Upcoming Events: Food, Drink, Crafts & More! - Spring 2015

It's April, and that means all of the fun spring and summer events are starting up again!  Last year, I shared my plans, and I dare say that the next few months are even busier!  There are some old favorites that I visit every year, plus a few new kids on the block that I'm excited to see for the first time.  If you plan on going to any of these events, let me know!


Jump to:

• 4/16 = Oh Joy! Book Launch Party
• 4/18 = Whitney Port Appearance
• 4/25 & 4/26 = Jackalope Arts Fair
• 4/25 & 4/26 = Artisanal L.A.
• 4/25 = Newport Beach Beerfest
• 4/26 = Vintage Bouquet
• 5/2 = Sabroso Craft Beer & Taco Festival
• 5/9 & 5/10 = Unique L.A.
• 5/16 = Bite at the Beach
• 5/24 = Patchwork Santa Ana
• 6/6 = Tacolandia
• 6/7 = Penelope Lane Boutique
• 6/27 = Patchwork Long Beach
• 7/11 = L.A. Street Food Fest
• 7/11 & 7/12 = Renegade Craft Market

Oh Joy! 60 Ways to Create & Give Joy Book Launch Party!

Joy Cho is one of the bloggers, and I'm look forward to checking out her new book at next week's launch party!

Oh Joy! 60 Ways to Create & Give Joy Book Launch Party at West Elm LA!
Date:  April 16, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Location:  west elm, 8366 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048
More Info & RSVP:  https://ohjoyla.eventbrite.com

Whitney Port Personal Appearance

My friend and I just had to go to this because it's so L.A.!  She'll be showing off her latest Whitney Eve designs and sharing some fun freebies too.  Fun!

Whitney Port Personal Appearance
Date:  April 18, 2 pm - 4 pm
Location:  Nordstrom The Grove, 189 The Grove Drive Los Angeles, CA 90036
More Info & RSVP:  http://shop.nordstrom.com/st/nordstrom-the-grove/Whitney-Port-Personal-Appearance-for-Whitney-Eve/64026

Jackalope Arts Fair

This is a totally new art fair that I am pumped to check out!  Over 200 local artisans, crafters, and DIY enthusiasts will be bringing their locally handcrafted goods to the community over two days!  They have two other locations in Denver and Phoenix, so my readers from those cities will be able to find the quality artisans that have been curated by the talented founders of Jackalope Arts.  Nice!

I found some of my amazing Shop Small Saturday Showcase features on their vendor list, so I will definitely be catching up with Clay & Fabric, Foxboxes, Hallo Jak, Kheel's, Squshies, TeaDrops, Wood Brain, and Zazu Faure.  Then, I will be sure to find some fresh new shops for future features to share with you all!  So excited!

Jackalope Arts Fair
Dates:  April 25 & 26, 11 am - 6 pm
Location:  275 S Raymond Ave, Pasadena, CA 91105
Tickets:  FREE
More Info:  http://www.jackalopeartfair.com

Artisanal L.A.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: L.A. events & O.C. shopping!

I had so, so much fun this week!  A couple of amazing events in L.A. and so much fun with friends and family.  Let's get to it!


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Crave Expo, The OC Mix
• Eats:  Lobster Roll Rumble, N'ice Cream, Long Beach Cocktail Hop, Industriel

Crave Expo

Mid-week, I went to the Crave Expo, a food expo with a fun mix of chefs, event planners, media, and individuals looking for inspiration.

I was just a bit more interested in the food than anything else, of course.  :)

However, I found some great desserts that may be destined for my sister's engagement party, bridal shower, or wedding some time soon!

It was a fun time with some serious party atmosphere!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Sake Express, Renegade Craft Fair, and more!

Last weekend was so much fun, because I was REALLY looking forward to Renegade for the longest time.  At the last moment, I thought that I wouldn't be able to make it yet again... but luckily I did.  :) Let's get to the wrap-up!


Precap (Jump to):

• Sights:  National Dance Day, Renegade Craft Festival
• Eats:  The Oinkster, Sake Express, Fugetsu-Do

I was stuck way out in the middle of nowhere (a.k.a. Sierra Madre) and dinner plans had changed.  So, we visited one of my favorite spots: The Oinkster!

Besides the awesome burgers, a pastrami sandwich, piggy fries, and an ube milkshake, we had this banana split cupcake!  To see more delicious photos and one of my favorite signs of all time, head over to The Episodic Eater.

On Friday, we went to Sake Express, a fundraiser held at the iconic  Union Station!

There was tons of sake, beer, and plum wine to try.  :)

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Wrap-Up: Craft-Shows Galore

Last week, I shared my wrap-up on all the food adventures that you missed out on while I was studying for my test.  There was so much food, that I had to break it up into Part 1 & Part 2!

In the last several weeks, I attended a few fun craft events that I wanted to share with you.  It was so much fun, and this is just a fraction of the pictures I took of all the fun.  Exciting!


In this post (jump to):

• Etsy Craft Party at Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles
• Penelope Lane Boutique
• L.A. Sewing Blogger Meet-Up

Etsy Craft Party at Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles

On June 6th, Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, held the 3rd annual Etsy Craft Party on their grounds.  It was so much fun!

Crafted just celebrated their 2nd anniversary, so they had lovely totes for anyone who Instagram-ed and tagged a picture of the event.  It was a good idea to tote all of the craft party items back home!

Here are a few of the projects that were set up all around the area.  The cute succulent mason jar in the middle was featured on the morning news!

There were also free craft booths where you could make cute projects.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Exploring L.A.!

Originally, I had zero plans for this weekend, but then my friend and I decided to catch a last minute craft fair and have fun being tourists in our own city!


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Echo Park Craft Fair, Echo Park, Carroll Avenue, Grand Park, Walt Disney Concert Hall
• Eats:  Oaxacan Quesadilla Cart, Bouchon Bistro, Lucille's Smokehouse BBQ, Creme de la Crepe

I invited my friend to go to the Echo Park Craft Fair, which was not in my original upcoming events post.  It seemed like it might be cool and had some shops I hadn't seen before, so we met up!

It was kind of a strange craft show: very crowded, dark, and not conducive to showing off the best of the goods.  Still, I did find some awesome features for Shop Small Saturday Showcase!

However, outside the craft fair was something pretty awesome: the Oaxacan Quesadilla Cart!

The fresh, handmade blue corn tortillas were shaped and formed for a long line of hungry people.  To see the whole process and where to find the cart, check out The Episodic Eater!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Delicious food & Unique LA show!

This was one action packed week!  We celebrated, ate, shopped, and really had a whirlwind of a time.  Let's get to it!


Precap (jump to):

• Eats:  Forage, Brite Spot, Guisado's, Providence, La Tavolata, 85°C Bakery Cafe
• Sights:  Dad's wine birthday, Unique LA, Banksy in L.A., Driving in L.A., Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

This week was my dad's birthday, so he decided to open up a ton of his wines.  This is only 1/3 of the bottles, but I know how much fun they had.  My guy was especially excited to try some of these, since he is becoming an amateur connoisseur, following in my father's footsteps.  :)

I was more interested in the pickles, olives, and corks that my father's chef friends brought.  I always have dibs on the corks and I may have pilfered a jar or two.  :)

The next day, my friend and I went to Unique LA!  I loved the holiday show a few months ago, which I recapped here.  :)  I actually think this one was better!

It was held at the California Market Center on the penthouse floor, with a pretty fantastic view all around the L.A. skyline!  By the way, for any of you street art lovers, my friend pointed out the Banksy at the bottom of the photo.  There was a second one that I was unsure about though on the roof.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Artisanal LA & more!

This weekend was really fun and the start to the craft show season, as I mentioned in last week's post of upcoming events.  Let's get to it!


Precap (jump to):

• Eats:  Casa Inka
• Sights:  Artisanal LA

On Saturday, my guy went to a beer festival with some of his friends and although it would have been fun, I ended up catching up with my friend.   We spent a ton of time chatting about blogging and how to get started.  Sometimes we are crafty and cook together, but it was just a major gabfest!  P.S. - She is the one I mentioned in my Blogging 101 series post yesterday.  :)


Afterwards, we met with my family at Casa Inka and had yet another Peruvian meal!  This time it was much more casual and traditional.  :)  This dish was absolutely fantastic!

And how could you go to a Peruvian restaurant without ordering ceviche!  For more, including the beautiful and tasty fish, chicken, and vegetable dishes that we ordered, visit The Episodic Eater for the full meal and photos!

The next day, my guy and I hit up Artisanal LA.  I was extremely excited to go because this was my first show and I could finally make it!

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Upcoming Food/Craft/Sewing Events + Meet Me :)

Oh my word.  In the next month, I have so many events to attend!  In fact, there is a weekend with three different events plus my dad's birthday, so I have to skip a couple.  However, I wanted to share a few of the awesome events that I will be attending in Southern California over the next couple months.  Let me know if you'll be attending and we can meet up!


Jump to:

• 4/26 & 27 = Artisanal L.A.
• 4/29 = TEAVANA & Starbucks Oprah Chai Tea Launch!
• 5/2 & 5/3 = Queen Bee Market
• 5/3 & 5/4 = Unique L.A.
• 5/17 = Bite at the Beach
• 5/25 = Patchwork Long Beach
• 6/14 = LA Blogger Meet Up
• 6/15 = Patchwork Santa Ana

Check out the events below.  So much good stuff!

Artisanal LA: 

This weekend, they are having a wonderful food event in Downtown L.A., which I am excited to attend!  Past Shop Small Saturday Showcase features, Pernicious Pickling Co. & Moxxie Essential Care, will be there and I can't wait to say hello and meet some new friends!

I will be there on Sunday if anyone wants to meet up!  More info here: http://artisanalla.com

Artisanal LA
Dates:  April 26 - 27, 11a - 6p
Location:  LA Mart: 1933 Broadway, Downtown L.A.
Tickets: $12.50 + 1.65 processing fee

TEAVANA & Starbucks Oprah Chai Tea Launch:

Yesterday, I had the privilege to sample the Oprah Chai Tea that will be rolling out in Starbucks and TEAVANA stores across the country on April 29th.  I Instagram-ed this picture below, but I have so much more to share with you soon!  I have a sneak peek on The Episodic Eater right now, but believe me, you definitely need to try it when it is available in less than a week.  I know I'll be in line!

For more info, click here!

TEAVANA & Starbucks Oprah Chai Tea Launch
Date:  April 29th
Locations:  TEAVANA & Starbucks stores, worldwide!

Queen Bee Market:

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Weekly Wrap-Up: New Food Adventures!

This weekend, we had a bunch of fun things to do and I tried three new restaurants for the first time. Triple fun!


Precap:

• Sights:  Registering for my sister's wedding with a not-so-fun moment
• Eats:  Cucina Enoteca, The Grilled Cheese Spot, Cafe Gratitude

On Saturday, we went to a beautiful restaurant called Cucina Enoteca to meet up with some of my guy's high school friends.  It was very inspiring for the future garden!

We ordered this amazing pizza.  Just delicious!  I seriously can't pick out what the best dish of the day was, and if you want to see the whole meal along with gorgeous tablescape inspiration, click on over to The Episodic Eater!

I was inspired by someone's delicious grilled cheese, so we hit up The Grilled Cheese Spot on the way back.  It was the restaurant that I actually wanted to go to when we went to Izalco a couple of weeks back.  Boy, was it worth the wait!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Food & Fun Errands... Yes, FUN errands!

This week was a blur and with so much work to be done, I saved up a few errands for the weekend.  But I snuck a couple of fun ones into the mix and with a bunch of restaurants to try, it was a really fun week!


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  shopping for a new Tory Burch wallet!, squash cooking, tamale-making party
• Eats:  Amor Y Tacos, cha2o

Friday

Once again, I had my woodworking class and I finished up my second project ever!  I do promise to share the final projects with you, but I want to make sure I have them stained, painted, and sealed before I take the pictures...and I'm honestly a bit nervous to finish them up!  Soon though, soon...

I visited Amor Y Tacos again (remember the first time?) and it was soooo good!  Nothing could beat the Amor Chile Relleno Burger, but I'm going to visit again soon...  you know for research purposes!  Check out the whole meal, including some scrumptious tacos on The Episodic Eater.

Saturday

We had a bunch of errands to do, but first we met up with my mom and sister for a quick lunch at cha2o, including this Veggie Hot Pot.  Check it all out here!

One of my fun errands was getting to shop for a wallet!  My current pink one was huge and about 10 years old.  I did love the amount of storage and the fact that it was easy to pick out of a dark purse.  I received the Tory Burch one below for Christmas, but it was much too small for all of my wallet contents.  I would have needed a second wallet!  I was in serious angst about returning a gift, but I just knew it would sit around collecting dust.  :(

I did some research and found out that it only came in this size, but I could exchange it and see if there was something else that I could use.  Fun!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Lots of food & celebrating!

This has been a ridiculously busy week with a ton of restaurants, home decisions, and wedding planning!  Let's get to the recap!


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Izalco, AnQi Gourmet Bistro & Noodle Bar, Utopia
• Eats:  Woodburning, Picking out home upgrades, Taste of Downtown Long Beach, Make Collectives

I was buying some supplies, and found myself next to Michael's.  I couldn't help but popping in, especially because I had a gift card!  After hemming and hawing, I bought this woodburning tool since I thought it would be an interesting way to decorate my woodworking projects.

My man made this bullseye.  Not bad!

You might remember from this week's announcement that we found a new house!  It was time to pick a few new finishes, but we decided to keep everything pretty standard and DIY projects along the way.  YESSSSSS!  Oh, can you tell that I'm excited?

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Quick Big Game Chili & Our Football Snack Spread!

We love having people over for weekly football parties, but it can definitely be a ton of work and expensive to host everyone!  For this week, I streamlined everything from our shopping to the menu, to make sure that we were spending our time and money wisely.  That meant a late night trip to Smart & Final, so we only had to make one stop for all of our party needs.  For the menu, I needed something quick and hearty, so I bought all of the ingredients for my crowd-pleasing quick big game chili recipe.  Then, we added a bunch of pre-packaged party snacks to complete the spread!

Over the weeks, I have figured out the hits and the misses that our football crowd loves, and I would love to share my tips for putting together a quick game time snack spread with you plus one crowd-pleasing recipe!

Here are just some of supplies that we bought.  All of the Simply Value paper products, tortilla chips, guacamole, fresh veggies, hummus, everything for our chili, and mini waffles for the kids'  chicken & waffle sliders.  After snapping a quick photo, we rounded up the rest of the stuff and were out of there lickety split!  The best part of Smart & Final is that I can buy everything in one store and I can buy both warehouse size & regular size items in one place.  Soooo convenient and budget-friendly!

Right before company comes over, I start the chili and it is a HUGE pot!  Here is my quick chili recipe, so you don't spend the whole day slaving over a hot stove or waiting for the slow cooker.  I use some shortcuts so I can minimize my time chopping veggies.  :)

Quick Big Game Chili
A Vintage Zest original

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Delicious Outings & Sad Farewell to a Friend

It was a roller coaster kind of week, and here is the wrap up of it all.

Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Mitsuwa marketplace tour, Farewell to a friend
• Eats:  Il Fornaio, Mitsuwa bakery items, Christy's on Broadway

We were still recuperating from New Years Eve when we were invited to go to Il Fornaio.  It looks delicious, doesn't it?

The restaurant itself is gorgeous!  To see all of the delicious food, including the Pappardelle Gialla ai Funghi I ordered, see the post here on The Episodic Eater.

I was in the area, so I went to Mitsuwa Marketplace to do a little shopping!  I have a sweet tooth, so it's pretty hard for me not to stock up.  :)

Also, there are tons of authentic Japanese items and so many options, like these soy sauces.  To see the entire tour, including the most perfect little mochi cake I have ever seen, click here on The Episodic Eater!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, B-day dinner & X-mas!

It's the last weekly wrap-up of the 2013!  I cannot believe how time flies!  These weekly wrap-ups have totally evolved this past year, but I'll chat about it a bit later.  :)


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, Christmas!
• Eats:  FIG & OLIVE

Saturday

I convinced my guy that we should head to Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles for some last minute Christmas shopping!

It is located in San Pedro where the weather is absolutely amazing!  For this weekend, there was a special little Mom and Pop Up shop from the SoCal Etsy Guild for the holidays.

But first, I had to pop in and say hello to my friends at the Artisan Candle Company, who mentioned that I should drop by their permanent store after meeting them at Patchwork Santa Ana.  What a great suggestion!  On Instagram, I shared the candle that I picked out here.  It was a really hard choice!

It was especially a fun time because we were introduced to the Crafted's Executive Director and Leasing Director, who gave us a tour and introduced us around a bit.  Also, they gave us an inside scoop on their current location and their plans to open up a brewery, testing kitchen, and food artisan selling area for the building next door.  It sounds amazing, and I can't wait for that to open up!  By the way, this is all after filming their three separate segments on KTLA and staying up late for the Happy Hour shopping the previous day.  How nice of them, right?

Also, I had a chance to visit more vendors that I can't wait to feature on the Shop Small Saturday Showcase series soon.  I loved so many of the vendors, and my guy enjoyed his beer tasting while I did my rounds.  See, it is perfect for both crafty and non-crafty folks!  :)

Here are a few pictures from the non-vendor areas of Crafted.  A DIY ornament station, a photo booth, a free gift wrapping station, and a 10 foot tall wire baby art piece.  Yep, you read that right!

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