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Food and Drink

Food and Drink | Mothers’ Day in support of BC Women’s Hospital

Where are you taking your mom on Mothers’ Day? Haven’t quite decided yet? No worries: here are a few suggestions for you and your siblings to debate and discuss until the most enterprising one of you makes a reservation. On Sunday, May 14th, these Vancouver restaurants will donate 5% of their sales to fund the most urgent needs of BC Women’s Hospital:

Ask for Luigi
Bauhaus Restaurant (pictured)
Bella Gelateria
Go Fish
Juice Truck
La Mezcaleria
La Taqueria
Les Faux Bourgeois
Los Cuervos
Maenam
Merchants Oyster Bar
Pizzeria Bufala
Pizzeria Farina
Pourhouse
Sorella
The Sardine Can
H2 Rotisserie + Bar

So eat! Drink! Order dessert! It’ll be great for your mom, and a whole lot of other moms too.

Pinstagram | White dresses and watermelon onesies

The Anthology’s Pinstagram column marries the dream (Pinterest) and the reality (Kelsey Dundon’s Instagram photos of places and faces in and around Vancouver).

Park and Fifth Co

Wear white. Trying on bridesmaids dresses at Park & Fifth Co. + a dress that would be like wearing a cloud.

Baby pink

Baby pink. Learning to crawl (on the kitchen floor, no less) + the sweetest, summery-est outfit ever.

Kissa Tanto

Brass tacks. The beautifully decorated Kissa Tanto + a set of lights I could see fitting in beautifully there.

Dining room

Dining set. Elsa and Anna joined us for my book club brunch + a loft where I wouldn’t mind hosting my own brunch.

Olive Oil Cake

Homemade. Quite proud of my olive oil cake (so easy! so delicious!) + a berry crumble I’d love to test.

North Shore and Mountains

Trail running. Racing through the North Shore Mountains as fast as her short legs would carry her + a mountain lake I’d love my legs to hike me to.

P.S. There are more photos where these came from so follow @KelseyDundon on Instagram and Snapchat.

Cheers | Wild Vodka Lemonade

reese-witherspoon

I went about reading Wild in a very roundabout way, perhaps because I didn’t actually set out to read it at all. I saw the movie a while back when it became available on Netflix and liked it well enough. Then a few weeks back I was binge-listening to the Longform Podcast (one of my favourites) and was struck by the author Cheryl Strayed’s interview. It turned everything I assumed about the book on its head.

So I read it, loved it, was inspired by it. Not to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, mind you, but to toast to the sunshine.

Wybo and Lemonade June 2016

See, when I watched the movie and noticed a dramatic emphasis on Snapple Lemonade, I assumed that was product placement at its least subtle — I figured the book might have offhandedly mentioned lemonade once or twice and the movie capitalized on that by bringing on a Snapple sponsorship. And then I read the book and it sang the praises of that specific drink over and over again.

Which means the perfect cocktail pairing to go with Wild? Spiked lemonade. At my latest book club meeting (where we weren’t technically discussing Wild, but hey!) I brought vodka (thank you, Wyborowa!) and DIY lemonade: squeeze lemons, add a bit of sugar, then mix it up with a bit of soda and a shot of vodka.

It’s so simple, so delicious, so perfect for après an epic hike. Or at least reading about one.

P.S. Looking for another book/drink pairing? You’ll find a nice accompaniment to a Sandhill Merlot here.

Food and Drink | Topic Night

Savio Volpe 750

Every four weeks or so, a few of my closest girlfriends and I get together for dinner and drinks with a twist (on the evening, though sometimes also on the cocktails). We don’t have a good name for it — we often refer to it as Topic Night or Hot Topic — but it’s been such a great catalyst for interesting discussions that it’s become a beloved part of our schedules. Each time we meet, one of us is tasked with coming up with a topic to discuss; a friend who’s a creative lead at a major retailer chose fast fashion (at Les Faux Bourgeois), another who’s passionate about health chose the future of food (at Savio Volpe) — it can be anything at all. It’s kind of like the tiniest of TED talks.

Last night, at Grapes and Soda, I chose to talk about the nitty gritty of creativity. I broke it up into three questions. The first: what does your creative practice (sounds so pretentious, but hey!) look like? Do you get up at 4:00am every morning to sit at your computer while the city is still asleep and write for a few hours before your kid wakes up? (I have a friend who does this. Her dedication blows my mind.) Do you wait until you’re up against a deadline and then grab the biggest mug of coffee you can find and ride a wave of adrenaline and caffeine as you power through your task? That’s how I used to worked — I loved doing it that way. I miss doing it that way. Especially when I had an expanse of four or six hours when I could focus on nothing else. Now that I have two tiny little ones I’ve had to completely change how I get things done. I front load everything, get it out of the way as soon as I can because I never know if one of them is going to be up all night refusing to sleep, or up all day refusing to nap. I feel like I have no control over my schedule which has forced me to be very disciplined about the way I work.

Grapes and Soda

The second: how do you avoid burnout? That was a tough one. A few of my girlfriends are advocates of sabbaticals. One heard a theory that as long as you relax by doing the opposite of what you do all day, you can achieve some sort of balance. Another heard that as long as you’re not sacrificing whatever it is that’s most important to you, you’ll be able to withstand burnout. We talked in hypotheticals because none of us had actually managed to avoid it. We’d all felt it. Does it just come with working in a creative field?

The third: how do you feed your creative confidence? This was a funny one because we all approached it so differently. One of my girlfriends will always leave a sketchbook partly unfinished because as long as it’s a work in progress, she won’t judge it. When I paint I take the opposite approach — I try to fill up a book as quickly as possible to maintain momentum. If I stopped to evaluate what I was doing then I’d probably give up and where’s the fun in that? Another girlfriend advocates for being bold, pushing the boundaries, even if that means your work might go down in a blaze of glory, at least it made an impact.

Topic Night: such a terrible name for such a wonderful tradition.

Pinstagram | U-S-H-E-R R-A-Y-M-O-N-D

The Anthology’s Pinstagram column marries the dream (Pinterest) and the reality (Kelsey Dundon’s Instagram photos of places and faces in and around Vancouver).

Army green

#OOTD. Wearing an Usher shirt to the Bieber concert + a more dressed-up take on army green.

Tiles and beach glass

Sea glass. A colourful mosaic scene of Vancouver + colourful beach glass.

Blues

Icy blues. I pulled bright whites and light blues at Club Monaco for a recent trend segment + an icy blue look that gives me chills.

Babies and beasts

Babies and beasts. A typical scene on my office floor + one of my favourite things: a napping baby.

Ice cream

We all scream for…I made ice cream sandwiches with two flavours from Earnest Ice Cream + some sweet lettering.

P.S. There are more photos where these came from so follow @KelseyDundon on Instagram.

Drink | Wine and Book Pairings

Girl Who Was Saturday Night

It’s so satisfying when a “haha, we should…” conversation actually turns into something. In this case it was a “haha, we should…start a book club” chat that my friend Katie and I had a little while back. And then we had it again. And again. So we decided to actually do something about it. Thus, our book club was born. The surprising thing about it wasn’t that we actually started a book club, but that so many of my friends, and friends of friends, actually wanted to join. (I didn’t expect this to be the type of thing my girlfriends would be into for another three decades.)

So far we’ve debated our way through  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Just Kids by Patti Smith, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill, The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls

age of innocence still

…and most recently: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (though for this one, many opted to watch the movie trailer on iTunes instead).

Sandhill Merlot and Fruit Platter

Because I had been to the Vancouver International Wine Festival a few nights before I hosted our latest book club brunch (thank you, Sandhill!) we uncorked (well, unscrewed) a bottle of Sandhill Merlot. It’s a new world take on an old world varietal that I’m sure Madame Olenska would approve of.

Make | Benchic’s DIY Chocolate

Benchic_2

I have a friend who makes the best chocolate. Like, you’d have no idea it wasn’t from some crazy chocolatier. (She actually started up her own company but it was too much to deal with in addition to her day job and if it were up to me she’d start it up again. Ahem…Megan!)

Benchic_6

But no matter. Because even if you’re not gifted in the chocolates department, you can gift in the chocolates department (see what I did there?).

Benchic

LA’s Benchic Chocolate just launched chocolate-making kits complete with a reusable mould, organic Peruvian cocoa butter, wild California Honey (from near Long Beach), organic Peruvian Lucuma Powder, and the like. They’re not cheap — $79 USD before shipping — but you can’t put a price on chocolate-flavoured fun.

Pinstagram | Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Pear?

The Anthology’s Pinstagram column marries the dream (Pinterest) and the reality (Kelsey Dundon’s Instagram photos of places and faces in and around Vancouver).

juice and tart

Juicy. A thirst-quenching treat from Commodity Juicery + a pear tart.

Walls

Climbing the walls. My little monkey on the world’s coolest climbing wall + adorable wallpaper, which isn’t actually custom wallpaper made of that kid’s art, but the work of Gael Davrinche.

dog pic

Throwback. A print from a campaign I creative directed that hangs in my living room (read more about that campaign here) + a home so full of windows there would be no place to hang art at all.

office

The dream vs. the reality. My office always looks insane when I’m in the middle of a project + an office where everything is — enviably — in its place.

P.S. There are more photos where these came from so follow @KelseyDundon on Instagram.

Celebrate | Cheers to All Hallow’s Eve

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I can’t fit my go-to costume this year, but I can sip some spooktacularly gruesome-looking mocktails. Like these two-ingredient masterpieces: just 7-Up and grenadine (plus a baby medicine dispenser or two). You could add a little liquor to adultify them a little, I’m sure.

You’ll find a million more Halloween party ideas — like witch hat toss and pin the googly eyes on the monster — that I shared on CTV Morning Live here.

Pinstagram | Fuchsia couches and blue mountains

The Anthology’s Pinstagram column marries the dream (Pinterest) and the reality (Kelsey Dundon’s Instagram photos of places and faces in and around Vancouver).

Talking trends on a big red couch at Global BC (watch my trend segment here) + a modern fuchsia couch I’d love in my living room.

Baby style. A leopard print look from a kids’ trend spread I styled + one very stylish young lady.

Party! A media dinner hosted at Oliver and Lilly’s and catered by Farmer’s Apprentice + a holiday-ready celebration.

Queen of hearts. A nightlight I found on Etsy + a lovely garland.

Mountain women. A walk to Lost Lake in Whistler + another picturesque mountain somewhere in BC.

P.S. There are more photos where these came from so add The Anthology on Facebook and follow @KelseyDundon on Instagram.