Winter in Denver is characterized by chaotic weather patterns and the comforting constant of the new year ringing in with the National Western Stock Show. What I didn’t know until this year is that stock show time doesn’t just mean rodeo, it also coincides with largest trade show in the WORLD for western apparel and equipment. That’s right, the largest in the world, WESA Denver is a weekend long event featuring over 2,500 product lines and over 7,000 retailers stocking their boutiques with the hottest fashions of the year.
For me, that meant an inside peek at all fashion trends we’ll be seeing over the next few months during both the fashion show and throughout the trade show over the weekend. Western fashion inspires styles you see at all your favorite stores. This year, fun patterns and bright colors are making waves. Throughout the entire fashion show, the jewel tones and bold patterns made a mark on women’s styles. Continue Reading…
Imagine if you could take a weekend trip to Italy without the 12-hour plane ride and trip down the A-line? Thanks to Denver’s newest Italian restaurant Marcella’s you can. Brought to us by the same restaurant group who perfected Ocean Prime in Larimer Square, Marcella’s marries Italian classics with modern culinary flair.
Located just at 18th and Central, the outdoor patio lights your way into the modern Italian dining room. If the weather is nice, you can even dine alfresco looking out at the Denver lights or watching the fireworks during a summer Rockies game.
Drew and I visited Marcella’s shortly after they opened and we were blown away by how amazing the experience was.
Yesterday Mark Zuckerburg announced that the Facebook newsfeed will be shifting to share more content from your family and friends, instead of content from brands / bloggers and business pages. Since this announcement went live I’ve seen dozens of posts from bloggers, photographers and business owners up in arms.
Facebook’s killing my community! What am I going to do? Etc etc etc. Even one of my favorite mom bloggers Baby Sideburns has an open letter to the Zuck protesting her dismay about the changes.
I’ve been working in marketing and social media my entire career and from this announcement the only thing I have to say is THANK GOD.
If you are in any type of business you’ve known for years that using Facebook’s tricky algorithm to boost your engagement is a cruel mistress. The first bloggers and businesses into the world of Facebook pages got huge, fast. People liked / shared / clicked and filled your pockets with money from sponsors and customers. Slowly but surely Facebook realized that they were missing revenue and instead of charging their users, they started charging these folks who were making money off of their FREE platform.
Next came the latest round of how to trick the system. Instead of just posting your content to boost your numbers: Post Meme’s, Post Videos, Post Gifs asking people to describe their day in a Gif response. This garbage is literally collectively lowering all of our iq.
Last month, Facebook said hey guys, this is trash, let’s stop promoting it and if you don’t we’re not going to show your trash to anyone.
Again, Thank you.
So that said, how does a blogger or a brand survive on Facebook? The same way they survived before social media became a gravy train of free ‘impressions’.
CREATE GOOD CONTENT. Build your website with SEO in mind so that readers / customers can find you. Be a good steward of your community and only share your very best work.
If you are good at what you do – people will naturally share your content giving you better, more engaged, authentic engagement. Isn’t that what we all want?
To all my blogger friends. Let’s stop trying to find a way to trick the system and bemoaning how facebook is making life harder. Let’s all just accept the challenge and BE better.
Photo Credit: Karolina from Pexels
Cooking with Stainless Steel pots and pans is different from cooking on non-stick surfaces like teflon or ceramic. I’ve found that there are some meals that I prefer to use stainless steel on, specifically to help my meats brown nicely, or to be able to really scrap up the bottom of the pan without worrying about damaging the non-stick surface of the pan. I was recently given the opportunity to try out one of the Stainless Steel Frying Pans from Made In and it has since become my go to pan for perfect fried eggs every time.
Four Reasons Why You Should Cook With Stainless Steel
Reason 1 – Stainless Steel Is Durable
No matter how much you baby your pots and pans, life happens and even if you remove all metal utensils from the kitchen someone is going to use that metal spatula on your treasured non-stick pan. Stainless steel holds up for years and doesn’t show the wear and tear from everyday use as easily. If you NEED that non-stick finish, make sure to check out Made In’s PFOA-Free Coated Fry pans that won’t leach chemicals into your food.
Reason 2 – Better Heat Distribution
Have you ever cooked a piece of meat to discover that while one area is burned another looks completely raw? I have. That’s what happens when your pan is not conducting heat properly. Made In pans are made with five layers of thick aluminum, ensuring that your pans heat evenly for the life of the pan.
Reason 3 – Improved Browning
Some recipes call for browning your meat as the first step and when you are cooking a roast or another red meat, that browning traps in the juice and flavor. Stainless steel is hot enough to ensure that your meat is beautifully browned with nice crisp edges. This beautiful look is called the maillard reaction. Anything stuck to the pan after browning is perfect for scraping up and giving additional flavor to the dish. In a non-stick pan, it’s impossible to scrap up those flavorful bits without damaging the pan. Have you ever seen a professional cook use a non-stick pan? There’s a reason why!
Reason 4 – Chemical Free
Most modern non-stick pans are chemical free already, but stainless steel is naturally so. You don’t have to worry about any cracked teflon or other nonstick coating flaking off the pan into your meal.
Butter melts beautifully in stainless steel pans and is perfect for frying up eggs to making into a rich and wonderful sauce. As a home cook, one of the barriers keeping me from investing in an entire set of stainless steel pans is the cost. That’s one of the fantastic things I love about Made In Cookware. Your cooking tools are an investment at will last for a lifetime, and Made In has made it easy to start adding high quality pans into your cupboards at a fraction of what you might spend in a boutique store.
By selling direct to customers through their website, all the extra overhead and cost that comes with selling at a store are gone. That means that the value you get out of your cook wear is where it should be – in the quality of the product itself.
What are your favorite kitchen tools? Leave a note in the comments and let me know what other tools I should check out!
Disclaimer: I received a product sample from Made In to inspire this post. All writing and opinions are my own.
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