gastropod at bonnaroo

last weekend at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester Tennessee the hippie-dippie-bubble-blowing-Eminem-Strokes-Arcade-Fire-MDMA-taking music lovers of this 100,000 person festival were treated to the food of Gastropod from Miami.

For the first year Bonnaroo included a food truck court in their mile long list of activities available to the four day long troopers who withstand the heat and dust for a weekend of grown-up dream world. After working up a sweat dancing to Florence and the Machine or an old bluegrass band Roo goers were likely to take a dip in the giant mushroom fountain and head over to Gastropod for an iced cafe con leche with Panther Coffee (a new local Wynwood spot, more on that later) and a Sloppy Jose, their best seller.

You may know Gastropod from ArtWalk, where we've written about the killer Bahn Mi Tacos, and if you are yet to try their burger with homemade fixings, we recommend you track them down ASAP. It might not taste as good as it did at Bonnaroo, surrounded by sweat and love, but we can bet it will still taste great.

the last sloppy jose of bonnaroo, where gastropod sold out both those and the pulled pork sliders.

@miaminicepopup

pepper's picks

it's too hot for clothes, but if full fledged nudity is simply not an option for you (I work from home so...) an accessories boutique like Miss Pepper is probably the place to hit up.

You can get away with wearing very little stylishly if you accessorize it right. Pile on the bracelets, wear a big bag, trick the eye! It's like faux-slutty, not that I condone that, I do, however, condone comfort- always! And bags are a sure fire way to say comfortable in the fuego weather.

nothing fishy about make deliberate decisions down to coinpurses

a sweat resistant red clutch. 

big ass travel bag.

this is like the "welcome to miami" woven clutch. I'm obsessed with it. 

more money more problems, let luxset deal with it

if you've ever had a friend that bails on a bill, or you're the organizer of all your group of friends events and then you get stuck footing the bill, or someone cancels or shows up running on Cuban time- then Luxset is the site for you. 

Luxset a local online start-up is an online marketplace that lets you split the bill upfront on group activities, making it easy to "get together and pay together." Want to go on a Seaplane? Rent a yacht? A limo to the U2 concert? A keg? Everyone pays their part ahead of time on Luxset and then you're good to go. No dealing with the bill after. No awkward tipping. No one bailing and sticking you with the check. It's all taken care of. 

When the Luxset girls reached out to me about meeting them I quickly confused the site for a Gilt or Groupon flash-sale sight. The super nice folks at Luxset, located in Buro a chic industrial loft style shared workspace (more on that later) in Midtown cleared it up for me- and it's even better. There's no need to rush to the computer to make it on time, or pester your friends with emails to hurry up and jump on the sale, it's more of a marketplace, where they'll continue to add new fun things to do with your friends (A makeup class! A culinary tour! A scuba class! Are these people reading my mind?!) as they find them. 

Suddenly, organizing a group activity any other way starts to seem impossibly antiquated. Why deal with the hassle of throwing down ten credit cards and then being told you can only split it two ways when you could type in your credit card number a la any online purchase? If throwing down your card on a whim worries you, there's no obligation until your group reaches the capacity of the event. So if you are interested in a scuba trip for five and you send out the invitation to ten friends, until five sign up no one get charged. Invite, no hassle, no risk, no pestering, no payment issues- so easy to say let's do it- A Peruvian Cooking Class! A Helicopter Tour! Cocktails and yoga on the beach! Ready, Luxset, Go! 

cinema miami

while we HATE when people from Davie or Boca claim to be from Miami, we hate it more when Miami doesn't get full credit for awesome stuff it's been involved with. Case study: Caddyshack. This golf goon classic's scene at the yacht club was filmed at our very own Rusty Pelican.

images via blogit and rusty pelican

bocadito genius

somewhere out there, there's a food truck genius who's about to debut what Miami food trucks were made for- Bocaditos.

This isn't bad news at all.

my madewell dreams come true

remember a few weeks ago when I wished for a Madewell? When I said how I'd wished for an H&M and then it was announced one was opening? And I hoped if I put it out there that someone would hear my Madewell wish and make it come true?

Good news! It's happened again! Madewell 714 Lincoln Road here you come. 

Come celebrate the opening of the Madewell Lincoln Road Store and

 rock out to tunes spun by cohosts Nektar De Stagni, Autumn Casey, and Nicole Irizarry. 

Enjoy Cheese Me Sandwiches, Feverish ice cream pops, cool cocktails and get a screen-printed tote designed by the TM Sisters- all proceeds benefit The Locust Projects.

Plus, 20% off all jeans!*
Thursday July 7

RSVP here

*See a store associate for details.

Here's an outfit idea of all Madewell pieces for their opening jam, a night walking around Lincoln Road, a stop in at Art Center and maybe dinner at the Cafe at Books and Books? 

flamingo finds

this is a different kind of flamingo finds, we're not talking about a thrift store in Hialeah called Flamingo Plaza, we're talking about an actual find of a flamingo print pillow. Lately, I haven't been able to stop real estate stalking, but I can't decide where I want to be. Downtown? NE 40s? The Grove? Wherever I may choose I'll take these flamingo pillows with me.

image via coco and kelley

golden girls, miami is nice

here comes the sunscreen

recently, I heard that the acceptable temperature for eating pork was lowered, and it got me thinking "like, what? You mean the people who research that kind of stuff... the FDA or something... were just... wrong?" They were like "oh, shit, sorry folks, you can eat your pork a little rawer and not be barfing up a lung?"

Turns out, that doesn't just happen with pork, the FDA just changed the regulations on sunscreen too. I'd say that pork and sunscreen are both important part of life in Miami and that we should raise an eyebrow to these people at the mysterious FDA (what are they doing with sunscreen anyway? Doesn't FDA stand for Food and Drug Administration?)- because what's next?!

Anyway, here's the deal with sunscreen as it stands today (who knows about tomorrow). There's no longer such a thing as "waterproof" or "sweat resistant" sunscreen, turns out they were exaggerating the results of that and it was all bullshit. Sunscreens that want to be considered broad spectrum sunscreens have to protect against UVA (wrinkling, cancer) and UVB (burning, cancer) rays.

image via vogue

the man.

thinking of learning how to roll cigars. 

stella so stellar

stella McCartney has probably taken some seriously amazing vacation in her lifetime, what with her father being Paul McCartney and all. Her latest collection makes it hard to believe that she hasn't spent some of that time in Miami looking around and taking notes on how to make the perfect Miami look for her resort 2012 collection.

This may seem like a tough look to copy, but it's all in the shapes and patterns, and with a little attention to details you can copy this covetable style. The lengths of the sleeves, skirts and pants are particularly important when keeping with the proportions of this chic and tailored look. Stella's a Brit and that means tailoring is first priority in the tradition of Savile Row. It seems obvious, but the pattern on pattern of this look, be it stripes or florals or a mix of both, is a ballsy but beautiful style. Choose patterns with symmetry and reflections to stay totally on trend. 

Have a stellar day.

images via vogue.com

it's peanut butter jelly time for bustelo

cafe Bustelo, the beloved yellow, blue and red packaging of typical, traditional, in your abuela's kitchen cafe, has been bought by Smuckers. The May $360 million dollar purchase takes the cortadito and colada brand and puts in in the hands of peanut butter and jelly people in Ohio.

What does this mean for our beloved brand of old Cuban tradition and local Miami routine? Well, it could mean that people all over may find Bustelo on their shelves, because, well... duh, with money comes power and Smuckers is a household name and could do that to Bustelo. The worry, as with any major corporate purchase, is that Bustelo will "sell out," suffer in quality, or compromise it's brand authenticity and history in some way. But it seems like the Smuckers people are sending focus groups into Miami homes to understand just what they're getting themselves into, how the product is used and what the people who have been loyal for more than fifty years to the homegrown brand will expect.

As for us, all this coffee talk is making me crave a Bustelo Cool, hasta luego.

image via cafe bustelo

essie's miami nice

more than once I've stopped and wished I had the job of naming Essie nail polish colors. My feet right now- Topless and Barefoot. My hands- Red Nouveau. There are the classics- Wicked, Ballerina Slippers, Picket Fence, Marshmallow. If only it was my job to wake up in the morning, stare at some colors and spit out names. Oh, that shade of light pink, oh, that's The Back of My Tongue. On second thought, maybe I'm not great at the name game. 

It turns out that my naming skills might not be quite that bad AND that the people at Essie think Miami is nice too. 

May I present "Miami Nice" the Essie color: 

It's a real pink with some blue tones in it, perfect for the summer and beautiful with gold sandals, an accessorized boat day, or with those colors from the Bottega collection.