megan Duffy
Marcy Medina and Ali Forman
Chef Stephen Kalt preparing our magical five courses of food…!
The gift bags… an event of their own. Thank you so much to everyone who sent amazing products for these bags!!! And yes, those are multiple shoeboxes tied and stacked for guests to take home…
In case you are wondering, these are the boots we all got to order from fall 2013. Yeah, I know…
*Angie Quan, who is actually a painter at heart, took all the photos.
