Food and clothes are my all time favorites. I remember dressing up as a kid and throwing fancy dinner parties for my dolls, inviting friends for brunch, making a shopping break with my mom to get hot chocolate and a piece of pie. The two have become so intertwined for me that to this day I hardly ever go shopping without stopping for a snack or go out to eat without dressing appropriately. I also made sure to involve my friends in the dress and dine extravaganza that is my life.

My book club meets once a month and it's a potluck kind of gathering where each of us brings something to the party. The only condition is that the food has to be somehow connected to the book. If we're reading a book taking place in Italy, of course Italian food is on the menu; a book about travel means snacks that do well on the road; a life story of a diabetic involves no sweets and pita bread certified for diabetics; geisha and samurai stories are not discussed without sushi, and so on. This sort of correlation between books and food makes for great book club meetings.

That's not the only way we connect art and eating. We try to go to museums and galleries, theater and free performances, opera and ballet. It's not something we can do on a regular basis because of time restrictions, but whenever we get a chance, we go the whole nine yards. For a night at the opera house we all wear couture dresses and afterward go to some exclusive restaurant for dinner; museum trips mean pretending we're tourists, so we dress up in suburban mom clothes, talk loud and end up in the most crowded restaurants for lunch; alternative art shows have us wearing black and go for drinks only so not to disturb out aura with calories.

Of course to be able to go places and do things like this we need to have clothes, and for that we have to do some serious shopping. Any trip to the mall I just have to get a soft pretzel and a glass of juice to keep my strength up, and I usually stop somewhere for a meal on the way home. When I'm with my friends, we pick a restaurant based on the clothes we get. For example, if we end up with jeans and t-shirts, it's all-American burgers; lots of florals begs for fresh salads; designer shoes need designer interior of a posh restaurant; and good sales always mean fast food, so we can hit some more stores after we eat.

We all need food and clothes, but a lot of people treat them as just another necessary thing in their busy life. And it's enough to just have some fun with one or the other to make one's day more colorful and interesting. So if you've had enough of bland style and food, try dressing according to what your dinner plans are, for example a colorful poncho to a Mexican restaurant, a simple silk dress to a Japanese one, or eat something that resembles your clothes, like blueberry muffin when you're wearing purple blouse or a chocolate chip cookie when you've got a pair of brown slacks and a chocolate top on. Just looking for an interesting item to wear to an Indian restaurant or finding something to eat when you're wearing powder blue is guaranteed to put a smile on your face.