things I love (a great distraction // 2).

Happy President's Day friends! 

I hope your three day weekend was full of adventures. Or at least relaxing. Or...if you're me...furniture assembly. 

Anyway - here are some of the best things I've found on the internet lately. 

A really great essay from my favorite travel blogger. 

What would you take with you if your house was burning? 

A lesson in coffee slang from the NY Times. 

My first, and favorite, "adult" coffee table book. 

Thinking about this. For me (today), it's coffee shops that know my order before I have to say it, blogs that don't require a click through on my reader & a perfect 75 degree day.

She bakes and she writes. I accidentally saw a picture of you. 

I go back to the house for a book. 

love.lauren

book clubs & salads.

This week I hosted my first book club. That's a big deal. I've been in a book club with some wonderful ladies for a couple of years, and have never been able to have them over. Now that I've got a place of my own, I was beyond excited to have them come see it! 

The book (Flight Behavior) was amazing, and I made a light, airy Asian salad to go with it. It's one of my favorite recipes (I think there was a week over the holidays where my sister and I made it every.single.day). It can be time consuming (or you can cheat and buy the pre-shredded ingredients), but it's worth it! YUM! 

The recipe is from one of my favorite food blogs, Dinner: A Love Story. 

Dressing

3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fish sauce 
lime juice from half a lime
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 drop of hot pepper paste (I just use a little hot sauce) 
1/3 cup grapeseed oil

Salad

2 to 3 large handfuls of shredded cabbage (both Savoy and Red)
half a handful of shredded baby spinach
1 handful of shredded carrots
1 bunch (about 5-6) scallions, white and light green parts only, chopped
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
2 chicken breasts (poached/simmered for 15 minutes in a pot filled with 3 cups of water, a 1/4 cup rice wine, a little soy sauce, a half an onion) shredded (when I'm low on time, I just buy a trusty rotisserie chicken and shred the white meat!)
handful of chopped peanuts to taste
sesame seeds 

In a large bowl whisk together all the dressing ingredients. To the same bowl, add all salad ingredients and toss until combined. 

love.lauren

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books I love (2013 challenge edition).

I've committed myself to doing less aimless internet browsing and more reading this year. 50 books. Phew. We'll see if I can make it happen. In an effort to keep myself publicly (hi mom!) accountable, I'll be keeping track of my literary adventures. 

I'll be updating the list over --> here, so follow along! 

I just started Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. I can't wait to tell you how it is! 

love.lauren

books I love (steinbeck).

This book. 

I'm a sucker for "travel lit". Anything with adventure, journey, travel or pilgrimage in the title and you can bet I'm reading it. 

I had seen a quote from this book in one of my favorite magazines, Kinfolk. 

I knew I had to give it a chance. 

It was really, really good. Six years before his death, John Steinbeck packed up a camper and headed out for a slow, quiet journey to discover a country he'd lived in all his life, but didn't know, with Charley, his sassy poodle. 

I hope we all have the same spirit of adventure later in life. 

Here, the opening page (which pulled me right in): 

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don't improve; in further words, once a bum, always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable...

When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from...

We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us." 

John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America