It’s day two of getting to know our employee of the week, and check out how adorable she was looking today! I love the combo of the ditzy polka-dot shirt underneath a girly denim romper. She looks innocent and flirty all at the same time. Definitely a Candy/Meadow combo just like she said…
Aside from checking out what she was wearing, I wanted to know what she was working on today. Essentially, she’s the one that makes sure you can all find what you’re looking for on our site, and today she’s working furiously to get all of the product from our July catalog (which also drops today!) up on the website.
She goes through, page by page, merchandising the clothing and accessories into their relevant categories for the web. We’re moving into fall already, so she notices missing categories as she goes along, and makes a note to have them added in later. This needs to be done in correspondence with every catalog, look book, blog post – anything that links to clothing someone might want to buy.
I have to say, it sounds tedious, but I’m incredibly grateful to this pretty lady for all her hard work – it means I have an even easier time of filling my closet with Free People clothes… Whoops =P
There are so many interesting jobs with really quirky, fun, cool people behind them here at Free People. We think they’re awesome, and we think you will too. So, beginning this week, we’ll be starting something new on the blog to get to know them better – employee of the week!
This week’s employee is our assistant web merchandiser. Read her introduction below, and stay tuned all week for daily updates on who she is and what she’s doing!
There are many highlights to summer, but one of my favorites is fresh fruit! It’s probably the easiest thing to prepare, tastes amazing, and can be eaten for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and dessert. =)
Ingredients:
16oz Strawberries
2 Large mangoes
1 Banana
1 Lime
1 ½ tsp Sugar
Instructions:
Peel & dice mangoes. * Mangoes have a tough center, like with pineapple, which you’ll want to cut around.
Dice strawberries & slice banana.
Sprinkle sugar
Cut lime in half & squeeze juice from entire thing onto the salad.
Mix.
Let it set in the fridge for at least an hour.
You can eat the salad plain, or mix it into Greek yogurt like I did for breakfast one morning. There are so many ways to go about serving it – get creative!
It’s poll time again! This week we want you to pick your favorite look from our Japonaise collection. I’m a big fan of the look – it’s so sultry and mysterious! I can’t decide which pieces I want to buy first. Pretty florals, linear cuts, peak-out black lace – which is your favorite look?
As promised, this week’s recipe is one of the many delicious meals from my recent camping trip in the Adirondack Mountains. The bare essentials and need for practicality reminded me how good simple foods like a plain sandwich can be. Even though I got a bit fancier than that for this dinner, there is still a quality of simplicity to the meal that I really like. The challenge of cooking with limited resources was fun and allowed me to get creative. This recipe can be prepared over an open fire or using a grill – I’ll show you how to do it both ways.
Kabob Ingredients:
½ Red Pepper
1 Small Carton of Whole Baby Portabella Mushrooms
1 Small Sweet Onion
½ Zucchini
½ Lb. Bay Scallops
¼ Cup Olive Oil
½ Lemon
1Tbsp. Fisherman’s Wharf All Natural Seafood Seasoning
Tinfoil
Wooden or Metal Kabob Skewers
Basting Brush
Bruschetta Ingredients:
½ Loaf of Pesto Seasoned Bread
¼ Cup Olive Oil
½ Lemon
1 Tbsp. Fisherman’s Wharf All Natural Seafood Seasoning
Tinfoil
Basting Brush
We bought all of the ingredients from local mom and pops stores. If you do the same, your kabobs and bruschetta could turn out completely different, but you can still follow the same process.
Instructions:
Slice Lemon in half. Mix together squeeze juice from one half and mix with with olive oil & seasoning for the kabobs. Set aside.
Break off 2 ft. piece of tinfoil. Fold over each edge.
Fold in each corner.
Fold up each side making a wall – pinch together at corners.
Fold over the corners so that they will not leak.
Slice red pepper, onion, and zucchini into fairly large wedge-shaped pieces.
Slide ingredients onto skewers in random order until all are used up. As you finish skewers lay them onto the tinfoil.
Baste skewers using entire lemon/oil/seasoning mixture.
Slice desired amount of bread for bruschetta.
Make anther – smaller – tinfoil boat to place the bread slices into. Mix together bruschetta olive oil, seasoning, and juice from remaining lemon. Baste both slides of each bread slice with the mixture.
To cook over the open fire, cover tinfoil boats with another piece of tinfoil.
You want to separate logs and create a nice spot over hot coals to place the food.
Let cook for about 15-20 min, depending on how hot your coals are. Use a fire mitt when checking to see if they’re cooked or removing them from the fire. Once scallops are cooked, they won’t have that cloudy/clear look they have when they’re raw.
You can also cook everything on the grill. Put the kabobs on first. After about 10minutes add the bruschetta and let grill for another 5-10 minutes.
Summer is the perfect time to plan those weekend getaways, and our country is full of great escapes to explore. Last week I headed up north to camp in the Adirondack Mountains – a perfect getaway destination. The mountains, rivers, and lakes are immediately relaxing. We set up camp in Wilmington, NY right near Whiteface Mountain and Lake Placid. It was the perfect spot to explore the village of Lake Placid and to get in good hiking and fishing. The town is full of cute shops, Olympics memorabilia, nice people, and even a pile of snow they keep year round. We shopped local specialties to picnic and grill (look out for this weekend’s recipe!) You can even bring your dog into most places, so bring the trusty friend along if you go. I had Abigail, and she had a blast getting down and dirty in the mountains. One day we hiked Whiteface, the tallest mountain in the region. She made it the whole way =). I highly recommend the challenge if you’re up to it. The view and sense of accomplishment are surreal and invigorating.
My beer, the Ubu Ale, was named after a local legendary dog =)
Abigail, always thinking she’s the star of the show…
Almost to the top!
“climbing mountains is hard work, give me food!”
It’s not often you get to enjoy nighttime in the middle of the woods – talk about a getaway…
I don’t personally follow a gluten-free diet, but I have friends who do, so I like to mess around with recipes once in a while. This nut bread is one I’ve been wanting to try for a while. Normally, the thought of making bread kind of scares me a little. I feel like you need skills I’ve never tried out before, but with this bread it turned out the toughest part was gathering all of the obscure ingredients I needed to make it gluten-free. Once I finally got around to making it, it turned out to be nutty and delicious. It works great for toast in the morning with a little bit of jam =)
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups almond flour
¾ cup arrowroot powder
¼ cup flax seed meal
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 teaspoonapple cider vinegar
¼ cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
¼ cup hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
½ cup pistachios, coarsely chopped
¼ cup pumpkin seeds
¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup sesame seeds
Instructions:
Chop up all nuts that need to be coarsely chopped, and mix all seeds/nuts in a small bowl.
Combine almond flour, arrowroot powder, flaxseed meal, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, beat eggs well. Then add agave nectar and apple cider vinegar.
Slowly mix dry ingredients into wet.
Stir in nut/seed mixture
Pour into a well-greased 7.5” x 3.5” bread pan
Bake for about 35 minutes. (You should be able to stick a toothpick/knife into the center and pull it out cleanly.)
I actually first heard about Nicole Vaughn when Jolyn, a reader, commented on one of my music posts about her. I went to her website to take a listen and I loved what I heard. A peaceful voice, relatable lyrics, and emotionally charged melodies are what make up her tracks. It just so happens that the singer/songwriter is also a huge Free People fan! She sent in an FPme photo that we recently posted on the blog (she’s the third one down). It’s hard to believe she’s not already a huge sensation. Nicole is one of the music scene’s best kept secrets that needs to be let out of the bag.
Nicole gladly answered a few questions for you all to get to know her better. She’s also made her song, “Stuck on You,” available for free download to you all! (Thank you, Nicole!) Read up on our interview with the inspirational woman and take a listen to her music!
Where were you when you wrote your first song?
I wrote my first official song on guitar at 13, I was sitting on the floor of my room with my guitar and a notebook of some poetry (not very good poetry), and sort of just started to put the pieces together.
What is your favorite song off of your most recent album, “Say It,” and why?
I think that my favorite song off of album would be “Everything We’ve Built” or the title track itself, “Say it”. These are the most personal and soul-bearing songs on the album and are extremely raw and honest in their story-telling and how I felt about the subject matter.
What is your picture of success?
Success to me would be to continue creating quality music and lyrics that I’m excited about and playing and collaborating with talented musicians that I admire. If I get some fans and make people smile, feel, connect, or dance along the way, I am happy. I’d also like to open for Wilco or Mason Jennings one day, but that might be pushing it ;)
What’s the last album you bought? What else is on your iPod right now?
I recently bought Paul Simons greatest hits, Dawes’ new album, and Barrett Johnson’s album “In Case I went Missing”. Some of my iPod go-to’s are: Mason Jennings, Neko Case, Cass McCombs, Alexander, Rolling Stones, Lissie, Muddy Waters, Bon Iver, Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, Arcade Fire, Patsy Cline, Wilco, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Randy Newman, Sharon Van Etten…just to name a few! I love it all.
What is your signature look?
I’m not even sure, I think I’d have to ask someone else, hah! I just wear what I like and I’m comfortable in. Fancy stuff when I’m on stage, but lately off stage I’ve been really casual. I just like jeans, plain T, some turquoise or native american jewelry, and some boots. I like simplicity more and more these days.
What sort of hobbies do you have besides your music?
I love reading a good book, surfing, camping, going to shows, road-trips, hiking, running, rock-climbing, spending time with my pups, anything adventurous and spontaneous. I like to keep life interesting and unpredictable.
What is your favorite book?
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I’m a big fan of Steinbeck.
One thing you cannot live without is?
Guitar. Or my wonderful mom. Or my dogs. I mean that’s a pretty tough question. haha
What does Free mean to you?
Free means having a free state of mind, not being confined by status quos or trends-free of influence, loving what you love just because YOU love it! Doing what you want, because it’s what YOU want to do.
Since I started at Free People, I’ve been noticing many cool tattoos around the office. I’m personally a big fan of body art – I think it’s a creative way of self expression, just one’s personal style. For this week in office style I wanted to show you all some of the cool tats I’ve been seeing on the Free People ladies. It was really fun hearing everyone’s story and why they chose to get their certain tattoo.
This intricate piece depicts a vestal virgin, the solar system, the sun, and a tree. Vestal virgin were powerful holy female priests in the Roman Empire. Apparently, they were something like witches. The bottom half where the solar system is depicted shows each planet, and it’s actual placement in orbit relative to the other planets. So cool!
Her middle name is based off of the Hindi word “sattvic” which means purity and harmonious balance in the world. On her middle finger she also has a lotus flower which is also representative of life and purity. I love how peaceful this tattoo is.
She based her tattoo off of album artwork from Incubus – It was drawn by the drummer Jose Pasillas in the band. She changed the eye in the center by replacing it with her grandfather’s eye. The idea is that he’s always with her and watching over her.
A feather to represent her last name which means “to write” (the feather is supposed to be like a quill). After she got engaged and would be changing her last name she and her brother decided to go and get the same thing. (my brother and I both have matching tattoos too!)
All of her tattoos are drawings by a friend of hers who lives in Brooklyn. I love the idea of putting a piece of one of your friends on you.
This tree is based off of a necklace that she and her mother always wear. It’s “their little family tree.”
When back packing through Thailand with her friends, they would always draw mustaches on their fingers and take pictures. Afterward, they all decided to get tattoos so that they would always be, “mustache photo ready.” Each has a different style mustache.
This is a word that she made up which is a combination of the words “god” and “given.” She said that if she ever has her own line one day that’s what it will be called.
Because I escaped the city for this past holiday weekend, I never made it to pick up ingredients for this week’s recipe post. My fridge and food cabinets are something of a vacant wasteland at the moment. In replacement, I thought I’d share one of my favorite vegan recipe blogs, Post Punk Kitchen. The author is a down-to-earth vegan with one good hand in the kitchen. I love her point of view on food, and I often check out her blog for ideas. Here are some of her recipes I’m thinking I must try at home this month:
Creamy Avocado Salad: I’m not huge on mayonnaise-y potato salad because it’s so bad for you, but I’ve never thought of using avocado instead. Oh does this sound delicious.
Spinach Linguine with Edamame Pesto: Edamame is popping up everywhere these days. Just the other day I had a sandwich made with edamame hummus. Who knew? I’m all into exploring its many uses.
Perfect Grilled Portabellas: One of the best parts of summer is grilling. Just because this is traditionally a carnivorous pastime doesn’t mean there aren’t amazing veggie options as well. This recipe gives great tips on how to grill the perfect portabella. It’s also super healthy!
Omg Oven Baked Onion Rings: These onion rings look perfect for entertaining. I’m also thinking they’d go great with those aforementioned bello burgers.
Raw Strawberry Cheesecake: I have to admit, although I rarely eat it, I’m an enormous cheesecake lover. I’ve never thought of making a vegan cheesecake, let alone a completely raw one. I want to try this one out just to see how well it stands up against the real thing.
It’s that time of year again. The air is already so hot that a simple walk outside is enough to leave your body coated in sweat, but don’t let it scare you! Summer is meant for being outdoors. Let the lure of sunshine, warmth, and living life overcome the sterile cleanliness of air conditioned spaces. Explore the outdoors, lay in the grass, attend festivals, plant a garden, just go outside and GET DIRTY. Afterward you’ll have a chance to jump in the shower and clean off. But don’t just let it be any ordinary shower-turn the knob to cold, and let those capillaries open up. Feel the chills all over – the way your hair gets so extremely silky with cold water. Nothing says summer quite like the alive feeling you get from a cold shower.
If there’s one thing Free People employees know how to do … it’s accessories. Everyone had on the best little details today, so I just had to get up close and personal.
As if the shoes weren’t cool enough on their own – she takes layering to the next level with crocheted socks.
