A few weeks ago the team at Liquid Einstein generously sent me a box of their “brain supplement” formula. This is what’s known as a nootropic, a “drug used to enhance memory or other cognitive functions”. Intriguing, right? I’ve been waiting until a particularly cognitively foggy morning to try it, however, and that’s exactly how this morning started out. I slept poorly, woke up too early, and had to help my youngest get her luggage…Read More

I am sure that I have spent more work hours at home in the last twelve months than in the previous few years combined. We’re all in that same boat – though things are starting to look a bit sunnier – and a whole lot of us are feeling stress, anxiety, and frustration at the situation. As a college course instructor and parent of two undergraduates, I’m also quite aware of what a strange moment…Read More

I’ve traveled enough in the Southern areas of the United States to have encountered people who have warm Coca-Cola as a breakfast beverage. Me? Not at all my cuppa tea (or coffee, for that matter) but to each their own, right? There’s some logic to it too, given that a 12oz can of regular Coke has 34mg of caffeine and 39g sugar. Compare that to a typical 8oz cup of coffee with two teaspoons of…Read More

Okay, I admit some mornings I skip breakfast, and others are a bowl of cereal with oat milk or even a fruit smoothie, but when I have all the ingredients, I love cooking up a quick breakfast burrito and tossing it on the panini grill to finish it off, ready to eat. My core ingredients are a few scrambled eggs, some protein source or other, and some cheese since I am a big cheese fan….Read More

There’s something about decorating food that’s just great fun. I have hosted many cookie decorating and cupcake decorating parties for my kids! Heck, back when I was in college, we used to have make your own pizza parties where people brough toppings and we all made French Bread pizzas. Perhaps slightly less artistic but equally tasty and enjoyable. My kids are older now, of course, but I had a sense that my youngest, who just…Read More

I enjoy a nice cup of tea, but I consume a lot more coffee than tea on a typical week. Which sporadically leads to a bit of beverage envy: Tea drinkers can bring a tea bag with them on a hike, stash bags in their desk or even make a cup of their favorite tea while on the road. Coffee drinkers? We generally are at the mercy of whatever brew is available, whether good, sublime…Read More

Ever drank so much coffee that you end up with a racing heart, sense of anxiety and complete inability to slow your brain down and get to sleep? I have definitely gone through that to varying degrees, ranging from being a bit restless and tired and spun up simultaneously to feeling like my heart was racing and arrhythmic. Too much caffeine! In fact, it’s a common side-effect of the popular molecule. Here‘s the science: “Caffeine…Read More

Still drinking water? Or maybe fruit juice? Dude, you need to improve your beverage game, and stat! That’s why I was happy to receive a sampler lineup from Yuno BioTactical Drinks to see what all the fuss was about. Can you really have a few teaspoons of a custom blended beverage and feel benefits for hours afterwards? The company says that their six functional blends are made with a total of over 100 all-natural superfood…Read More

I recently had the chance to work with Einstein Bros. Bagels on a small campaign and posted some photos of their delicious bagels, cooked locally just a few miles from me and oven to table in under an hour (if I time it right!). With appropriate chutzpah I had the New York Bagel of the Month Club reach out and say “our bagels are better. Want to find out for yourself?” to which I said…Read More

Who doesn’t love a good cuppa coffee? All right, I don’t want to hear from you if you don’t like coffee. This probably isn’t the post for you to read! But, on the assumption that you do like coffee, you’re gonna be very interested to hear about Cusa Coffee from Cusa Tea Company. Founded by beverage enthusiast Jim Lamancusa and based in my home town of Boulder, Colorado, the company is known much more for…Read More

My kids share my enthusiasm for bagels and pizza, so when you can marry the two, well, it’s a match made in food heaven. So when Einstein’s Bagels reached out and asked me if we’d want to try their “Take & Make Pizza Bagel Kit” it was a complete no-brainer. Of course we would love the chance to make our own pizza bagels with a handy kit from our local Einstein’s Bagel Shop. Through their…Read More

I get lots of interesting food products to try out and that’s generally a great thing. My kids and I have tried quite a variety of weird, curious, and sometimes fantastic foods and it’s always interesting. I’m also a big coffee drinker and have definitely reviewed not just coffees but coffee makers too, from cold brew to Keurig K-cups. One more data point: I was born in England so I’m pretty sure that a predilection…Read More

One of the best things about being a lifestyle blogger (or parent blogger who also covers lifestyle topics, however you want to spin it) is that we get lots of opportunities to eat and drink stuff. From beverages to treats, dinner out with the gang to try a new menu or venue, to condiments and ingredients sent to our house to see if we like ’em, it’s all pretty darn sweet. Or, in this instance,…Read More

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #HarvestSnapsVeggieCrisps #HarvestSnapsGoodness #HarvestSnapsLove I like snacks, particularly between meals. What better way to improve my daily intake than by switching and grabbing a bag of Harvest Snaps as my go-to snack option. It’s far healthier than my usual fare! What you might not realize if you haven’t tried Harvest Snaps is that they’re actually made from veggies with a seasoned…Read More

I don’t know if my Mum realized it at the time, but there was a period during my childhood when my breakfast of choice was waffles with vanilla ice cream. No fruit, not even maple syrup, just a waffle and ice cream sandwich. Mad tasty, though as a parent now I cringe at the nutritional value of this meal. Still, you don’t have to be Eleven in Stranger Things to love waffles and the great…Read More

Dates are a staple food of the Middle East but somehow surprisingly few people in the United States are familiar with this tasty and healthy snack. Usually about 2x-3x the size of an olive, dates grow on stalks on the date palm and are considered a fruit, not a nut. They’re also a great source of both fiber and potassium, but hey, who’s going to worry about health when it’s taste we’re talking about? Enter…Read More

Living in Boulder, Colorado, there are a remarkable number of grocery store options, ranging from indie upstarts like Lucky’s Market to the big guys like Whole Foods, Safeway and King Soopers. Because of our community’s focus on health and wellness, even the big players try out new concepts with organic, natural, vegetarian and similar. Safeway, for example, had its North Boulder store as a showcase for its quite large organic and natural section, even flying…Read More

I’ve written about some of the delicious coffees from King’s Row Coffee in the past, so when they announced they were going to be moving into the cold brew space and were going to be shipping cans of cold brew coffee that was nitrogen infused, well, I wanted to try it! They shipped a sample box my way and upon receipt I promptly tossed it into the back of the fridge for a day: it’s…Read More

Had a great opportunity a few days ago to meet up for lunch with Lucas Clarke, the Chief Marketing Officer at Mad Greens. I invited my oldest daughter along, an avowed vegan, since I thought she’d be most interested in talking with someone whose business is finding the intersection of healthy and popular. We met up at the Boulder Mad Greens, a restaurant we have frequented many times, and tried out the newest items on their…Read More

While there are big pharma companies encouraging us to get a flu shot it turns out that there’s some interesting research that suggests dosing up on something as simple as Vitamin D can significantly help you fight off that nasty influenza bug. For example, one researcher points out that “there is a seasonality to influenza that correlates well with the seasonal drop in vitamin D levels” while another observes that “some studies have shown that…Read More

One of the perks of being a pretty well-known blogger is that I get invited to lots of fun and interesting events. Last night was a great example: Local market Sprouts invited me to join a group of other bloggers (all women, I was the token guy) to meet the founder and CEO of Good Day Chocolate, and have some hands-on fun making chocolate with them. Chocolatiers? How could I have possibly said “no” to…Read More