larry david + simple = awesome

We are great big (HUGE!) Larry David fans over here... as a matter of fact, a Simple related event a few years back led me to meet LD and give him a serious bro-pound and a side hug.  The word spectacular doesn't really do the moment justice.  Anyway, for those of you Curb Your Enthusiasm fans out there, have you noticed Larry's been wearing the O.S. pretty heavily?

 The folks over at Entertainment Weekly noticed this, too and wrote up a little blurb about it this week... check it out:

If you're in the mood to pick up a pair, check them out here.

hugs,
cielo

new video coming soon... BIO D

This is a cruddy cell phone picture of a video shoot we're doing for our new BIO D collection in one of the spare rooms here in the building with our buddies Jason and Ives... coming soon to a social media related website near you!

shoes for a happy planet (and tiny folk)

If you are in the market for shoes for toddlers, we highly recommend you check out our new collection.  We dreamed these up one day while we were thinking about all the little people we know... making them eco-friendly was clearly a top priority so we used eco certified suedes (BLC and ISO certified) that are also washable. 

We wanted to make sure they wouldn't leave behind any scuff marks, so we made up a blend of non-marking natural and recycled rubber.

 

We also wanted to use a closure that an adult could work just as easily as a determined kid.  The Doodle and Noodle both use this elasticated pull closure on the left.  These use recycled PET and latex elastic closures with a little rubber ring that keeps these snugly on feet.  The girls' Poodle uses hook and loop.

 

They're wide enough to fit chubby feet, and we engineered them to be soft and flexible-- so this means more movement for growing feet and really soft uppers that minimize any rubbing on heels and toes.

We also have some great feedback from parents and friends that you can read here (for the doodle boys), here (for doodle girls), here (girls' poodle), and here (noodle).

Did I mention the packaging is also pretty high on the cute scale?  Every two sizes up, each box has a different print... and it's all made from post consumer recycled paper.

hugs,
cielo

#meetfreemonday-CHILI!?!

This week's #meatfreemonday recipe comes courtesy of Carey.

Black Bean Sweet Potato Chili

 

1-2 Tablespoons oil

1 large onion, diced

4-6 cloves garlic, minced

1 green bell pepper, diced

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1 lime, divided as juice and zest

2 tablespoons cumin

2 tablespoons chili powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

3 cans black beans, rinsed (15 oz.)

2 cans diced tomatoes (15 oz.)

¼ cup tomato paste (or half a small can)

2-4 chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, minced (buy them in a small can in the Mexican food aisle)

1-1 ½ cups apple juice

1 cup corn kernels, cooked

1 cup minced cilantro (1/2 bunch)

 

Heat oil in the bottom of a large stock pot.  Add onion, pepper and garlic and sauté until limp (5 minutes).  Add lime zest and sweet potatoes and cook another 10 minutes.  Add cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper, and let them sweat until the aroma fills the room.  Add beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, diced chipotle peppers (
plus a spoonful or two of adobo sauce), apple juice and juice from half the lime (save the other half for another dish).  Cook at medium heat for 15-20 minutes until sweet potatoes can be pierced with a fork.  Turn heat off and stir in corn and cilantro.

Sounds delicious. Thanks Carey!!!

Today's @meatfreemonday recipe, a delicious Summer Salad

Yearning for summer? Want a quick & cheap dish for dinner? This salad is your answer:

 

Ingredients (feeds 3-4)

- 1 box couscous

- Edamame (approx. 6 oz., but who's really counting?)

- Garbanzo Beans (half a can)

- Red Onion

- Salt & Pepper to taste

- Fresh garlic

- Olive Oil & Lemon Juice to taste

- Celery (optional)

- Bell Pepper (optional)

- Cucumber (optional)

- Feta Cheese

 

Cooking Instructions

Cook 1 box couscous and then put in refrigerator to cool it down while you prepare the other ingredients. Once cooler, add the desired veggies; many variations of this salad can occur and the above ingredient combinations have been found to be very tasty. Spice it up with salt, pepper and garlic followed by a good dousing of olive oil and lemon juice to taste. Top it off with as much feta cheese as you so desire. Recommended to season slowly and taste until perfect. This also allows the chef to eat a good amount before placing it in front of others who will surely devour it quickly. Adjust proportions with this in mind.

Our #1 fan

This social networking stuff exploding and we have quite a few new fans, followers and online friends. We want to start recognizing some of these outstanding individuals as our Simple Fan of the Month. Enter our FOTM contest and you could win some great prizes from Simple Shoes and be immortalized in our FOTM Hall of Fame like Bryan with a Y Ellis from Long Beach, California. Did it change his life? Could it change his life? We don't know yet...only time will tell.  

Fan of the Month

this could be you.

Big ups to @jennsiegel for winning but also for WEARING all of her prizes (moustache included).

Stay tuned for our next contest on Facebook.

It's meatfree monday!

Ok, so this may sounds bizarre with a capitol B but these really are the best non-hotdogs one can buy.  Seriously, when you’re heading to those last few BBQs of the year don’t fill up on potato salad and carrot sticks try Loma Linda Big Franks…yes, they do come in a can but trust us.  (But, don’t forget your tin foil for the grill)  Here’s a quick recipe that  we make at the house to satisfy the kids…both big and small:

 

“Pigs” in a Blanket

-1 can Loma Linda Big Franks, cut in halves

-1 can biscuits, cut each in half

-Shredded cheese

-Condiments

 

-   Take your biscuit halves and flatten.  Sprinkle a little cheese,  roll around big frank and place on non-greased cookie sheet.

-   Set oven to 350 degrees and bake until golden  (approx. 8 -10 min)

-   Serve with all the classics but we’d recommend the Garlic Aioli Mustard from TJs….it’s fantastic!

simple shoes... cat magnets?

CONFIRM.

check out Einstein taking a siesta on a pair of O.S. sneakers... thanks @stiff_kitten_

We got your beeswax right here, folks.

We’re pretty tickled to introduce a totally new material: beeswax coated hemp.  We’re using this in two of our women’s boots:

 

The Pestoe

AND

 

The Toest (please note the sweet foldover action on this one)

We got on this kick not only because we wanted to try to increase the water resistance in our hemp shoes, but also so we could use this absolutely amazing material that is an amazing bee creation.  Did you know that beeswax is excreted by worker bees onto their fuzzy bellies as a byproduct of eating honey? 

The worker bees (all of whom are female) use beeswax to build honeycomb, which is where they store their food (both honey and pollen) and where the queen lays her eggs.   It takes about 8.4 pounds of honey to produce a pound of wax.  For comparison-- that's like the size of a pretty big baby (8.4 lbs) to loaf of bread (about a pound).

Once the bee colony shrinks down in the winter months and the older comb is out of use, beekeepers collect the old honeycomb and melt it down and sell it (mostly) or craft their own goodies made with beeswax (things like candles, cosmetics, lip balm, shoe polish, you get the picture).  So now we’re in on this amazing material and using a coating of it on the hemp in our Pestoe and Toest boots. The eco goodness doesn't stop there, either-- the shafts on both boots are made from organic cotton, the bottoms of the shoes are made from old car tires, the midsole is made from squishy natural crepe rubber, and they have a rand (the part that wraps around the middle of the shoe) made from Rubbahyde-- a latex coated textile that keeps water OUT.

 

hugs,

cielo

we wheelie like this pic...

That's the Wheelie in Black that is featured in the new issue of Coco Eco, an online magazine that is pretty hip and obviously really tuned into the environment.