Lifestyle

Five Craft Beer Adventures Over Land and Sea

 

This may not have been a great idea after all. My legs are trembling and I’m grabbing the handle bars of my Lyft scooter for dear life. The scooter is careening violently from side to side as I rattle over the historic cobblestones leading to Indeed Brewing.

I got the idea while sipping beers with colleagues from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in Amsterdam. Every ten minutes or so, another troupe of cyclists clad in skin-tight club uniforms would peddle by, many stopping at our pub for refreshments. Sure, many of the cyclists were cut more like Kevin James than Lance Armstrong,...

The Delectable Adventures of the Minnesota Meat Trail  -- A Spotlight on Minnesota's Best Butcher Shops

“I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

There is something about hitting the open road that is liberating and I think fulfills our instinctive desire for discovery. As I pack my cooler, backpack and coordinate my GPS, I can feel it. While Lewis and Clark often sent 18 men out to stalk meat, mine will be a solitary expedition.

I will crisscross the state in search of Minnesota’s most celebrated and tradition-rich meat markets. From Miltona to Hugo, from Nicollet to Pierz,...

Our Man in Havana and Impact of Latest Trump Crackdown  

Updated June 4, 2019  

On Tuesday, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced new restrictions limiting Americans’ ability to freely travel to Cuba. The key change was to eliminate visa approval for Americans seeking to visit the island on a cruise or using a private boat or private aircraft. Cruise travel had become the primary mode of tourism for Americans. Also, the Administration eliminated one category of approved group travel, the People-to-People license.  

“There are still a number of ways to legally visit Cuba, commercial...

'Leven or Less Lunch — Lou Nanne's Weekend Brunch: Great Deal, But Drink the Water

Author's Note: This is the first installment of a monthly column on interesting meals available for less than $11 in the Twin Cities metro. While you can get a cup of soup and house salad for that money just about anywhere, this column's focus will be non-chain establishments providing a more substantial meal at a reasonable price. On to the review...   Lou Nanne's opened in the Spring of last year, replacing the Romano's Macaroni Grill location off France in Edina (7651 France Ave S). I've been to Nanne's a few times in the evening since it opened, but this was my first visit during daylight hours — I stopped in on Saturday for the weekend brunch,...

Planning Ahead For the Holiday Weight Gains

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Early planning and preparation can help you succeed through and beyond the holidays. According to one study, the average holiday weight gain was just under a pound, but the cumulative effect can negatively impact health. Although the weight gain during the six weeks pushing to the end-of-year holiday festivities is not as large as once believed, it still adds up, especially if it is not lost each year. The holiday season is full of parties, social commitments, specialty foods, alcohol, stress, cold weather, lack of sleep and a myriad of other distractions that can stand in the way of well-planned...

Fate and Luck: The Incredible Mr. Hillary

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Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the Lebron and Steph Curry of mountaineering -- yet all they could do was wait. They were holed up in a small tent on the South Col of Mount Everest while the ‘varsity’ team of two climbers was aggressively attacking the last 2,000 vertical feet above them. Their colleagues would become the first climbers to summit Everest, the world’s highest and most unreachable peak. In contrast to other climbers, Hillary and Tenzing were imposing physical specimens. Hillary was 6 foot 5 inches of lean, sinewy muscle and abounding energy. Norgay was larger than other Sherpas and his elite acclimatization to altitude enabled...

The Proverbial Cheat Meal: What is it? How Does it Work? How Can it be Effective?

5126345115_a84e8af49c_o Cheating. Whether it’s in sport, relationships or life, the word itself almost always carries a negative, even hurtful, connotation. And when it comes to meeting your fitness goals, cheating — on your diet, your workouts, and your food journals — can feel like a betrayal to yourself. Why work so hard, if you are only going to undermine your efforts with a cookie, or two — or five? But what if cheating was actually somehow good for you? What if taking a break from discipline can actually help you in the long run? It might seem counterintuitive, but there is scientific evidence that relaxing the rules occasionally can improve your chances...

Ten of the Craziest Restaurants to Visit in the World

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Thinking of a trip this summer? Possibly later this year? Let’s be honest, besides the thrill of traveling to a destination unknown (or known), kicking back and indulging in food and drinks is equally exciting. So to give people more of a push to get out there and explore what the world has to offer this summer, ten of the strangest and or craziest restaurants around the world have been collected to get an idea of what the hospitality world has to offer while travelers explore the world around them. Let's get started!  
Modern Toilet Restaurant: Taiwan

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Understanding Food Labels and Their Terminology

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Let’s say you are trying to shop healthier for your family. You head out to the store for your weekly shopping trip, determined to come home with some healthier alternatives to the items in your pantry. However, when you get to the store, you find a multitude of products with different labels. Trying to determine which may be the best one to try is not always that easy. Products don’t just yell out from the aisles, “I’m the healthiest one! Buy ME!” I have spent an awful lot of time reading labels and nutritional data. (Trust me: you would not want to go food shopping with me … ever, just ask my husband). Yet even with hours upon...

Breaking Down Fitness Goals Into Manageable Milestones

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It’s Grandma’s Marathon. The Boston Marathon. Maybe even the IRONMAN. What do the these major events have in common? They are big, audacious goals that are achieved by putting one foot in front of the other. Many will never achieve them. Some have. Some will. While others will do so over and over again! What do these competitors say when they are asked how they accomplished the seemingly impossible? Focus on the present and set intermediate goals. Sports Psychology research leads us to the same reasoning. Setting intermediate or “process goals” are vastly superior to the big, audacious ones. So why are fitness goals, especially these bold declarations,...