Ingredients for a Perfect Dinner with Friends.

Friends of ours — a couple from Italy, one from the Piedmont region and the other from the Lombardy region — recently invited us over for dinner.  Amidst pieces of contemporary art, including a Koons-esque statue that resembled a Michelin man, they had light-up marquee letters (so cool) in their initials and bookcases full of dog-eared, well-loved books and knick knacks from around the world.  There was a sense that everything in the apartment had been carefully curated: each in its own space, lovingly carried from Italy to Chicago.  When we walked in, they greeted us with aperol spritzes (aperol–a bitter liqueur–topped with prosecco, and adorned with a festive green castelvetrano olive in each glass — “in the Venetian style,” explained one of our hosts) and salty, fatty, wafer-thin strips of prosciutto spun around artisanal breadsticks.  We talked about books: I’d leant them my copy of Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words, a memoir-ish piece from one of today’s best short fiction writers (she’s written novels and memoirs but I feel she’s at her best in this collection of short stories) all about cultural identity, language, and art, written entirely in Lahiri’s non-native Italian and then translated back into English by a translator — this, despite the fact that Lahiri is fluent in English.  It was interesting to hear their perspective, as they’d read it in Italian and I’d read it in English (the book includes both, on pages that face one another: a visual reminder of the translation-related tensions within, as they literally butt heads with one another between the pages).  There were lapses in our exchange as they sought the right words to explain how they felt about Lahiri’s Italian, and we at one point used the French word “recherche,” which was the mot juste we were contemporaneously seeking in our respective mother tongues, but for which there is no perfect English translation.  The entire conversation felt like the punch line to some sort of meta-fictional commentary on cultural difference.

They served Piedmontese cuisine: a delicious black rice dish followed by breaded and fried pork cutlets that had been marinated — nearly pickled! — in a vinegar sauce, an enormous platter of tomatoes with creamy, fresh, thick-cut slabs of mozzarella, and tiramusu for dessert, accompanied with a very sweet dessert wine, which the hostess sniffed and promptly declared corked, in affirmative Italian (“topo”?).  (Let it be known that I would never have guessed, so unrefined is my wine palate.)  We talked about art, about entrepreneurship, about holidays in Italy, about Italian and American films, and discovered, among many of his charming eccentricities, that the host’s favorite movie was “Back to the Future.”  Funny, the imbalance–or maybe perfect balance?–of it all, the mish mash of high-brow cultural discourse and refined cuisine with the kitschiness of Michael J. Fox’s 1980s blockbuster and the sound of sirens from police cars and fire engines on the frenetic streets below us.

Looking out over the Chicago city skyline from their 39th floor, I felt so very far from our very American home and our very American lives just two miles down Chicago Avenue.  And yet.  There was also something about the evening that reified the American urban lifestyle as I have personally come to understand it in my admittedly parochial world-view: the proximity of so many different cultural phenomena, weaving and un-weaving in such unexpected ways.  Here we were, enjoying a very Piedmont dinner with our very Italian friends, and just a mile down the street was the MCA, where we’d absorbed Murakami’s exhibit only a few days prior (some thoughts on that in this #turbothot); and a few blocks to the north, the site of the Green City Farmer’s Market showcasing the midwest’s best produce that we frequent so often on Saturday mornings; and a mile or two to the west, our own neighborhood, Ukrainian Village, where you’re hard pressed to find a Catholic Mass said in English (so many are in Eastern European languages!) and where the shelves of the children’s section in the local library have an equal proportion of books in Spanish, Polish, and English.

It was a perfect American city night, with amazing food, stimulating conversation, and kind company.

Of course, I can’t finish this post without also sharing another key ingredient: the wardrobe.  It was an unexpectedly cool Chicago night and — some of you may have seen this on an Instastory from a week or so ago — so I paired my go-to distressed white denim jeans with these woven earrings ($38) and a statement top: Tibi’s off-the-shoulder denim tunic (on sale for $118 — also available in other sizes here, but you can get the look for less with this Free People top).  I finished with a rattan clutch similar to this one (only mine is turquoise) that coordinated with my earrings.

I love the ease of a statement top for nights like this, especially when you aren’t sure how formal or informal your hostesses will be.  A few others that are high on my shopping list right now, all *perfect* with white jeans and under $100:

+THE CHA CHA CHA: This hot tamale bow-front red top ($60)!!! OBSESSED.  And you know how into the color red I am these days…hence, I also love this $49 H+M steal.

+THE TRUMPETEER: This bow-sleeved TopShop (on ridic sale for $32)!  Love the idea of wearing it with white skinnies and some nude sandals for a “Hampton summer whites” vibe.

+THE LIL DROP OF SUNSHINE: This adorable mustard-yellow Line + Dot top ($83).  I also love the dress version in happy fuchsia.

+THE VERSATILE STRIPE: Striped peplum top ($59).

+THE BOW SHOULDER: I’ve written a lot about this sweet eyelet top from J. Crew ($88), but if peplum ain’t your friend, consider this straighter-cut style from Banana ($78).  And, if you’re just plain tired of all the bow-shouldered, asymmetric, cold-shouldered chaos, this eyelet top in vintage-looking ivory ($78) may have your name all over it.