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Public Enemy #1. Don't let that pink dress fool you. She is vicious! Especially if you pretend to attack her dad, Jason.

Our Supper Club is an exclusive group, but the hosts get to invite guests every month. With a core group of eleven people and one nasty little dog, most of our tables are bursting at 13-14 dinner guests. Bella is my new nemesis. I do provoke her every chance I get but I kind of find it amusing to scrap around with a five pound dog once a month. Anyhow, that's another story. We get a lot of jokesters (also known as OUR FRIENDS) who like to complain about not getting an invite. I have to share this facebook comment from our friend Jamie. He is so sarcastic, love him. Well, he heavily hinted at wanting to come to Supper Club for the last week or so and thanks to Matt and Sloane, we will finally be including him. But just this once.

Dashing Bobby

Image Source:  Keiko Lynn

Now this is how you wear a bow tie and vest. This is the boyfriend of one of my favorite style bloggers, Keiko Lynn. She has an amazing sense of style, makes her own clothes and is a whiz at make up. She's so awesome and I'm so jealous.

Image Source: Keiko Lynn

New Dress

My new favorite place to find cheap vintage dresses is Cowtown Mall on 31st and Gilham. This one was $5! The length is okay, but I'm going to hem it up and make it a mini dress instead. What do you think of my boots? Kat gave these vintage leather beauties to Jeanne, but since Jeanne has monkey feet (her words not mine), she gave them to me. They're a smidge too big, but with inserts and thick socks, they are absolutely perfect. Everything in this outfit is either vintage and/or gifted.

* Vintage Liz Roberts Inc. Dress from Cowtown Mall - $5

* Vintage Corelli Boots - gift from Jeanne

* Vintage Blue Blet - $1

* Owl Necklace - gift from Tina

* Jade Bracelet - gift from my mom

* Gold Bracelets - $1.50

April Supper Club

Instead of cleaning and setting the perfect table for Supper Club this month, I made a hand-drawn, hand-colored poster. It only took about three hours, hahahaa. In hindsight, I probably should have showered and set the table before I started this project, but I honestly thought I could whip it out in say, half an hour. Of all the ways I've decorated the table, this little poster got a better reaction from my guests than any flowers, candles or napkins. It was so great seeing everyone ooh and ahh over it.

George and I hosted this month's supper club at Chez Bristow and the theme was Fast Food. Our instructions: choose a fast food restaurant, your favorite item from their menu and create your own version of it. Usually I am much better prepared to host, but I've lost track of the days recently. Time is flying by and it was our turn before I knew or was ready for it. The last minute prepping could have led to what I had jokingly called "Mass Hysteria Supper Club Meltdown." Instead, we all ended up in the kitchen, falling over all each other laughing and ended up having a wonderful time. For the food pictures, I "enhanced" everything in iPhoto to play up the artificial colors that remind me of fast food. Unfortunately, Rachel made all of her ingredients herself, even the bun, and it was disgustingly delicious. I think we all went into a food coma last night. A big thank you to my friends for another fabulous Supper Club!

Kansas City Snapshots

This week, Tina and I were out earlier than usual for The Employee Lounge to catch up with some brunch places for the blog. That left us driving around the city on a busy Friday lunch hour unable to shoot or talk to any more employees. It was cold and gray, but the cloudy skies provided great light. We turned the lens around to the city and I snuck out my camera too.

As an amateur photographer, I am always intimidated by real photographers, their knowledge, their backgrounds and especially their big, fancy cameras. I bought and love my DSLR but for me, it's just a bigger point and shoot. My list of things to learn grows by the day and one of them is definitely grasping F-stops and other photography lingo to really understand my camera and what it can do.

Thankfully, Tina graciously offered to teach me some tricks and pumped me up with flattery. I am excited to see what she captured that day and I'll link to her as soon as she posts. Click here to see Tina's view of KC.

Top to Bottom: 

(1) Top of Building and gray skies taken on Jefferson off Summit. (2) Really raw almonds at the spice store in City Market (3) Railroad tracks from Beardsley Road (4+5) My muddy, then semi-clean wellies (6) Ceiling art at Spool in the Crossroads (7) Birdies' bikinis seen from the outside (8) A graffti art wall on 18th Street (9) A plane attached to the telephone pole in the Crossroads All photos taken by Linh Trieu ©Fresh Fish Creative

Love Your City

City Market from Jon Lemmon on Vimeo.

Great video by Jon Lemmon of our beloved City Market and I absolutely love the shirt worn by the girl in the video. After years of admiring other city's open markets, like Pike Place in Seattle, and all the farmer's markets in Santa Barbara, I have finally come to realize that our market is just as awesome. Not that I haven't always liked it, but with the new(ish) signage, the garage sales on Sundays, the new businesses reinvigorating the area, it's all coming together for me.

Vietnamese Banana Cake

I took a visit to the City Market this week and got a ton of veggies for $10.50. Only half my haul is pictured above. The same produce at the supermarket would have been at least 3-4 times as expensive. It's not as convenient and you do have to plan ahead, but I definitely need to make more of an effort to go down there! A lot of times, there are "on their last legs" produce offered, like these super ripe bananas which were $1 for an entire basket.

I found this recipe for Vietnamese Baked Banana Cake on Almost Bourdain and it sounded like my mom's banana cake. It didn't look like hers, but I gave it a go because the recipe and steps sounded so ridiculously simple that even a novice baker like myself could make it. The end result was a deliciously rich, banana-y dessert that I will be making again soon. Very soon. Because I still have more bananas! I much prefer it hot out of the oven, but traditionally it is eaten cold. And next time, I think some whipped cream or ice cream would make this standout dessert even more amazing.

Bananas are so easy to prep! Peeling and slicing only took moments. Then some caster sugar was added to give the bananas a nice syrupy coat. The rest of the ingredients (eggs, butter, flour and condensed milk) got mixed together and the bananas folded in. That's 20 minutes AT THE MOST. I didn't have a deep round cake pan like they had shown over at Almost Bourdain, so I used a rectangular pan instead and it tasted just as good. I just sliced them into squares and rectangles instead of pie shapes. All the sugar gave it a crispy crust with the filling being a hot custardy texture. The house smelled like heaven.

The next morning, I wrapped them up in some cellophane and butcher paper and tied it up nicely with my unending supply of baker's twine. Over at The Employee Lounge (my other blog), we recently chose an Employee of the Month and an Honorable Mention. Along with their gifts, I also delivered some home-made banana cake. Short story long, this is a great dessert, hot or cold and easy to make. Definitely give it a try.