While we all want to do our part to help preserve the environment, it is often much easier to choose convenience over responsibility, especially when we’re on the go. Even in a city brimming with endless choices like New York, it often requires a bit of legwork to make eco-friendly choices. That’s why we were excited to hear about inBloom, a new location-based iPhone app designed to make it easier to be green.
With New York Restaurant Week in full swing, our thoughts turned to our favorite places to find epicurean feasts for less year-round. We love gourmet food, great chefs — and bargains. Happily, we know how to find them all, from coast to coast, Portland to New York City — and even a gem across the Atlantic, tucked away in a London cookbook shop.
As winter takes hold, our thoughts naturally turn to planning a getaway to a destination with warmer temperatures. We recently discovered myTab.co (yes, .co!), a free layaway service that allows us to plan solo or group trips with friends and save money to use for our vacation. This will come in handy when planning an upcoming girls’ getaway to escape our winter blahs!
Because we often vacation over New Year’s, we’ve found out what many different cultures eat at midnight to bring them luck and prosperity for the coming year. We’ve also noted various customs, starting with our own grandmother, who used a broom to sweep the old year out the front door and onto the lawn. Here are some food and New Year’s customs from around the world, plus an easy recipe.
Santa Claus isn’t the only one taking to the skies this holiday season. Along with millions of other travelers, we are flying to see loved ones over the next several weeks and we know we’ll want to eat something along the way. But since many airlines cut costs in the past decade by reducing or dropping their in-flight food offerings, we either have to bring our own nibbles, find something healthy at the airport or opt to buy an in-flight meal or snack, since most domestic airlines have discontinued courtesy food service.
Every now and then, when we have 15 or so browser windows open at the same time, we feel a bit overwhelmed, like we’re in the technology loop skit in Portlandia. But ’tis the season for giveaways, and Twitter, Facebook and our email inbox yielded some opportunities we want to share — all on one handy page.
Rome is one of our favorite towns: The Eternal City offers some of the most striking juxtapositions of ancient and modern sights — scooters zipping down the narrow streets, windows full of pizza slices tempting tourists across from the Baroque façade of the Trevi Fountain. Now, home pizza chefs have a chance through January to win a trip to Rome, an Aprilia scooter or a Sony digital camera in the Mezzetta Picture Perfect Pizza Contest.
We’re not big drinkers, but when we recently found ourselves visiting Kettner’s during London Cocktail Week, we sampled the offerings of new and inventive cocktails inspired by the Soho restaurant and Champagne bar’s past famous patrons.
We’ve all heard about mindless eating, the distracted munching in front of the TV or while multitasking that leads to weight gain. So it makes sense that its opposite — mindful eating — has been shown to reduce binging and improve eating habits in numerous studies.
We love to unwind with some soothing music after a long day, and numerous medical studies show that a musical interlude can induce the relaxation response, the body’s counter-command to the stress response. Other research demonstrates music can temporarily relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety, and even suppress pain. But we had the chance to literally feel the power of music when we checked out the TAIZ Sensorium treatment recently at Miraval Resort & Spa in Tucson, AZ.
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