[EATING] HEIRLOOM TOMATOES & BASIL

This is more of a PSA than anything else. Heirloom tomatoes: they're delicious! Fresh basil: it's incredible! Go buy some and let them frolic together on a plate or in a bowl, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with pepper. Yes, I'm basically telling you to make an Insalata Caprese, but wait! There's a twist! Buy cherry tomatoes and those little balls of mozzarella instead of a big hunk of it and then just eat them whole. (There was a vendor at the Union Square Greenmarket who had the sweetest, ripest, most liberally-grown little tomatoes the other week; if I remember their name I'll update this post with it.)

This salad is so magically, wonderfully easy. I put it in tupperware and grabbed a loaf of ciabatta for a no hassle picnic in Prospect Park last weekend. It was pretty fantastic, though a bottle of red wine wouldn't have hurt.

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[EATING] 3 SUMMER SALADS

If soup is my winter staple, salads are my favorite foodie thing about summer. I feel too guilty indulging in strawberries in the middle of January (he says on the internet) and can't stand so-called "winter salads" of like, beet root and artichoke stump or whatever, so the seasonal dietary change is always welcomed with open arms. Here are three of the most perfectest salad combos for summer (counter-clockwise from top): strawberries + spinach, chickpeas + parsley, and avocado + tomato.

Put your personal spin on these recipes with a twist and a tweak - some nuts, more cheese - or add homosexualist flair by serving them with a "tossed salad" joke! (Don't ask, Mom.) (Wait - don't Google it, either!)

{Images + recipes via: A Daily Something, Simply Delicious and Simple Provisions. Like this post? Check out this recipe for quinoa bibimbap!}

[EATING] QUINOA BIBIMBAP

Oh, wow - it's been two months since my last food post, je suis désolée. It's really tricky for me because while I do love eating and I cook all the time, I don't spend all of my time trying new recipes and styling and photographing my food. Because of this, my new goal is to make food content more about eating rather than cooking. Lately I've been eating a lot of rice and black beans with pan-fried peppers and onions, fajita-style, on top...occasionally I add some sliced avocado. It's healthy, easy and cheap, but gets redundant, so I was overjoyed to find this recipe for vegetarian bibimbap with quinoa on Reclaiming Provincial. While not a "true" bibimbap, the recipe is, as blogger Carey Nershi notes, super customizable, which means you can use whatever you have on hand to make the dish your own - the fun of bibimbap is stirring all of the ingredients together, anyway. I love that Nershi made hers with corn, carrot and avocado. Sometimes the best eating ideas are just a matter of seeing a dish from another perspective.

Click through to check out another recipe!

[EATING] THIS FRUIT BAKES

Given the recent controversy over the sexist marketing of Easy-Bake Ovens ("My biological clock helps me know when the cupcakes are done!"), this feels like a timely post. While I didn't have an Easy-Bake Oven as a kid, I did eat a lot of cake and play with Barbies, so...baking expert!

I like to have a loaf of bread available in the morning as a homemade alternative to pain au chocolat, which I have no idea how to make - it's just so fancy. This zucchini banana bread is actually a modified Paula Deen recipe, despite it not being disgusting. For the loaf I photographed I used a bar of Ghirardelli dark chocolate that I crushed up, which sounds all sexy and stuff, but I actually prefer just using chocolate chips - FYI. Oh, another FYI - you can replace the banana in this with mushed up butternut squash, if you want to impress somebody. Here's your ingredients list:

1 1/2 cup all-purpose (or wheat) flour 
1/4 teaspoon baking powder 
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash ground cinnamon 
dash ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup apple sauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup grated zucchini
1/2 cup mushed bananas (or you could do a full cup of each? play around with it!)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan with a stick of unsalted butter. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, spices and baking soda. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar, and continue beating until well blended. Stir in apple sauce, vanilla, zucchini, chocolate chips. Stir in sifted ingredients. Pour into prepared loaf pans. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove loaf from pan and let cool. C'est bon!

These are actually almost vegan pumpkin muffins that I adapted from Post Punk Kitchen. I sort of ruined the vegan thing by adding chocolate chips and honey. Oops! I determined to try these after ruining a pumpkin loaf with faulty measurements. I tried to salvage the undercooked mess by pulling it apart into balls and pan frying them. I thought it would make donut holes or something, but it was just awful. So don't do that. These muffins are awesome, though, and it's easy enough to re-veganize them if that's something you adhere to! The ingredients list is below (this makes twelve muffins):

1 3/4 cups all-purpose (or wheat) flour
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup pureed pumpkin (organic, from a can)
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup apple sauce
however much honey you think this needs to taste good!

Preheat oven to 400°F. Put eco-friendly muffin cups in a twelve-muffin tin. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, soy milk, and apple sauce. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix. Fill the muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

For some reason, my muffins came out looking like little cupcakes? They were tasty, but I wish they looked as hearty as the ones Vanessa Rees made! Like this post? Check out some of my other favorite recipes here and here.

DEAR INTERNET No. 29

01 Some winter tabletop decor from the ever-amazing SousStyle
02 The photography of Henry Roy
03 Adorable! By rolling_acorn on Instagram
04 The Cosmic Wonder lookbooks are all this awesome
05 Food blog Trotski & Ash has tons of great recipes, plus an easy-to-use index! I made their hummus the other week...Happy Friday!

BUTTERNUT SQUASH + APPLE SOUP

The other week I went apple picking with some friends in upstate New York. As you may know, apple picking is an outdoor activity, which threw me for a loop. What man purse goes with outdoor activities? Then it dawned on me that an orchard would be a very appropriate place to debut my vintage WWII nurse's bag I picked up from 10 ft. Single. So compact, yet still rugged. Apple picking season is over now, but fret not, dear reader - I've thought up some other low-impact outdoor activities for which this style of man purse is appropriate:

1. Ice skating
2. Drinking a latte/hot chocolate on a park bench
3. Watching guys play basketball. Is there basketball in winter? Is there ice basketball? That sounds dangerous...

Now, I would love to tell you that I ran home from the orchard and whipped up a soup using my freshly picked apples, but #truthbomb: I brought home too many apples and didn't know how to use them all. They got gross and...I chucked 'em. My b! So, a week or two later I Pinterested this recipe for butternut squash and apple soup and grabbed the apples from the local market. It was delicious! It turned out muuuch better than the lentil and apple-brown butter soup I blogged about making here. That one could be kindly described as "mealy;" or I could be up front and say it looked like baby vomit. Happy adventures in cooking, y'all!

Portrait Kelly Kollar; ingredients image by Joseph De Leo, styled by Mariya Yufest

DEAR INTERNET No. 28

I decided to redo this feature this week, seeing as I had some extra time for designage. I like it this way...picking one image that really captures why I feel compelled to share these links in the first place! Now, here's what I found and loved online this time around:

1 & 2. A downtown L.A. loft as seen on Apartment Therapy and this home office featured on Design Sponge.
3. Some plantspiration from Jacinta Moore.
4. This recipe for pasta with butternut squash, sage and pine nuts.
5. Tradspiration via Mister Mort and Jinyong Kim. Looove these outfits - burgundy is the hot accent color right now...Wes Anderson is sweatin' these bitches! Also, Korean guyz.

Need more? Want more? Can't get enough? Follow me on Pinterest and Tumblr!

DEAR INTERNET No. 26

My favorite finds from around the interwebs...design, style and foodie goodness galore!

View it all, after the jump!

DEAR INTERNET No. 25

Ooh, fun with graphics! I'm trying something a little new, so there may still be some changes to this feature in future editions...we'll see. Check out some of my favorite web finds, after the jump!

Click through to continue reading this post...

INSTAGRAM LIFE VOL. 2

I went to the Brooklyn museum with my friend Matt (wait, his name isn't a link? He's got no blog or Twitter? Not even a secret Tumblr? OH MYGOD WAS I THERE ALONE??!!) and loved up on all that art. The Rodin sculptures in the lobby were an immediate highlight and I also loved the Nick Cave flower cage thing in picture 2 and the prayer rugs cut out for skateboard decks (picture 4). There also had a kewl staircase (picture 3).

Chelsea came to visit! We hung out and tried this vegan Japanese place (ohmigod so hot right now.) Also, I went window shopping at Barneys, where I found this Albertus Swanepoel hat that I want more than all the things combined. Except for also I want this Shipley & Halmos furry red jacket thing that's not really my style, but I just feel like maybe it could be, you know? And then here's a lil' snap of another awesome bag from Flux Productions - cute backpack #FTW

And this is some food I made. As you can see, there were a lot of tomatoes involved in my diet this summer...scrambled, bruschetta-ed and insalata-ed. Also, I made this French potato salad and it was dookie. Such a shame, because the fingerling potatoes were so cute!

Follow me on Instagram @thisfruitsnaps for morrrre!

MENSWEAR PEARS

I was feeling inspired by the fashion + food pairings of wunderblogger Diana Moss and undertook my own pairings post. This being *fruitpunch, it only makes sense, no? I mean, half the people I talk to about my blog are initially like, 'wait, so you blog about fruit punch?' anyway. These pairs are coming at you with a menswear slant, #obvi, and I decided to stick with pears this first time around seeing as I've been eating a lot of apples lately and pears are basically just fancy apples. Plus, I've been pinning the sh*t out of them recently. And how delicious do they look? Scroll down for the image credits, which will lead you to some of my new favorite foodie blogs - and don't forget to stop by my Pinboards, where all this genius originated. Oh! and also, be sure to check back later as this is just the start of my A/W12 inspiration-boarding...

image credits: 1 & 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6, 7 & 8

COMME D'HABITUDE

Sometimes it takes awhile to realize certain truths about yourself. Not significant or particularly deep truths, just habits and patterns. For me, I've recently realized that I am big on routines. This might have slipped my attention - or maybe it wouldn't be a pattern to notice - if I weren't so nomadic. I've moved every year since leaving college and in each new home I am quick to establish my New Normal, and normal always involves a café within walking distance. Living abroad, the café was an expatriate hub, last year it was a place to blog since I didn't have the internet at home (!) and now...now my brain just can't focus without a barista in sight.

This is all to say that I am currently settling in in Fort Greene and have found my New Normal in Bittersweet café, where you can find me many a free morning huddled over my laptop, or run into me Saturday before I hit the farmer's market. The coffee (La Colombe) is as good as the music (Erasure, James Blake) and though it's kinda sorta too small for me to sit around at their bar for as long as I generally do, they never yell at me.

Click through to continue reading this post!

DEAR INTERNET No. 24

My favorite food, fashion and design finds from around the web...

Read the full post, after the jump!

INSTAGRAM LIFE VOL. 1

Summer is winding down, can you believe it? This is the month all of Europe hits the snooze alarm and people start to actually go back to school, holy crap. To savor the flavor while it lasts, here's a brief look into some of what I've done this summer...

clockwise, from top left: I made new business cards! And I'm passing them out like crazy. Like how the font on the card is the font of the blog header? #designminded // I went to Riis beach for a shoot recently, more on that later! These bushes were pretty and the ocean was spectacular! // Great storefront signage on Rivington

Picasso-viewers at MoMa...it feels like I took this forever ago! I love MoMa, holla Target Fridays // These are some African-print shorts I picked up from a street vendor whose nephew ships them over here from Nigeria. Or Senegal. Or, you know, like...somewhere in continental Africa // Boats on the water in Central Park // Kelly looking Virgin Suicides-y in the Park

Cherry tomatoes I cut up to make the salad featured here // A new read for the season...I'm telling you, plants are my new obsession! // Spinach and a Gorgonzola-Blue Cheese hybrid I picked up at Eastern District to make this dish, so good.

Follow me on Instagram @thisfruitsnaps

dear internet no. 23

Ohmigod, you guys...this week I discovered Hawai'ian style blogger Tevis Swain and I am OBSESSED. I know a lot of people say that facetiously, so let me clarify for you my exact level of crazy...I: 1) scrolled through his entire blog [it's only like, five or six pages, natch] 2) fanned him on Lookbook 3) Followed him on Tumblr and 4) sent him overexcited fanmail.
Long story short, the internet is TERRIFYING, and I am why.

One of the best and worst things about living in NYC is all the window shopping you can do, but even better is going back online and finding those gorgeous products you saw in a shop and wank- er, blogging about them. Wait, what? These Common Projects derbies are 2-die-4.

Look at this pattern I found on Pinterest! This squiggly ikat is "exuberant chic." I love it most on the bath curtain - it makes the tassel trim fun instead of stuffy. You can find the source images from my decorating board here: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Chickpea + cherry tomato salad. I made this! It was super easy and delicious, right up my alley. You can find the whole list of "main-course" salads over at Martha Stewart, but I also recommend checking out this version, because it sounds, dare I say it? Even better than Martha's. (image via Diana Dishes)

And from Martha Stewart to a track called, "Phone Sex," by an artist named Blood Diamonds. All in a day's work. Featuring Grimes' vocals, it's basically a perfect pop tune...the only thing perfecter is that slammin' cover art.

Enjoy Fri/Sat/Sun and stalk me if you're feeling frisky @thisfruitsnaps on Instagram!

DEAR INTERNET No. 21

Loving this old photo of Natalie Wood and RJ Wagner...baby boy is killing it, no? A halfway unbuttoned shirt + major high-waisted action, #ftw

These illustrations by photographer and graphic artist Anthony Gerace are part of his Final Decline & Total Collapse series, which is supposed to impart, "a sense of melancholy and elegy, of nostalgia for eras that have passed, and the recognition of an era that is passing." Deepness. His portraits are also pretty incredible...check him out on Flickr here.

Amanda Peet's L.A. pad, as featured in this month's Vogue, is finally up online. With landscape design by Miranda Brooks captured as beautifully as ever by François Halard, you simply must check this out.

Oh, man, some summery foodie-ness to share...spiced black bean, grilled avocado and goat cheese tacos by Naturally Ella, Coffee Hazelnut ice cream from Top With Cinnamon and a summer salad of peaches, tomatoes and cherries with herbs via The Kitchy Kitchen. Someone make it all for me? There's a hug in this bargain for you!

Die Antwoord just released the video for their new single, Baby's On Fire (my favorite track off their 2011 album, Tension). It's a bit like a John Waters-cum-Quentin Tarantino John Hughes movie, or at least definitely a lot less creepy than their video for I Fink U Freeky.

Happy Friday! Get your fix of *fruity weekend fun on Instagram @thisfruitsnaps

PARTING SHOTS

Because I'm boarding a train to New York in an hour, but am pretty sure a force field would bar me from entering if I didn't first blog these...

01 Chelsea drew an impromptu portrait of me eating a cookie. It's pretty accurate.

02 From my "last supper" with my family at C&O.

03 My last lil' pillow project from work! Not to toot my own "taste horn" (is that a thing? and do I want to be tooting it?), but writer Zadie Smith has a chaise lounge upholstered in this same GP & J Baker linen in her dressing room, as seen in Vogue, and elements of the print climbing the walls. It's pretty awesome and I'm damn classy, is my point.

04 Me with my cousin's lil'un's! A sweet visit right before I hit the road.

05 And I can't help but share the almond tart Chelsea made me, topped with self-churned (is that right?) lavender-chamomile ice cream and garnished with mint. Damn!

06 A goodbye toast with friends...bon voyage!

DEAR INTERNET No. 20

Oh, look! Asian guys! Where'd they come from? The internet. Long story short, I discovered two amaaaaazing new street style blogs that chronicle the sartorial splendor of my potential future husbands (here's looking at you, dude in picture 1), photographer James Bent's La Mode Outré (bottom photo) and Hoya Snap (top three).

Ah, Spring...the warmer weather makes me want a new bag, preferably akin to this sexy Dries Van Noten number.

I've been pinning lots of pretty gardens lately! Look at them here and dream about garden parties with me.

Also on Pinterest - I recently caved in and started a food board. It's mostly for the photography because cooking is hard, but these recipes from Hungry Ghost and Tartelette look so good they're bound to taste all kinds of wonderful.

Pictureplane is all I've been listening to lately. The video above is pretty much why the term "mindf*ck" was invented (latex bodysuit!), but the music is just awesome. Check him out on Soundcloud here.

All of the images in this post link back to their original site! Click through to see them in context...

TWERKING FOR THE WEEKEND

1) I tried on these boys' size 12 pants at Gap. Don't judge me! Does it help or hurt to say a 14 would've been a better fit? Regardless, what do we think of the color? Good green/bad green?

2) I went to Sephora...summer "beautine" post coming soon!

3) I picked up some decor 'zines for Sunday morning reading time - my favorite home was a Kenyan cabin featured in WoI.
4) Chelsea is back in town and we're already making great life choices together. Crop tops are so hot right now.
5) Is there anything better than waking up and remembering you purchased all the ingredients for a wonderful brunch at the farmer's market? Scrambled eggs with cheddar and chives plus some pan-fried potatoes...yum!

Follow me on Instagram @xoxofruitpunch to get instant access to all these hot pics PLUS a complimentary nylon fanny pack embroidered with my winking face.

[EATING] ARUGULA + APPLE SALAD

I've made this salad twice now for guests and it's an absolute sensation. Local apples (available here) and local arugula and mixed greens (available here) with walnuts and a homemade Moscatel vinaigrette. Grate some Parmigiano Reggiano overtop, et voilà! To make your own vinaigrette, pick your preferred vinegar (Moscatel is particularly sweet and pairs well with the apples) and mix it 1:3 with olive oil. Add a dash of salt and pepper and a spoonful of honey, then shake.

Like this post? Check out the recipe for one of my favorite soups here, then satisfy your sweet tooth with decadent chocolate pots!