Porters and stouts, I love ‘em!  Okay well I love stouts a little bit more than I do porters but don’t tell porters that.  I’m trying to keep our relationship smooth and casual.

Scott and I were perusing the beer aisle not long ago and we came across this vanilla porter by Breckenridge Brewery.

A dark beer brewed with actual vanilla beans?  You don’t say.  Interesting!

And because curiosity got the best of us, we purchased it.

It sat waiting in the fridge for the perfect moment.  Even though I do love beer, I have to be in the mood for beer.  I don’t want to waste a good beer on a moment when I’m not digging the carby goodness.  That doesn’t do anyone any favors.  Plus it could tarnish what would otherwise have blossomed into a beautiful affair.

Eventually it was beer night at the house and we poured ourselves…

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Guys I tried these ages ago and have been meaning to talk about them ever since!  Several months ago the Applegate Farms fairy visited several blogs dropping off chicken goods.  I wasn’t one of those blogs so I bought this box myself.

Chicken breakfast sausage usually makes an appearance here for Sunday Breakfast.  I love it!  In an effort to expand my chicken sausage palate I am constantly looking for new brands of chicken breakfast sausage.

Applegate Farms strives to bring the customer the best possible product using minimal ingredients and high quality ingredients.

They talk about happy chicken although the box does not say that the chicken is cage-free, barn-roaming, or free-range.  No buzz words here.

The ingredient list was simple and not the length of my forearm, so I bought the chicken and sage flavor. …

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I was going to start this review off with a little song.  I was going to share some lyrics that involved drinking a 40 and hanging out with my pistol fo’ shizzle.  Or you know, something like that.  But rap is not something I’ve very intimate with so I had some trouble finding appropriate lyrics.  Oh sure, I like some stuff here and there but on the whole, rap isn’t really my style.

I just talk the shiz, I don’t listen to it.  So, my friends, you are going to have to make it through this post sans awesome rap lyrics and instead read about my newest dark lover.

I’m going to assume you are alright with this change in direction and proceed with my story.

The first time I had Rogue beer was last November when I was in San Francisco for The Foodbuzz Festival.  It…

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Hi gang!  It’s been a terribly long time since you and I have discussed some dark beers and I am about to change that right this minute.  You know that I am:

1. A sucker for a really tall and dark beer.

2. A sucker for holiday and seasonal beers.

Thankfully my husband is also the same way so when he loaded the Sam Adam’s Winter Classics case into the grocery cart, he knew he would get a two thumbs up from me.

The Winter Classics pack is awesome and if you see it, totally buy it!  You won’t be sorry.  However, I’m only going to chat you up about one of the beers in the pack: Sam Adam’s Holiday Porter.

Oh Sam, you had me at Holiday Porter.

The porter looks exactly the way a good porter should look.  It’s dark, pours smooth, and has a lovely creamy…

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Two things that get cold on me the quickest when the weather turns chilly are my ears and my hands.  You would think this could be easily remedied, but yet I have the hardest time trying to find hats that are long enough to cover my ears or gloves that keep my hands warm.  My hands are small and get cold pretty quickly.  I typically have to double up my gloves and even that doesn’t work.  I need some serious gloves!

I was introduced to these Mizuno Breath Thermo Gloves at a running event for women last winter.  I watched as the Mizuno Rep talked about the material that the gloves are made out of and how they actually use your own body heat to help generate more heat to keep your hands warm.

Wow! I thought that this was exactly the product…

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Hi gang!  It’s been a bit since I’ve done a review and for that I truly apologize.  I need to get back to the grind and start reviewing because I have so many things I want to talk about!

You all know I love myself some POM and if you didn’t, you know it now.  POM sent me two new flavors to try (Yes government, this means I got these products for FREE from POM) and I have to tell you that I am impressed.

With one of them.

The first flavor was POM with Kiwi.  It has a green cap that got cut off during this picture apparently.  So if you look for it at the store, look for the lime green cap!

I like POM straight up because I am hard core.  When I test a new flavor, I do so by first smelling the…

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In an attempt to better what we put into our bodies here at the HQ, I’ve started looking for better quality products.  One thing that we use a lot is soy sauce.  When one half of the HQ population is Asian and the other half just happens to like having some Asian in her, the use of soy sauce sky rockets.  I use it almost every time I make roasted veggies.  And I use it in soups, sauces, and dressings.

Basically whenever I can find a reason to use soy sauce, I will manhandle it into a recipe.

But a lot of soy sauces in the market don’t have a great ingredient list.  And while I understand this product is a processed item, I still think it’s a fair assumption to be able to purchase a quality processed product.  Yes?  We all agree?  Great!

My first and so far only attempt at purchasing some better quality soy sauce was buying 365 Brand Soy…

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Hi gang!  Last Friday night Scott and I decided to head out to dinner and try one of the restaurants listed in Columbus’ Dine Originals Restaurant Week.  After pouring over the restaurants and menus, we chose to checkout The Worthington Inn.

For me personally, one of the criteria I looked for, aside from the Restaurant Week menu, was if the regular menu appealed to me.  Did it offer things I would want and like to eat?  The Worthington Inn offered a lot of things on their menu that sounded fantastic to me.  Also what drew me in was the location and the building.  The Worthington Inn restaurant is located inside an old historic building.  Scott and I adore repurposed buildings!  We much prefer something with history to it than something newly built.  It’s just our preference.  So to dine in what…

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Hey gang!  The blog world is all a chatter with the topic of food blogs and free products.

• How should food blogs handle product reviews?
• How should food blogs handle sponsorship?

Are just an example of some of the questions that are popping up.

Today, I’m addressing the product reviews question.

If you’ve been reading my site for any length of time, you know that I love doing product reviews.  I try stuff all the time so I might as well talk about it.

There have only been a handful of times that I’ve received a product in the mail to review for my blog.  And each time that has happened, I have plainly stated that it was sent to me by such and such from such and such company to test out.  I in no way want to mislead you.

If there is no such mention in the review, that…

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Cheese crackers and I have a long history together.  While everyone was snacking on chips or cheese doodles, I was being more sophisticated and health conscious by preferring to eat cheese crackers.  Or at least that’s what I told myself when I inhaled a box.  Cheese crackers were baked, unlike chips which are fried.  Cheese crackers had cheese! Cheese is good for you, so bonus!

Cheese Nips were my preferred choice of cracker.  I had Cheez-Its in a pinch and ate no-name brand to save some cash.  I did not eat Better Cheddars because Better Cheddars were some crazy oily crackers.  Sort of like the 13 year old version of Cheese Nips.  They hadn’t matured into greatness yet.

My most favorite type of cheese cracker were the Swiss cheese flavored crackers.  Those were some freaking awesome crackers and I loved when I…

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