Just starting to recover from a great weekend down in South Beach with my chef friend, Roger, at the annual Food and Wine festival. I have flown through Miami a number of times but this was my first time outside of the airport, and is now sure to be an annual stop.
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I have to admit that although over time I have consumed many bottles Evian water, I never really thought about where exactly it came from. For the past week I was lucky enough to stay in the beautiful small town where it is bottled….Evian, France on the Southern shore of Lake Geneva. I won a trip to the Evian Royal Resort through Bravo when I won the show and really had no idea what to expect. Being my first trip to Europe, I was just excited to get over the Atlantic.
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I have to say, Barcelona (of course pronounced BarTHelona) is a city I will for sure go back to, probably next time in the spring. There is just a great energy when walking through the narrow streets of the older neighborhoods. It almost feels like a movie set from hundreds of years ago that is just frozen in time. It feels very quaint and cozy and is just nice to wander through somewhat aimlessly.
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Just got back from a quick trip to New Orleans which of course has left me a bit worn out. I was expecting a tame trip…fly down and get my work done, mingle a bit but that is it. Turns out the members of the PCMA, Professional Convention Management Association, like to have a good time.
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I have always been a big fan of blind taste tests. I remember back about nine years ago when my roommate and I were snowed in our apartment in Chicago, we walked over to the convenient store and decided to buy all the different diet sodas to find out once and for all which we preferred. I always go for Diet Coke while my friend Stef leans towards Diet Pepsi. Always a challenge when we were stocking up our fridge. I knew for sure that I would pick the Coke, after all I had been drinking it since I was in 8th grade. After carefully labeling the bottom of each plastic cup with a letter, and corresponding it to the cans (we picked up other like Diet RC and the no name brand), it was time to taste. I chose the one that tasted exponentially better than the rest (not that any diet soda really tastes GOOD). It was the Diet Pepsi….I was shocked. I thought there must be some mistake with our system but there was not. But until this day, I still buy Diet Coke.
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