Homemade Butternut Squash and Apple Soup Recipe & Family Dinner, Secret Santa Edition

I realize I spilled a little when I took this picture. So what if it's not perfect? If it was, it would be very unlike myself anyways.

....What an elaborate blog post title. Sorry. So you may or may not remember this from one of my very very early posts, but my friends and I LOVE being all cute and fancy and having a "Family Dinner" where we all (or most of us) cook and bring something for dinner at someone's house. This family dinner edition was for our Secret Santa exchange, and my task for dinner was to make some sort of appetizer. I think. Actually, I'm pretty sure I just volunteered myself to make a Butternut Squash and Apple soup because a) it's my absolute favorite soup in the dining hall at school and b) I've been dying to make it myself for the past 3 months. Taking the opportunity, I slaved over a hot stove (totally exaggerating) for a couple of hours and actually came out with a successful soup! I'm pretty proud of it, considering it was my first time and I sort of winged the recipe, in the sense that I combined 3 or 4 different recipes and sort of came up with my own. Either way, the soup was a total success and everyone was apart of the Clean Plate Club. I was thoroughly pleased. Hit the jump for the recipe and more pictures of our lovely Family Dinner, Secret Santa Edition.

Amanda Lear in Vogue FR

"The real face of Amanda. Inspiration of Salvador Dali, fiancée of David Bowie, disco-queen of millions of albums, today the muse of Riccardo Tisci, Amanda Lear defends herself from being an icon. Very much in line with "live" successes, the challenge of the present is bright. Then, what a triumph of the theater, meeting with the Queen Lear".

I could translate this quote too, but I'm in the middle of Season 1 of American Horror Story and feeling a weird mixture of pure intrigue and absolute terror and I can't seem to look away.

So update for the world and a brief intro for this post: Brian got me an iPad mini for Christmas. A freaking iPad mini (from which I am posting this). I obviously lost it, practically almost cried, and kept saying "Oh my God, why?!" because I like being dramatic. While I was playing with my iPad literally all night -- ironically, i pulled my first all-nighter all semester -- I went app-crazy and downloaded at least 30 apps, among them being the Vogue France magazine app.

Hence, where I found this sweet article on and interview with Amanda Lear.

 

I'll be honest though, I've never actually heard of Amanda Lear before reading this article (as well as her wiki page), but from this interview I've learned that she's lived quite a life. Fun fact: her "birth name" is A. Trapp. Whatever that means. From being a muse for multiple artists, to collaborating with Givenchy, to authoring a book, Amanda Lear makes her life sound so unbelievably interesting, her interview makes me realize how unbelievably uninteresting my life actually is. The artwork and photography in this article (or how it looks on the iPad app, not really sure) is amazing and totally makes me appreciate this beautiful Christmas gift, and the fact that I can download and read Vogue France whenever I want makes me appreciate the fact that I can read French. So if you can too, grab a copy/download the app and read the article!

Also, the last line intro to the article alludes to Shakespeare's King Lear. As a Shakespeare nerd, it was unfair to any other article in the magazine. I mean come on, French and Shakespeare? Slight bias? Yes.

 

Posted on iPad

WWIWT: What Would I Wear Today?

ModCloth Who Dozen Dress - SALE $41.99
TOPSHOP Petite Sleeveless Denim Jacket - $70
Michael Kors Lena Lace Up Booties - SALE $206.99 
Juliet & Company Long Pearl Wrap Necklace - $36
Sequin Skinny Zebra Bangle - $25
Sequin White Enamel Shrimp Bangle - $30
Fendi Two-Tone Bangle - $525 (lol.)

So I know I don't post a lot of pictures of myself on here (although I did start posting my own looks to my LOOKBOOK...check it out on the right sidebar!), so I'm sure its hard to imagine what my "urban-chic" style is. I've done this kind of a post before using ShopStyle's "Create A Look", which I think has now just been shortened to "Looks", but this time I'm posting more of an outfit that I would wear on today or any given day when it isn't freezing like it is currently in NYC. I'd like to think of this as my "If I had everything I wanted at hand right in my closet" outfit. Pretty much sums up my fashion taste (urbany, vintagey, sorta preppy but i can also do boho...?), but I'll make sure to keep this up and give you a better idea of my kind of style.

Song of the Day: Backseat Freestyle

In honor of Kendrick Lamar's debut LP good kid m.A.A.d going gold yesterday (&deka^lk%sdf 500k, omg), today's Song of the Day is not only a song from the album, but easily my favorite song on it. I'm almost certain countless people around campus have seen me either mouth the words to the song in a fairly aggressive manner, do a kind of hand & head-moving-combo dance move thing, or an awkward combination of both. Regardless, this song makes me feel like I can just go out and fight someone and win...which is probably not very true. I don't feel the need to go into detail about what the song is about or "what it means" because there's like a million stories all over the internet about it. Listen to it and enjoy it; don't try and pick it apart. I'm sure that's what K Dot would want out of your experience anyways.

Oh, and the ultimate best part about the song its sample. Well, one of its samples. Easily the most random and unsuspecting thing I've ever heard. I usually tell you to just jump to the part of the sample the song comes from, but I highly suggest letting it play through. It makes the experience that much better.

Also, how hysterical is this thumbnail?

Just in Time for Christmastime

Where did you think I get all my sass? 

My mother, the model. My boyfriend, the other model.

And without further ado, The FancyClown is back from its semester long hiatus!!! First of all, no one told me how ridiculous junior year is and I'm upset at everyone who did not warn me because quite honestly, I was not ready for this. I was so stressed and tired so often, I practically forgot I had a blog. As you guys can see, I totally redid the site because TFC kind of needed a bit of a makeover Also, shoutout to my lovely friend Stacy for designing the new TFC banner. Isn't she awesome?

Anyways, this semester took a serious toll on me but I'm happy to say I'm almost done and I have definitely survived!! I've got 2 more finals to go but I miss this blog too much to stay away any longer!! To avoid anymore hiatuses and whatnots, TFC will be on a new updating schedule where a new post will be up every Wednesday and Sunday...and most likely other days when I really just want to say or show you something. I'm instilling some sort of stability in my life starting now and I really appreciate y'all bearing with me through all this nonsense.

So how does one come back from such a longterm disappearance, you ask? Well, if you know anything about me at all, you know that I am a little (unhealthily) obsessed with Christmas. I'm actually listening to my favorite Christmas CD as I write this post and study for my statistics final simultaneously. Not ashamed to add that it's N*SYNC's Home for Christmas. You know you have it either hard copy or on iTunes -- don't kid yourself. Anywho, I always help my mom decorate the house and tree when I come home for Thanksgiving break and ever since I've been with Brian, he comes over to help out too. This year was no different, and you can clearly see the over excitement all over my face about decorating. I hope these pics put you in the holiday spirit and for those of you who are like me and have a few more finals to get through...we got this. Happy Holidays!!!