Archives for February 2015

The best tasting K-cup coffee (when you’re too lazy to use a French press)

February 25, 2015

It may not come as a surprise that I drink a lot of coffee. Asa has only started sleeping through the night (well, 8pm to 5am) this past week, and Levi has enough stamina to power a colony of Energizer bunnies.

So I’m relieved to learn that drinking three to five cups of coffee each day is now only considered a moderate level of consumption, according to a new report.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, the country’s top nutrition panel, also found health benefits associated with drinking more than a couple of cups every day, including a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

On an average day, I drink at least one oversize mug of French press coffee. Jordan, my personal barista, is all about experimenting with manual coffee brewing methods after we learned how to use a French press and a Chemex last year. By now he can eyeball measurements of beans and water, so the process goes relatively quickly.

The rest of the day, I’m using K-cups to make coffee in the Keurig machine. After touting the deliciousness of manual brewed coffee, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that we still use a Keurig. It’s just such a fast and effective way to brew one cup at a time, even if the taste is noticeably inferior to the French press coffee we enjoy in the mornings. (Jordan often compares it to dishwater.)

But maybe we’re just using the wrong K-cups. Thrillist enlisted a “world-class barista” from Austin to conduct a blind taste test of 23 K-cups, each made on the middle setting of a Keurig machine using water from a parallel-activated, carbon-filtered OptiPure system.

I’m assuming that means that even the worst-rated coffee of the group tasted better than what we make at home with water from the kitchen sink.

The five best tasting K-cup coffee:

You should definitely head over to Thrillist to check out the full list, which includes the taste tester’s descriptive reactions to each cup. For example, he says Dunkin’ Donuts K-cup coffee (#6) is “totally drinkable with cream and sugar, but develops a medicinal quality as it cools” and describes Tim Hortons Arabica (#17) as tasting like “chicken-flavored ramen noodles.”

I’ll add that Green Mountain Hazelnut isn’t so bad, especially when it’s made with steamed half-and-half and two scoops of organic sugar.

How do you enjoy your daily cup (cups?) of coffee? Are you a manual brew purist or will you use a Keurig machine for a quick and easy caffeine fix?

The shopping trend all my friends are talking about

February 18, 2015

“This is so addictive. I have a problem.”

That’s how my friend captioned a recent Instagram photo of her latest Stitch Fix package. Are you familiar with the online personal styling service?

Here’s how it works (according to the website): Stitch Fix’s personal stylists handpick apparel and accessories for you based on your Stitch Fix Style Profile. They send five items at a time with styling tips for how to wear each piece. You can buy what you like and return the rest in a prepaid envelope.

Curious about the service, I asked my friend whether she thought it was worth the hype. I loved her honest Stitch Fix review and though you might appreciate it, too… READ MORE!

Arcade Bakery: The best babka in NYC?

February 17, 2015

The next time you’re in New York City, there’s a secret bakery in Tribeca you need to find.

It isn’t literally hidden, but if you don’t know that Arcade Bakery is located inside the lobby of 220 Church Street, you’ll likely walk right by. I managed to miss the entrance even with the assistance of Google Maps when I met my friend Sheri there a few weeks ago because I didn’t catch the small Arcade Bakery sign on the exterior of the building.

The passageway of the century-old office building has been retrofitted for Roger Gural’s small retail bakery. He displays and sells his handcrafted breads and yeasted pastries behind an open window built into the wall, and customers sit inside wood-paneled nooks with fold-down tables that used to be display cases.

In the morning, Arcade Bakery’s menu is limited to freshly baked loaves of bread and hot-out-of-the-oven pastries like croissants, Danish, and babka. We arrived just before lunch, when sandwiches and flat bread pizza are added to the menu.

It was a tough decision, but Sheri chose a classic chocolate walnut babka, while I went with the more unusual-sounding whisky pecan babka.

If I lost you at babka, let me try to explain. Babka, often described as a “yeast cake” or a “sweet loaf,” is a popular Jewish pastry that looks like bread twisted with ribbons of chocolate or cinnamon.

Beware: babka can be controversial. According to my family, babka should be slightly dry, more like bread than like cake. However, my dad once critiqued a babka for being too chocolately, something the rest of us would argue is impossible.

By my standards, the babka at Arcade Bakery was among the best I can remember tasting — warm and flaky but not too moist, with the perfect amount of swirly filling. The only thing I regret about my purchase is that I didn’t buy any extra slices to bring home.

(I also wish I had thought to get a baguette, Gural’s specialty, to enjoy on the train back to New Jersey.)

Do you live in New York City? If so, I’d love to know what you think is the best babka. If not, I’m curious whether you’re even familiar with the yeasted pastry. My husband, who grew up in Cleveland, had never heard of it before meeting me!

Weekend reading: link roundup (Valentine’s Day edition)

February 13, 2015

We’ll get to some Valentine’s Day links in a moment, but first, the big story of the week.

By now you’ve surely heard the disappointing news that Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show. The silver lining, I suppose, is that some fascinating articles about Stewart from early in his career are being shared on social media. This 1994 interview with New York magazine is a highlight.

Another gem is this revealing New Yorker profile of Jon Stewart from 2002. In the piece, the writer commented that Stewart, who had been hosting The Daily Show since 1999, prefers to be off the grid when he’s off the camera.

Stewart doesn’t have an E-mail address, and when I asked him why, he seemed puzzled. “Don’t you find people contact you way more?” Rather than socialize, he prefers to do crosswords, watch “SportsCenter,” or hang out at home with his wife, Tracey McShane, and their cat and two dogs. He is essentially a high-functioning hermit.

“A high-functioning hermit.” That quote brought me back to my post about introversion and shyness from earlier this week, and I can understand why Stewart, who sounds like he’s an introvert, would be able to act like an extrovert for the sake of his work.

And now, some Valentine’s Day-themed links for your weekend reading.

Snap, Crackle, Pop! // A classic childhood treat gets a festive makeover for Valentine’s Day, via Design Improvised.

Wrap it Up // I have a thing for beautifully-wrapped chocolate bars, especially when they don’t cost $10 a pop, via Oleander + Palm.

Gift Guide // Making a case for Valentine’s Day presents that are either edible, perishable, tiny, or experiential, via Reading My Tea Leaves.

Think Pink // A celebration of all things pink (including my DIY pink ombre manicure), via Pink Heels Pink Truck.

You Oughta Be in Pictures // A romantic graphic novel depicting the small gestures of love we make every day, via A Cup of Jo.

(image via Dustin Cohen, feature image via Oleander + Palm)

Home tour: A multi purpose nursery for Asa

February 12, 2015

It’s time for the last room of our Omaha home tour: Asa’s multi purpose nursery. His room was tricky to decorate because it needed to function as our guest room and my home office in addition to a nursery.

Also, I didn’t want to repaint the pale pink walls. Since we were only going to be in our house for a few more months, painting didn’t seem worth it — especially when the room was already such a pretty color.

I started by looking for bedding in darker, more “masculine” colors that still complemented the pink walls. At first, this navy and white duvet from Serena and Lily felt like a bold choice, but the large room seemed to call out for a big pattern. I thought it filled the space beautifully.

And how adorable is that Hello throw pillow from The Land of Nod? Asa sure loved it.

The crib was a hand-me-down from Levi (you might recognize it from his nursery tour), but we thought Asa deserved new sheets in a pattern of his own. Although my original nursery inspiration board featured a grey crib sheet, I loved how this aqua with navy dots sheet from The Land of Nod added a pop of color.

The coordinating Cloud Castle throw pillow, which sometimes lived on the glider, magically tied the pink, navy, aqua, and white color scheme together.

You might also remember that I was considering a gallery wall for above Asa’s crib. I even went so far as to pick out some prints from Minted! But then our realtor suggested we keep the walls as empty as possible so that potential buyers would be able to imagine their own art hanging in the space.

Instead, I repurposed the silver garland from this post and hung a small chalk-drawn heart print from Caravan at eye level.

The glider also came from Levi’s nursery, but we brought in a new blue pouf and white floor lamp, both from The Land of Nod. I had hoped to add a small table where I could rest my phone and a glass of water while nursing Asa, but I couldn’t find one tall enough to be a nightstand that wasn’t too tall to be next to the chair.

The monkey photograph above the glider was actually a gift to me from Jordan a year or two ago. Every nursery needs a Sharon Montrose baby animal print, don’t you think?

Opposite the bed was the long brown dresser that — surprise! — also used to be Levi’s. We swapped his old changing pad cover for a Land of Nod polka dot design that matched the room’s color palette and found a gorgeous table lamp from Lamps Plus in almost the exact shade of blue.

My beloved white Parsons desk served double duty as a nightstand, and that Land of Nod silver geometric lamp produced just the right amount of light for reading in bed. It’s a good thing the desk was so big because when my parents came to visit — which, lucky for us, was almost every month — they’d cover the surface with multiple electronic devices and their corresponding chargers.

Above the desk I hung small art prints and a giant calendar page with aqua washi tape from my stash of office supplies. My daily notebooks and favorite hand cream were corralled but easily accessible.

(Side note: When these photos were taken last August, that I Am Very Busy planner from Ban.do was a recent acquisition. But I ended up never really using it. I have a terrible habit of buying multiple paper planners each year, always convinced that the next one will finally get me organized. Can you relate?)

I should also confess that I sat with my laptop on the living room sofa more often than I did at my desk, but it was still important to me to have corner of the house to store work-related things. A sort-of command center for my blogging and freelance writing career.

When we left Omaha, Asa went straight from one multi-purpose nursery to another. In my parents’ house, he sleeps in their home office, and there wasn’t much we could add to the room other than a crib and our Eames rocker to make it more baby-friendly. One of these days (fingers crossed!), we’ll have a house of our own again, and Asa will have a single-purpose bedroom for the first time!

PS: How to decorate a guest room — that isn’t also an office and nursery!

Disclosure: The Land of Nod, Serena & Lily, and Lamps Plus helped me furnish this room by generously providing product; however, I didn’t receive any compensation from these companies. As always, all opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that help support A Girl Named PJ.