More green

How was your weekend?  Mine was wonderful!  It always feels so nice to have an extra day off.  My weekend consisted of BBQs, wonderful friends, lots of dog snuggles, the Portland art museum, shopping, and a macaron-making spree.

On Saturday, I went to Adorn for the first time.  It's a local boutique that I had heard lots of good things about.  Of course, I found a new dress!  It was handmade here in Portland by Clair Vintage.  I've already worn it twice.  I knew that I made a good purchase when I ended up wearing the same day I bought it:)  That's always a good sign, right?     

 

Dress:  Clair Vintage via Adorn
Cardigan:  J. Crew Jackie
Shoes:  Anthropologie
Necklace:  Vintage

Color inspiration courtesy of the Portland Art Museum:

Green jeans (Paris OOTD)

 Here is another outfit from my Paris trip.  As I mentioned, the weather ruined my plan of wearing mostly dresses, so the denim I brought along came in handy.  I think I love my purple stevies the most, but these green ones are pretty awesome too. 

Top:  Anthropologie
Jeans:  AG Stevies via Anthropologie
Cardigan:  J. Crew Jackie
Shoes:  Gee WaWa oxfords


Here are a few more random photos from the trip.

Rawr

Notre-Dame of Reims

Notre-Dame of Reims Detail 

 

 

 

I can't stop posting pictures of delicious food:)

This photo kind of makes it look like a beautiful day, but this was taken about 3 minutes before a hail storm.  Yes, hail (and rain/wind) at the Eiffel tower!

Taking photos at the flea market

Cheers!

TGV train

At Centre Pompidou

 

Weekend

I hope your weekend is beautiful, restorative, and full of delicious things!

Breakfast in Paris

Paris apartment and purple jeans

After seeing the purple AG Stevies on Molly (here), I knew I needed to track a pair down!  My size was sold out online, and I ended up having to call around to quite a few stores to find them.  Luckily, they arrived just in time for my trip to Paris:)  I planned on wearing mostly dresses, but the weather did not cooperate so I was happy that I brought these jeans along.  Below are 2 outfits from my trip featuring these lovelies.
 

 These are not the best outfit photos, but you get the idea (plus I get to sneak in more vacation stuff!).

We found an apartment to rent in Paris via airbnb.  I highly recommend doing this!  In my opinion, it is so much better than staying in a hotel.  Our apartment was beautiful, cozy, and convenient.  The transaction with the owner was wonderful and it was a good experience all around.  It was so nice having the place to ourselves, having a full kitchen to cook in, having a washer/dryer, etc. 

Eiffel Tower

Cami:  Calvin Klein
Top:  Anthropologie Camellia Blouse
Cardi:  Anthropologie Field Game Cardigan
Jeans:  AG Stevie Ankle jeans via anthroplogie
Shoes:  Gee WaWa oxfords

We spent a good portion of one day visiting the Clignancourt flea market.  It was fun to walk around and look at all of the beautiful things I wish  I could have somehow gotten back to the states with me:)

Too bad I'm holding my huge coat in all of these pictures  - otherwise you may have been able to actually see the outfit!

Top:  Anthropologie Trace the Stars blouse

Cardigan:  J. Crew Jackie

Jeans:  AG Stevie ankle jeans

Shoes:  Gee WaWa oxfords

Necklace:  J. Crew

Bag:  Anthropologie

One of the prettiest things I saw at the flea market was this wall  paper.  Ahhhh, Love it!

Let's talk macarons

Macaron - a sweet meringue-based confectionery made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food coloring. The macaron is commonly filled with ganache, buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies.

The confectionery is characterised by its smooth, domed top, ruffled circumference (referred to as the "foot"), and flat base. It is mildly moist and easily melts in the mouth (from Wikipedia).


I decided to go on a bit of a macaron tasting spree while in Paris.  After reading this post on Feather Factor, I knew where to start!  Of course, you have to consume macarons while in Paris, but I wanted to try the best of the best and find out for myself what makes them so wonderful. 

#1  Pierre Herme

The absolute best, in my opinion.  Although I don't have many pictures to show off, these are definitely at the top of my list.  The macarons were delicate, beautiful, and delicious.  The texture was perfect and they offer very creative flavors (jasmine was my favorite).  I don't have much to say - these were simply perfect.   

 #2 Laduree

Although these weren't quite on par with Pierre Herme in terms of texture or creative flavors, they were still wonderful.  I think that what makes Laduree really special, is the presentation/packaging.  Every single item in the store was beautiful - very fancy, very Parisian.  Although it was quite crowded, I did not want to leave!  It was such a lovely place. I wanted to look around and browse, but it was too busy and you end up kind of being herded through the line.  Even so, I loved it.  The cherry blossom and orange blossom were my favorites here. 

At the park, getting ready to dig in!

Candles

Pretty ribbon they use for packaging

lovely box, lovely macarons:)

Current flavors

#3  La Petite Friande

We stumbled upon this little shop in Reims, France.  When I saw the huge macaron tower in the window, I had to go in!  That turned out to be a good choice.  Although the presentation/packaging doesn't hold a candle to Laduree, the macarons sure do.  They had a lot of flavor options; some passion fruit combination turned out to be my favorite here, although I can't quite remember what it was combined with.  This little shops main attraction was homemade chocolate, which made Ben happy.  His rocher was out-of-this-world good.    

 


 Tell me about your macaron experiences!  Favorite flavor?  Favorite shop? Have you ever tried to make macarons? 

The good stuff

I have so much to share from our Paris honeymoon.  I don't know where to start, but I figure dessert is a pretty good place:)  I am a big dessert fan.  I always save room for dessert and if I have to choose between sweet and salty, I always go sweet.

The neighborhood we stayed in was full of fabulous boulangeries, fromageries, wine shops, etc.  Just on the very short walk from our apartment to the metro, we passed 3 boulangeries.  One of them quickly became a favorite and we ended up there twice a day most days.  Ben would go in the morning and get baguettes/croissants for breakfast and then we would go again in the evening to pick up dessert.  One of my favorite things about the trip was letting my guard down and eating whatever I wanted, even if that meant eating a delicious, chocolatey dessert right after a breakfast of cheese/baguette and croissant.     

So many choices! 

I LOVE how they packaged each item.  They made it seem so special and so pretty. 

Creme Brulee

This is Baba au Rhum from Le Cameleon.  See that big bottle of rum?  Yep, they live that at your table so that you can drench the cake with rum to your liking.   Dangerous.

Rocher and red wine.  Perfection.

Nutella Crepe

We decided to have after-breakfast dessert one morning.  It was our honeymoon after all:)

Apple cake, ice cream, whipped cream goodness from one of our favorite restaurants, aux petits oignons.

The macarons deserve their own post:)

Hope you all are enjoying the weekend!