ModCloth

If you spend any time on Facebook (and who doesn’t these days, really), you’ve probably seen sidebar ads for all sorts of things, from Expedited Visas to Spring Break For Free to Match with Christian Singles. One company stands out, under the ad moniker “Indie Treasure Trove”: a start-up clothing company called Modcloth.

Located solely on its pretty, simple website, Modcloth is a great compendium of cute clothing and accessories. Its products are a bit bohemian with a hint of hipster, certainly mod- and vintage-inspired, yet still wearable even if you don’t identify with a fashion archetype. Each dress, belt, shoe or accessory features photos from multiple angles and a campy, tongue-in-cheek description playing on the item’s name. (The “Here’s Looking At You, Coat” description opens with the famous line from Casablanca, “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life, you’ll need a coat like this by your side.”) 

ModCloth caters to its young clientele in numerous effective ways. Members of the site can “love” items for other viewers to see, add them to wishlists, make them viral through conveniently-placed links to social networking sites, and even choose which items are available for sale, through member-run contests like “Be The Buyer.” The site is updated periodically throughout each day, making it great for online shopping when you’re bored at your internship or procrastinating from writing that paper.

For as much as ModCloth delivers online, it often falls short in person. The quality of products can be shockingly shoddy, especially for the comparatively high prices the site charges. The best way around this flaw is to faithfully check and re-check the “Composition and Measurements” link, located on each item’s page, where the type of cloth, size of the garment, and other basic details give a better picture of what you’re actually buying. Even odd details, like if a coat uses buttons to hide snap closures, are listed here.

Due to this lack of quality follow-through from the website to my closet, I’m unlikely to purchase much from ModCloth, unless a piece is particularly unique or I’ve vetted it enough to know that it won’t fall apart or let me freeze in winter. I will absolutely, however, continue to check the site’s New Arrivals page on an almost-daily (okay, daily) basis and share its adorable finds with my friends. I look forward to seeing what ModCloth cooks up in the future.

Food Porn

Confused by the burgeoning supply of food porn (the name is not my fault) on the Internet? Here are the best sites to follow.

FoodPornDaily is the eponymous king of mouth-watering culinary photography. Every day features a new, super-close-up photograph of a delectable dish, with the food’s name woven into the photograph. Click on the photos to scroll through previous days. Waking up to this website is a fabulous way to start your morning.

TasteSpotting, FoodGawker and Photograzing are all, as TasteSpotting puts it, “community driven visual potlucks.” Individuals submit beautiful photos of food which are moderated and posted to the site; the photos often link to a recipe or website. Photograzing displays slightly fewer photos per page, but sorts them by fun categories like “International Cuisine” and “Bacon.” FoodGawker and TasteSpotting are nearly identical: each features lots of pictures, with links to the most popular entries or to a random selection of photos. FoodGawker is slightly more tricked out, with a neat directory of all its food categories at the bottom of the page for easy searching, and a link to store your personal favorite photos. All three sites update very regularly, so check back every few hours for new treats to drool over. You can also follow all three sites on Twitter.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, This Is Why You’re Fat is an exercise in revulsion and amazement. Individuals still submit photographs of their own culinary creations, but here, the goal is to be as high-calorie, high-fat, and high-carb as possible. If you think your monstrosity is ready for submission, you’re wrong: wrap it in bacon, dip it in chocolate, add a few more eggs, and deep-fry it. Now it’s ready.

And finally…

Cake Wrecks is a fun collection of cakes gone “horribly, hilariously wrong.” A bit snarky at times, the site is mostly just hilarious. Beautiful cakes are showcased once a week as Sunday Sweets, to restore a bit of your faith in the future of the baking profession.

A Day At The Eastern Market

Union Square Market it ain’t, but DC’s Eastern Market is an NYC-infused treasure trove of finds, if you can persevere through the tourist kitsch.

Eastern Market has been in constant operation since 1873, under green roof structures to keep the elements away. The market has grown over the years, and now spills over into stretches of roofless sidewalk and two nearby parking lots. The original main attraction, the farmers’ market, is now relegated to a few stands of pungent fruit, having given way to stands upon stands of the same basic, tacky items that you can find at any street fair on the eastern seaboard. Skip the first block or two of the market, so you can get to the good stuff.

Save your appetite: as in any good farmers’ market, many of the food vendors offer free samples. The best produce stall showcases slices of three types of peach (the white peaches are the most ripe right now) and delectable slices of tomato (no, seriously, you want to try these.) One table offers free chips to sample their inventive hummus and salsa concoctions. If you’re in the mood for heartier fare, seek out the crepe stand, the popcorn vendor and the sorbet stand in the nearby vacant lots.

The culinary standout is Sweet Nuthouse, run by a woman named Heidi, who is quick to describe the sugar-coating process she uses to make her nuts (without butter or oil!) Choose between praline coated walnuts, with a super-sweet, maple-sugary taste, and cinnamon almond crunch, for a crunchier snack. The tag line of the stall is “One Nut Leads To Another,” and Heidi isn’t kidding. These things are addictive.

Living green is the latest trend, and almost everyone at the Eastern Market seems to have caught onto it. The vendors recycle everything: commemorative stamps are made into necklace pendants; classic African statues of giraffes and ostriches are woven from shredded soda cans; famous artwork like Van Gogh’s Starry Night is redone to include the Capitol Building in the background. The best of the recyclers is Larry Gallo, the exquisitely inventive proprietor of Stio Design. Mr. Gallo creates handcrafted jewelry from ancient and modern coins, as well as earrings from typewriter keys and cigar labels. Give yourself time to peruse his extensive selection.

Very close to Mr. Gallo’s stand is Archelaus (ar-ke-LAY-us), a wonderfully absurd printer of greeting cards, note cards and postcards. Archelaus is also a recycler, printing all cards on recycled, acid-free paper, but I find the stand so extraordinary as to put it in a category of its own. The stand offers free bookmarks as an incentive to peruse the multi-purpose cards. I will be purchasing all of my greeting cards from Archelaus from now on.

A number of art vendors sell their work on a street running parallel to the original Market. The standout is Quest Skinner, an up-and-coming DC artist who creates one-of-a-kind paintings on wooden box forms. Her art is vibrant, featuring bright colors, glitter, found objects, and inspirational themes. Skinner is a gracious hostess, delivering up better customer service than I’ve seen in most stores. Her paintings are reasonably priced, and she is willing to work with you if you have your heart set on a piece. I purchased a small painting of the ocean (coated in glitter, of course) and I’m sure I’ll be back again.

The huge vacant lot to the right of the original Eastern Market stalls is billed as a flea market, and it’s got some great finds. Among the best:

• Old stereoviews, to be viewed through a stereoscope, the predecessor of modern 3-D imaging. The double imaged photographic prints are roughly organized by location, in boxes upon dusty boxes. I found two stereoviews from shoe factories in Syracuse at the turn of the 20^th century, and some great shots of a classic New York City.
• Vintage posters and prints, ranging from war bonds posters to classic Vogue covers to $10 prints of advertisements for films like “Blood Lust of the Voodoo Queens.” Had I the money, I would paper my walls with 1940s Gourmet magazine covers. Chat with the tent owner: he’s been in the same spot at the very back of the lot since 1968.
• Giant handmade raffia hats from Madagascar, bell-shaped to make Audrey Hepburn proud.
• Handmade pottery, designed for very specific purposes: bowls are advertised simply as “chowder bowls” or, my favorite, “banana split bowls.” The pottery is sturdy and attractive; the proprietor, Paul Gruner, is charming and helpful.

Finally, be sure to stop by the Button Lady, still selling her crazy assortment of buttons from a large metal tub at $5 a scoop.