Tag Archives: Chocolate

Fashionably Late: Catching Up on 2016 Events!

I know I’ve been very laxed when it comes to my blogging lately, and I apologize! My son has been away at his grandparents in Las Vegas for the last two weeks, so I have to confess that I’ve been catching up on some much-needed sleep. But now to get caught up on my blogging, I’m posting about events that I missed over the last few months. I’ll also be putting up my concert catch up posts and I think I’ll be all caught and ready to put up my newest posts about recent events and product reviews!

DANCE DANCE RESOLUTION – 1/31/16

My husband and I were invited by Delicious Buzz to attend the “Dance Dance Resolution” event presented by the international travel company Gogobot San Diego and a local non-profit organization, The Seany Foundation. It was held at The Rancho Santa Fe Motor Club & Storage and although it was quite the storm outside, it was a fun night of food, drinks, dance battles and pug kisses by Chole (with her mommy Heather of The Stylish Bisou).

THE BEAT CLOTHING SPRING FASHION SHOW – 2/21/16

Back in February, The Beat Clothing stylist Astrid Montalvo invited me to check out her fashion show in Carlsbad. Unfortunately due to some scheduling issues, my niece, Mei-Lin and I missed the actual fashion show, but I got to photograph some of the lovely models afterwards, and Mei snapped a picture of me with Astrid!

LATINO FILM FEST FASHION SHOW AT FASHION VALLEY – 3/18/16

Bloggers were invited to attend Fashion Valley’s 2nd annual “Celebration of Fashion” runway show for the 23rd annual San Diego Latino Film Festival. The event was emceed by Paola Hernández-Jiao and Abelardo Rodriguez and featured men’s and women’s fashion. My favorite was the fringed skirt by Scotch & Soda, featured in the video above. Look at that swing!

BERRY BEST CHOCOLATE FEST – 3/19/16

My mother-in-law had a booth for Bathologie, one of her direct sales companies at The Berry Best Chocolate Fest at Liberty Station, so I took that opportunity to hang out with my son and enjoy the festivities. Rather than all of the wonderful chocolate, Dominic decided he actually loved the Belgian waffles from the Marcel Waffle Truck. I wholeheartedly agree!

RECORD STORE DAY 2016 – 4/16/16

I spent Record Store Day this year at Record City in Hillcrest with my friend Rob and blogger friend Laura of Laura Neuzeth. This was probably the most organized RSD I had ever been to, and I think I found a new spot for every RSD from now on! The trick is to get there incredibly early (I got there by 5:30 am and there were still people there before me) to ensure you get your choice of what you want. They didn’t have everything that I wanted from “The List” (post about it here), but I did come away with an awesome haul!

SPRING FLING EVENT AT GO GIRL SPA – 4/23/16

Also back in April, I attended the “Spring Fling Event” at Girl on the Go, a night spa in the Golden Hill area. I enjoyed the free cocktails, hanging out for a bit with Tatum from Love Tatum, and then I purchased a little something from Style on the Go. Of course, since the Marcel Waffle Truck made an appearance, I had to bring something home for Dominic!

Wine & Chocolate Tasting Event at the Beautiful Pantai Inn

Last Thursday, I was invited to attend a wonderful event for a great cause: Wine and chocolate tasting presented by R.A. Rauch & Associates with Eclipse Chocolate at the Pantai Inn in La Jolla, where the proceeds benefitted The Wounded Warrior Project. Prior to the tasting, I was afforded a tour by sales manager Paula Ruthenberg, who showed me around the Bali inspired hotel grounds and in one of the gorgeous luxury villas. I truly felt I was transported to another place because much of the décor, furnishings and carved art were imported directly from Bali. What a lovely backdrop to the decadence of wine paired with chocolate by Eclipse Chocolate. Thank you Kim Whittemore for the invite and everyone at Pantai Inn for a lovely evening!

The stunning views from the hotel were enhanced by soothing flamenco music by Anthony Garcia.

Entrance to the lobby.

The lobby area.

I love the Balinese details throughout the hotel, including Balinese translations of items around the lobby. Clever!

The entrance of “The Gathering Room” with a magnificent mural painted by artist Ed Piffard.

More from “The Gathering Room” where typically a Continental breakfast is served while overlooking the ocean view. Breathtaking!

Ray and Will of Eclipse Chocolate.

My favorite wine & chocolate pairing of the night was the port dessert wine paired with the Chile Burnt Caramel (pictured above). Separately, each had a tad more sweet and heat than I’m used to. Together, they balanced each other out into this smooth taste sensation.

Ray and Will with Robert Rauch of R.A. Rauch & Associates. Robert Rauch with Pantai Inn owner, Larry Jackman.

Moi! (Photo by Fritz Harmon Photography. All other photos in this post were taken by me.)

Pink Candles in My Burning Kitchen

Two weekends ago, I had the pleasure of meeting two local ladies who are food bloggers. Darlene of My Burning Kitchen discovered my blog due to a link on M-Theory’s Facebook page to my post about Peter Hook. She contacted me through Twitter and we started to chat. Through Darlene, I met the lovely rocker girl of Pink Candles at Ridgemont High (I will respect her choice to remain annonymous, so I’ll just call her Pink Candles). Both have posted very sweet comments on my blog, and through email exchanges, we discovered that we each have quite a few things in common, mainly to do with loving the 80’s. Darlene shares my love of Duran Duran and groups like Depeche Mode and New Order. Pink Candles is more a hard rocker, which actually equates to our mutual love of metallic spikes and edge in our style (she had killer boots on when we met up). After a few Tweets and many emails later, we decided it would be fun to meet up.

Pink Candles arranged when and where, which I fully supported because I definitely would trust food bloggers to pick a more than suitable place to eat! She choose the Eclipse Chocolat Bar & Bistro in eclectic South Park. It was the perfect time of day to have their Sweet & Savory Bunch special, which is $16 for three plates. After having a salted mocha with homemade marshmellows, I started brunch with the rosemary potato wedges in a burnt caramel hollandaise sauce. Very savory indeed! Sadly, I don’t recall what Darlene and Pink Candles each had for their starters.

Next we had our main dishes, all pictured below. Darlene had the grilled panini (left), I had the build-a-benedict topped with brown sugar-pulled pork with a chile burnt caramel hollandaise sauce (middle), and Pink Candles had the mushroom thyme quiche (right). We all shared bits of our main dishes with each other and although my dish was very good, I liked Pink Candles choice of quiche. That flaky pastry was quite heavenly.

We closed with the sweet portion of brunch. I think it was an accident that both Darlene and Pink Candles ordered the same dessert, which was the burnt caramel apple cobbler. Now, that was a very interesting and very savory dessert because it was spicy, sweet, creamy and rich. The chile burnt caramel hollandaise sauce blended well with my build-a-benedict so the heat of the spice was more mild. But the spice was very prominent when used over the cobbler. I’m going to have to bring my girls Janice and Regi here, because I have found a new favorite dessert, which was the frozen peanut butter mousse. All elements of this dessert worked so well together and I just couldn’t get enough, even though I was a bit full from my starter and main dish. Next time, I will go there just for that dessert with a cup of coffee. So. Good.

After brunch, we strolled around South Park for a little bit, taking in some shopping. Pink Candles bought a few goodies and I vowed to go back there after Lent and explore more in depth the stores that we visited that day: Bad Madge, The Make Good, Junc Life & Style and Graffiti Beach.

And finally, pictured below are the desserts that both Darlene and Pink Candles each made and brought to share (as the sole fashion blogger not knowing this food blogger ritual, I came empty handed). Pink Candles made the yummy blueberry mochi cake and Darlene made the equally delicious yellow cake with sour cream chocolate frosting (the cake & frosting recipes are on her blog here). Pink Candles even made beautiful earrings for each of us (I have wore my pair to the Alicia Keys concert). I like this ritual, and I will definitely bring something the next time we all meet up! I have found new friends in Darlene and Pink Candles, and you can be sure that this will not be the only time I go on an outting with these beautiful and fun food bloggers.

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