Search Results

Me enjoying a glass of Cabernet with the Josephinenhütte No 3 Glass Cover photo by David Kohler Childhood Memories: Glass Blowing and a Jug of Wine When I was a kid growing up, my best friend, Paul, lived a few houses up from me. Each Christmas, he had a real tree with all hand-blown balls in different colors. His Uncle Lennie was a glass blower and made them enough balls to fill the tree and it looked amazing. I will get back to the glass blowing in a bit.   Just about the same time as my memory serves me about the glass blown Christmas balls, I also have a recollection of going to my grandparents’ house. During those visits, we would sit around the kitchen table, and my grandfather would take out the $2 gallon jug of wine and would pour a glass for every adult. I never remember trying it, but I do remember it smelled awful, not just because I was a kid, but because I think it smelled like vinegar.   Two just poured glasses ready to be enjoyed by my wife and me. We pulled an unopened bottle for the picture! Our Journey into Wine Fast forward a bunch of years. My wife and I were married in our mid 20’s and we started drinking red wine. We started drinking wine pretty much by default at functions because neither of us really liked hard liquor or beer. For the next 25 years, we slowly started to improve our taste in wine. Unlike a future post where I mention I am a pizza snob; I am nowhere near self-proclaiming myself as a wine snob. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "The Josephinenhütte glass is a work of art. Feel the glass and give it a light ping and notice the pure instrumental note. Notice the kink in the glass. Don't just smell the wine, follow the aromas releasing the hidden notes. Slowly savor the taste, taking a moment of serenity, elevating your sensory experience the way the winemaker intended." In time, we started to become more interested in wine, being able to tell at least a good wine from a bad wine, and over time, being able to pick up some of the tasting notes for each wine. We went to a few local wineries and started to learn about the growing of the grapes and how even slightly different elevations can make a difference in the taste of the grapes. In two weeks, we are going to the local winery to pick the grapes off of the vines and then taste the same wine. There is so much to learn about wine, and we are by no means experts.   About 10 years ago, we bought ourselves a nicer set of wine glasses but nothing out of the ordinary by any means. It probably came from Target or Bed Bath and Beyond. My wife and I both like Cabernet and the wine glasses we purchases were specific to a Cabernet where you could swirl the wine to open it up. I then learned about an aerator and a decanter, both making significant differences in the taste of the wine for the better.   This is my wine glass for my side of the couch About a year ago, I had a recollection of a memory from a former colleague who mentioned he traveled with his own very expensive wine glass. I thought he was crazy at the time (but now can appreciate his passion). That got me thinking about doing some research for an upgraded wine glass. As with all of my product research process, I search through multiple product recommendation sites to find some commonality. You have to dig through the ones that just pull from someone else’s site but through lots of time, you can pull out the ones that keep coming up.   Hand Blown Wine Glasses This is where the hand-blown (yes, you read that correctly) wine glasses from Josephinenhütte kept coming to the top of the list. After seeing the reviews and then reading more on the website, I was sold. I purchased two Josephine N° 3 glasses for our 26 th wedding anniversary and the experience is no less than amazing. So much of the experience in drinking wine is the smell and these wine glasses deliver. There are two aspects between the shape of the glass itself where the smell is captured by the curved shape but there is also the break towards the bottom of the glass that does a phenomenon job in opening up the wine.   Our Josephinehutte No 3 Hand Blown wine glasses on our kitchen table overlooking the trees in the background. As I was reading before our purchase, one comment that stuck with me is that these glasses will even make a not-so-great wine taste good…and its true. We even did a taste test with the original glasses and the Josephinehutte glasses and there is no comparison.   Small Details, Big Experience This next part is important. Because the glasses are hand blown, they are thin, and therefore delicate. This means extra special care when in use. It also means my wife won’t let me wash the glasses (partly because of how thin and breakable they are but also because I never did a great job washing the wine glasses). My job is to dry them with the Linen Cloth & Brush Care Set they offer (I have not used the paint brush to dry the very minor spots it comes with). Future purchases (someday) are the Josephine N° 7 Decanter and while I never think I will purchase it, the Josephine N° 5 Water glass. It is really hard to justify a $50 water glass, but I have a really strong feeling that the water will taste 100 times better. I haven’t done any research on it as of yet but if I ever buy it, I will be sure to write about it. Also, there may be a future post about Tequila from a friend of mine, and I am sure the Josephine N° 10 Eau de Vie glasses will make it taste amazing.   If you want to elevate your wine experience, I highly recommend the Josephinenhütte wine glasses. It will give you the sensory experience of dining at a MICHELIN star restaurant in the comfort of your own home.   I would love to learn about your wine glass experience or if you have a favorite small farm or family-owned wine that you are in love with. Cheers! Start Your Own Wine Glass Sensory Experience If you’re curious to start your own wine glass sensory experience, I’ve listed my favorite glasses (as well as a few aspirational ones) below. Give one a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments! For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself. Enjoy!

Dick Taylor Belize 72% Dark Chocolate Cover image by Aleksander Popovski How It All Started Welcome to my chocolate journey! If you’ve ever wondered what makes craft chocolate so special, this story is for you. Let me take you back to where it all began. My middle son, Michael, had a love for anything truck-related. We watched countless episodes of garbage and fire trucks on DVD. As he grew older, we started taping and enjoying Mike Rowe’s TV show, Dirty Jobs . We became fans of Mike Rowe, watching his adventures over and over again. Collection of current Dick Taylor specialty items including the Belize 72% Dark Chocolate, 72% Tanzania Dark Chocolate Bar with California Black Mission Figs, 68% Tanzania Dark Chocolate, Chocolate Covered Almonds, and Madagascar Cocoa Nibs Discovering Dick Taylor Chocolate Fast forward to the fall of 2014. I was at a technology conference where Mike Rowe was the keynote speaker. He had just wrapped up his long-running tenure on Dirty Jobs and was starting a new show called Somebody’s Gotta Do It on CNN. Mike shared stories about Dirty Jobs and introduced the unique co-founders of Dick Taylor Chocolates, Adam Dick and Dustin Taylor. These two carpenters decided one day to make chocolate. Their first manufacturing site was in a lumber yard, but they have since moved to Eureka, CA. That moment inspired me to order my first bar of chocolate from them. I fell in love with it! Here is the 15-minute episode if you’d like to watch it. You’ll get a real sense of the uniqueness and passion of Adam and Dustin. My hope is to someday visit their store. I keep trying to get them to host virtual tasting sessions, like the ones they do in-store. How to Enjoy Craft Chocolate Each day, typically after lunch and dinner, I grab a piece of chocolate to savor. I even started traveling with it! But as you can imagine, this isn’t the kind of chocolate most kids like. It’s not from the famous brand in Pennsylvania. To get the most out of your experience, unwrap the chocolate, close your eyes, and smell it. Then, bring it to your ear to hear the signature snap of perfectly tempered chocolate. Only now should you place it on your tongue and let it slowly melt. Resist the urge to bite it. Let it melt in your mouth to fully experience the taste. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Notice the packaging itself and the tasting notes. Treat the unwrapping of the package as part of the elevated sensory experience. Once you unwrap the bar, hold it near your ear to hear the snap of the perfectly tempered chocolate. Smell it to experience the flavors and then finally taste, leaving it on your tongue and let the flavors melt into your taste buds." My Favorite Bars For my Dick Taylor Chocolate review, my two favorites are the Belize and Madagascar chocolates. I usually buy them in bulk at 5 to 10 at a time. I also mix in a few different varieties with each order. Each month, they offer a limited-edition bar that sometimes catches my interest, prompting a special purchase. My other go-to favorites include the Black Fig bar, which has bits of California Black Mission Figs, and the Dark Chocolate Coated Almonds. My current personal collection of Dick Taylor chocolates bars. Expanding My Chocolate Use It’s been about 10 years since I started buying Dick Taylor bean-to-bar craft chocolates. Recently, I began exploring both the Nibs and the Baking Chocolate. I find the Nibs are fantastic for my acai and granola bowls (if I liked yogurt, they’d be great in that too). My interest in using the baking chocolate was driven by a desire to make better chocolate chip cookies—like the rich, tasty ones from bakeries or restaurants. In another post, I’ll share how I upgraded my flour to complement the new baking chips. My first unboxing video! Visiting a Cacao Farm Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a cacao farm. It was a vacation I’ll never forget! I watched as the guide broke open a cacao pod, allowing us to eat the fruit and then the bean. The tour deepened my understanding of the care and passion these small farmers and craft chocolate makers invest in creating the amazing products we enjoy. Me visiting a Cacao farm in Kauai, Hawaii. The picture is the Cacao pod before as in a full-grown state. Start Your Own Chocolate Sensory Experience If you’re curious to start your own chocolate sensory experience, I’ve listed my favorite bars below. Give one a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments! For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself. Enjoy!

I am beyond excited to share this TESORO Olive Oil review and announce that it was named Rooted & Refined Living's 2025 Sensory Experience 2025 Product of the Year. 2025 Sensory Product of the Year Olive tree from the FEUDO DISISA estate. I started exploring Italian Olive Oils from a struggle to find a good balsamic vinegar. The short version is I spoke with Louie from Extra Virgin Olio by Madge & Louie , a United States based importer of Italian Olive Oils and Vinegars. Through that conversation, he turned me on to a world of Italian Olive Oils that made everything taste better. The full story can be read at The Olive Oil Conversation That Transformed My Kitchen . During the last few years, I tried many fantastic Italian Olive Oils from Madge and Louie's. The one that stood above the rest was TESORO. The Sicilian based FEDUO DISISA, which also has a line of award-winning wines , has something really special with TESORO and offers an unparalleled sensory experience. The first thing that you come in contact with is the sleek and elegant look of the black bottle with the gold lettering, giving it a premium feel. The taste is a smooth, complex flavor, with hints of artichoke, and a peppery finish. TESORO also has a great pairing versatility with pastas, caprese, meats and fish. The Rooted & Refined Living Standard:   "Unlike traditional review sites, my selection process for Product of the Year involves personal use of multiple Italian olive oils for 5 years of daily use. My family and I personally use TESORO on pastas, meats, caprese and my favorite, bread dipping. This award is a view into what we use at the Fiore dinner table." TESORO embodies what we strive for at Rooted & Refined Living. In a world increasingly shaped by technology and AI, people are craving more sensory based experiences. Also, for those in the US, I highly recommend reaching out to Louie to change the way you experience olive oils and if you are ever in Sicily, visit FEUDO DISISA for some olive oil and wine tasting. In fact, Louie, and his wife Tina may also offer Olive Oil tours in Italy and you may just get to stop by FEUDO DISISA! As a point of reflection, I have been writing about products that elevate your sensory experience for the last 6 months. To date, I have published 10 stories , based on all products I personally use and love. All of these products are amazing in their own right. As I was deciding on the Product of the Year, TESORO stood out based on how it helped elevate our cooking experience across so many dishes including pastas, caprese, steaks and fish, just to name a few. Buon appetito! Congrats again to FEUDO DISISA! ---------------------------- Selection Process Transparency: FEUDO DISISA and Extra Virgin Olio by Madge & Louie did not have any input in this decision, nor was I compensated for this award selection. As shared on previous posts, some of the links are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

"All things being equal, my French Toast tasted better when I cooked it on my All-Clad pan. But more on that in a bit". French Toast with sourdough bread from Bread Guys Breads using local eggs and Royal Cinnamon from Burlap & Barrel Mary Beth and I registered for our wedding 29 years ago. Surprisingly, we were getting instructed by my New York/New Jersey Italian family that we weren't putting enough expensive things on the registry. The reality was, we were being practical and honestly, didn't know the value between most of the expensive items vs. the less expensive items. To us at the then age of 22, our $100 set of 10 pots and pans selection was more than sufficient. This cookware cooked the food the same way an expensive pot would (or we naively thought). Plus, how cool was it that we had 10 different sized pots and pans! For years, these pans worked just fine for what we were doing. We cooked and the food tasted good. As we got older and we would window shop at the retail stores. We always thought it would be cool to get the really nice sets but didn't think much of it. We had other priorities like paying for diapers when the kids were little. Extras and nice to haves were put on the back burner (no pun intended). The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "To prevent your food from sticking, let the water dance. Heat the pan up slowly on a low setting. After a few minutes, the pan will experience the Leidenfrost Effect. Drop a few beads of water and watch them glide across the pan like an elegant dancer. Once this happens, it's time to add your first ingredient." There was a point in time when we did upgrade but it was based on a sales contest my company was running, and I got to choose from a selection of products. We did upgrade and most of our original pots and pans got relegated to a box in the basement for when the kids got older (which Michael is now using now in college). Even with the nicer set, I always wanted the best pots and pans, and that was All-Clad. They were the featured products in all of the nice stores we went to visit and as we got older, some of our friends had them as well. As I learned over time, if you enjoy cooking, having a great set of pots and pans is just as important as a few other key items like your kitchen knife and your butcher block . All-Clad Copper Core Review So, after lots of research, I opted to purchase from All-Clad but even then, there were so many options. For my review, I chose for the All-Clad Copper Core set, but there was a learning curve. Unless you are cooking with a liquid, like boiling water, they recommendation is to heat up the pans on a low temperature and only increase it to medium on occasion. Most of your cooking is between the 3 and 4 range (out of 10) on the stove. I believe this is for most pans, but these were specific rules for cooking with the Copper Core set. Over time, we did augment our original set with two non-stick Copper Core pans for cooking eggs and other items that are a bit easier with the non-stick. I know you can cook eggs on a traditional pan, but we haven't perfected it, and I have ruined too many eggs trying. 5 of the 10 All-Clad pans that came in our set. We have had our pans for about 3 years now and I can share with you that this was well worth the investment. As a point of reference, as you may see, All-Clad is not manufactured by a small company or individual like the rest of my product recommendations. However, to elevate your sensory experience, I highly recommend them. Separately, if you are the type of person who wants the best of the best, check out this site from Duparquet Cookware . These are all handmade silver pots with one of them going for as much as $16,000. I saw him featured on a local tv program and was fascinated. I unfortunately don't have that much cash lying around to buy one! Start Your Own All-Clad Cookware Sensory Experience If you’re curious to start your own All-Clad Cookware sensory experience, I’ve listed my favorite teas. Give one a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments!  For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

Cover Image by Jatin Jangid My wife made me return the 24’x18” 2.25” thick Boos Block when I made my first purchase as it took up most of our counterspace☹️ It looked so good and was going to be the centerpiece of my part of the counter.   Unfortunately, my part of the counter is also where the dishes get staged to go into the dishwasher among other things. So… I reluctantly returned it and got a smaller, more manageable cutting board (below) that I can store in the cabinet just underneath where I work. While it is not the original one, I love my Boos cutting board. Instead of a bigger cutting board, maybe I should be asking for a bigger kitchen😄   Cutting up some fresh vegetables for dinner. We were making pork tacos. Along with loving the cutting board, I am sure you can tell that Mary Beth and I love to cook. There is nothing better than cutting up fresh vegetables. At the time of writing this, for dinner tonight we will be making pork tacos, accented with farm fresh peaches, along with sweet potatoes and corn on the cob (both also farm fresh). I know for many, cooking is a chore and there are definitely some days when it feels like it. However, most days, when we cook, there is a sense of enjoyment, especially when the aroma of what you are cutting and cooking fills the house.   Why I Switched from Plastic to Wood I initially made the change from plastic cutting boards to wood based on a lot of research I was reading. The research was stating that tiny pieces of plastic were getting transferred from my cutting board to my food. As a result, I started doing some research on the type of cutting board (as there are many including plastic, bamboo, glass, wood, and composite) I should be using. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Prep time becomes a meditative experience when you remove the noise, leaving only the elegant rhythm of chopping and dicing. There is a quiet luxury to solid wood that changes the entire atmosphere of the kitchen." I landed on wood as it not only looked the nicest, I found it to be very food friendly, as well as great for the longevity of the knives. Cutting some fresh sourdough bread with Italian olive oil on a Boos Block.   Finding the Right Fit with Boos For my John Boos Block review and after selecting wood, there was the choice between End Grain and Edge Grain. The primary difference is End Grain looks nicer (crosscut) and is softer and more forgiving for the very expensive knives you just purchased. However, that also comes with a much more expensive price tag. I settled for the Edge Grain (straight cut) with a walnut finish. I think I still spent about $250 or so on the product but it was at least ½ the price of the End Grain. In the end (no pun intended), I just couldn’t justify the larger price tag but really wanted to buy it.   From there, I then needed to select the vendor. After researching a variety of cutting board review sites, Boos Boards kept coming up in the top categories. I then made the decision to move forward with the Boos Block but even then, the decision was overwhelming as I second guessed the End vs Edge grain and then had to decide if I wanted a juice groove catcher or not.   We ultimately bought three. I use the Walnut version, my wife uses the Maple version, and we bought a smaller, less expensive one just for bread. We also purchased the Boos Block Food Grade Mineral Oil (called Mystery Oil from what I can tell based on some very old marketing techniques from many years ago) as well as an applicator.   Caring for the Board (and Lessons Learned) It is recommended to apply the oil about once a month. I oiled the boards up as soon as I got them. About 2 months later, my wife started to share that her board was getting warped. After consulting with my son and the internet, it turned out that it was just dry and after another application of oil, it bounced back to its original form. All is good and I probably need to do another application soon.   Lastly, a great complement to a really nice wood cutting board is a really nice chef’s knife. Unfortunately, I am not in love with the one I have and thus, you won’t be seeing me writing a story about it. I did fall in love with my bread knife and that will be a future post as it cuts bread like its soft butter.   I can share that I love taking my Boos Block out of the cabinet and start the cooking process. It becomes an artful experience. I hope you get the same feelings when you make your first cut. Start Your Own Boos Block Cutting Board Sensory Experience If you’re curious to start your own Boos Block cutting board sensory experience, I’ve listed my favorite bars below. Give one a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments! For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

My visit with Louie and Tina at their house. I learned about how they got started on this olive oil journey. Cover photo by Joanna Kosinska *There is a special discount code at the end of this story* The Search for Better Olive Oil The Tesoro olive oil was the best I ever had. The bottle to the right is an organic version from the same producer. Turns out as I was writing this and pulling the links to from the website, I just placed an order for the Tesoro olive oil. I had to wait 9 months as the farm had issues with shipping internationally. Now that it is back in stock, it will be in my pantry within the week😊. My journey to get to these high quality, Italian olive oils didn’t come overnight. This was a long process where I didn’t realize what I was missing until we found Madge & Louie’s. Like many of you, I started out with the olive oil and vinegars that were in the local supermarket and then would buy in bulk when we went to the local wholesale club. From there, we started purchasing olive oil and vinegars from those specialty stores that pop up in the highly popular tourist areas, which for me was in Boston and Newport, RI. Over time, while we were seemingly happy with the olive oils, the vinegars just didn’t taste like what we would get in a nice restaurant. The Love of Italian Olive Oil One day a few years back, we participated in a virtual pasta making class from a great local Italian restaurant in the Worcester, MA area called Volturno. As a part of the pasta we picked up, they shared a small sample of some olive oil. We loved their food (they were the first pizzeria in Massachusetts certified by the  Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana  and I figured they had to use some quality ingredients to make the food that good. I decided to give them a call, and they put me in touch with Louie. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Embrace the peppery finish. Take a moment to drink a small amount of the olive oil by itself. That distinct sensation at the back of your throat is sensory proof that you are tasting authentic, high-quality olive oil." Here is where it got interesting. I sent Louie an email asking for a vinegar recommendation and he asked for my phone number to give me a call. From there, we spoke for about 30 minutes with him asking me all sorts of questions around what I was using it for (ie. cooking, salads, bread dipping). We also talked a lot about olive oils during the conversation with Louie asking me questions which led to me buying a few. In addition, Louie also sent me a bunch of small samples to try. This olive oil changed my life in so many ways from feeling better to being the basis for my TEDx Talk. During the conversation, we also spoke about the benefits of olive oil, specifically some of the olive oils that have a very high polyphenol count like Azienda Agricola Le Tre Colonne 1000+ Olisir . While I am not a medical doctor and would encourage you to do your own research, polyphenols help reduce inflammation in the body. This led me to ultimately give it a try. Taking a tablespoon a day, I felt about 10 years younger in about 2 weeks as my body felt so much looser. I even did a TEDx Talk on it called How Drinking Olive Oil and Curiosity Changed My Life .   Meeting Louie and Tina Yesterday (at least at the time of writing this), I had a unique opportunity to meet Louie and his wife, Tina. Tina and Louie run the importing, and Johnny Madge finds the farms/producers. Louie and Tina live about an hour away and I made a special visit to meet them. They were nice enough to have me visit them at their house, which is where they run the business.  It was so much fun. I was like a kid in a candy store. Getting to meet Louie and Tina and learn a bit more about their business, how they got started, and even sampling some of their vinegars was a treat to say the least.   We first had a tour of the operation. The olive oil is stored in a special temperature-controlled room in the basement with dehumidifiers running constantly. Louie also shared details like purchasing high quality shipping boxes to ensure the product is delivered without damage.   What a perfect way to end the story with some Italian olive oil for dipping! We then walked upstairs to his kitchen where we talked about how they got started. They were on their honeymoon in Italy and the local Innkeeper shared that they should go down to the local olive oil and wine bar run by Johnny Madge. It was at this point in time when the business idea struck and two years later, they were in business. Johnny himself recently got married and moved to Spain where he opened an olive oil and wine bar in Valencia, Spain. He now operates "day" tours in Spain and continues to do week-long tours with Tina and Louie when "Madge and Louie’s" hit the road  "off the beaten path"  to various locations throughout Italy. Johnny Madge Farm2Table Tours Italy (TripAdvisor) . Picture of our vinegar tasting in Louie and Tina's house. My favorite was Caterina Balsamic Vinegar . Louie and Tina then offered to do a vinegar tasting with some samples they received from one of their vendors, plus a few of the vinegars I was familiar with and purchased before. After tasting 7 different vinegars, I am happy to say I really liked the one I currently use, Caterina Balsamic Vinegar . The great thing about tasting good quality vinegar is that it doesn’t make your head spin around from the bite. These vinegars are smooth and were very enjoyable.   Circling back to the Tesoro olive oil. Louie shared with me that the same producer makes wine as well. Once I try it and if it’s as good as I hope, I will share a story on that as well.   Elevating Everyday Cooking Fast forward to today, I have a pantry full of these olive oils and vinegars, and it elevated our cooking, salads, and bread dipping. My wife shared with me that this was her favorite of all my purchases. It’s also probably the one that I have spent the most money on since we started a few years ago. And do yourself a favor, ask Louie for some product recommendations.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do! Start Your Own Olive Oil and Vinegar Sensory Experience If you’re curious to start your own Olive Oil and Vinegar sensory experience, I’ve listed my favorites below. Give a few a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments! For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

Drinking tea is a calming, almost meditative experience. The aroma, the warmth of the cup, and each sip make it special every time. My favorite mug, the Best Dad Evah (Boston slang for Ever) cup from my son Michael, adds a personal touch to the ritual. Cover image photo credit to Tang Don Where It All Began: Tea Memories from Childhood This was the first product where my taste buds started to realize the value of a well sourced product. Getting to this product recommendation was a journey and didn’t happen overnight. I remember growing up as a kid where my mom would make me the very popular store-bought black tea. I would add milk and sugar to it and even an ice cube because my mom would always tell me that would help it cool down so I could drink it sooner. What I started to learn over time is that the act of drinking tea became a meditative experience where the holding and smelling the tea was just as much of the experience as the actual drinking the tea. Tea as a Ritual: Early Marriage and Bulk Buys When my wife, Mary Beth, and I were first married, we continued with the standard black tea as we really didn’t know anything different. We then started shopping at our local wholesale club buying our tea in bulk, black for me and green for Mary Beth. Over time, I started to drink the green tea as well and it became an evening ritual for the two of us. More of my Favorites from Golden Moon Tea- Sinharaja, Golden Monkey, Tippy Early Grey, Tie Guan Yin oolong tea, and English Breakfast The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Drinking tea is more than just the taste. The entire process can be a meditative experience. The smell of the tea when you open the can, the steeping of the tea, the pouring into the cup, the holding of the cup, and of course, the smell and taste of the tea itself." Golden Moon Tea Review However, when we went out to eat or to a coffee/tea shop, I would always gravitate towards Earl Grey due to my love of Bergamot, which to me smelled like lavender. This is where my review of Golden Moon Tea started. One day at work, I was talking to a colleague who had a personal friend open up a tea shop in the Virginia, US area called Golden Moon Tea , which sold sourced and sold Organic Loose-Leaf Tea. The following week, he was nice enough to bring me a small container of one of his teas, Sinharaja , which is a black tea that has hits of cocoa and honey (which as you read my other posts is probably the reason why I liked it). I also found that they had the best Earl Grey  tea which ultimately became my everyday staple in the evening. As mentioned earlier, the holding of the cup, the smelling of the Bergamot, and the taste of the tea was a great meditative experience to end the day.   Green Tea leaves: Jasmine Pearls (top), Sencha (bottom left) Matcha (bottom right) An Insider's Treat: Small Batches and Big Flavors The other thing I loved about Golden Moon tea was Marcus, the owner, used to offer an insider club, where he would source very small batches of unique teas such as Snow Dragon and Golden Monkey that typically weren’t meant for mass consumption but were sourced from a small patch of land on their farm and the tea was just out of this world. I hope he brings it back as I will be the first person on his list to buy it.   Four of my favorite Golden Moon Black teas; Sinharaja (top left), English Breakfast (top right), Tippy Earl Grey (bottom left), and Golden Monkey (bottom right) Tea as a Daily Meditation: Savoring Every Cup As of today, I typically drink 3 cups of tea a day, one in the morning (typically a rotation of black teas), afternoon (Sencha), and evening (always Earl Grey). Every cup of tea I have is a savory experience. If you are ever on a conference call with me, you will see one of my teacups as I typically rotate from the three colleges my kids go to. I hope you enjoy the tea as much as Mary Beth and I do. Me in my office drinking Golden Moon Sencha tea in afternoon with my Keene State College mug The 6-Month Update: While I have been drinking loose leaf tea for years, I noticed one thing that made a huge difference in the taste of the tea. If you pour the water just ever so slightly on the tea leaves, swirl for a few seconds and let them open up, wait a few seconds, and then pour the rest of the water, the tea tastes so much better. It really opens up the flavor profile to elevate your sensory experience. I can tell the difference immediately as the tea leaves stay at the top of the steeper I use vs. drop to the bottom. Hope this tip helps you enjoy your tea even more. Start Your Own Tea Sensory Experience If you’re curious to start your own tea sensory experience, I’ve listed my favorite teas. Give one a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments!  For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself. I hope you enjoy!

This is part two to help anyone looking to start their own side hustle, or specifically, looking to help their kids start their own side hustles. Click here for Part 1 . As a disclaimer, these posts were accurate at the time of publish, about 5 years ago. The costs and fees from sites like eBay are now meant to be directional and educational, not factually accurate today. Michael at one of his early Farmers Markets. Chapter 5) Understanding Product Costs to Start your Side Hustle Assigning costs to a product is critical but can be challenging at times. For example, how do you assign the cost of flour to your first batch of cupcakes when you only use a portion of the package? In the last chapter we discussed the marketplace place costs and to make sure you fully understand every cent you are being charged by the marketplace companies like eBay and Etsy. In this chapter we will review your product costs. Depending on what you choose to sell, your product costs can vary greatly. For example, if you are just starting out and want to see if this is something you even want to do, you may opt to sell one of your personal items such as the clothes from your closet or some old toys or miscellaneous items lying around the house. On the other hand, you may need to buy the raw materials to assemble your product such as making cupcakes or handmade items like soap. Understanding the product cost is so important so you don't lose money every time you make a sale. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Tell a story with the product or service you are selling. It's not just a widget, but how can it help the person and how does it make them feel when they use it." To keep things simple, I will use an example of making cupcakes with the ingredients of flour, sugar, and eggs. I know you need more ingredients to make cupcakes but for this example we are going to use just three. We are also going to make 5 batches of 12 cupcakes or 60 total cupcakes. To make 60 cupcakes we are going to need 2 pounds of flour, 2 pounds of sugar, and 6 eggs (I am making this up as I go and recognize that this is not how you make cupcakes). So off to the store we go to buy our ingredients and the costs are listed in the below chart. Cost Item Size Cost per Purchase Calculation for your reference Flour $5.00 5 Pound Bag $1.00 per pound $5.00 / 5 pounds = $1.00 per pound Sugar $3.00 10 Pound Bag $.30 per pound $3.00 / 10 pounds = $.30 Pound Eggs $3.00 12 Eggs per Carton $.25 per Egg $3.00 / 12 Eggs = $.25 per Egg Total $11.00   As we leave the store, the total costs were $11.00. Now we are going to figure out how much it is going to cost for our first 5 batches of cupcakes. Item Cost per purchase Amount Needed to make 60 Cupcakes Total Cost to make 60 Cupcakes Calculation for your reference Flour $1.00 per pound 2 Pounds $2.00 $1.00 x 2 Pounds = $2.00 Sugar $.30 per pound 2 Pounds $.60 $.30 x 2 Pounds = $.60 Eggs $.25 per Egg 6 Eggs $1.50 $.25 x 6 Eggs = $1.50 Total $3.10 As we have now purchased all our items and made all the calculations, it will cost $3.10 to make 60 cupcakes or just $.05 per cupcake. So, as we look to set our price for the cupcakes, we can sell each cupcake for $.25 and make a profit of $.20 per cupcake. When Matthew first started out selling his LEGO Storm Trooper minifigures, we didn't capture all the costs correctly. For his first 7 transactions, we initially thought he was making a good profit but soon realized we missed a cost of one of the components of his sale. This resulted in a profit of $.16 on $300 in sales. When we realized the error, he updated his selling price to make sure he was making money on each sale. It was much easier with selling Michael's photography and understanding the costs of each printed photo. We went to a local photography store and printed out the photos and had each of them mated. The cost was about $12 per photo, and he sold them for $35 at the craft fairs, making a profit of $23 per photo.  Chapter 6) Keeping Your Costs to a Minimum Underestimating startup costs is the single biggest reason small businesses fail. Get creative on spending money as you get started. Shipping costs can be expensive but there are ways to mitigate the costs. Family and friends will help if you ask. You will be surprised as to the lengths people will go to help others. When it's time to start a business, you may be in the position where you can be one of the lucky ones where your only cost is your time and all of the materials or service-related costs are all free. Most of us are not in that position and even if you are on the opposite end of that situation where money is no object, managing costs should always be a focus. You may have heard small businesses burn through cash at a very fast rate, and more specifically, faster than you can bring in sales. Typically, the problem all entrepreneurs and small business owners underestimate is how fast their product will fly off the shelves and they will be a huge success. The reality is selling anything is hard and often harder that you may think. As a result, figuring out how you can save money from the moment you think of your idea, the better you will be. Matthew has impressed me from the moment he started in that he was always looking to not spend money when he was selling his LEGO mini figures on eBay. I would watch him be relentless in only using as little shipping tape as he needed (even when it was my shipping tape and he wasn't paying for it). As he would pack the envelopes, he would reuse small clear bags he got from LEGO sets he bought for his personal use. If I was in his position at his age, I probably would have raided my parents Ziplock bag section and used those bags not thinking about the costs.  Matthew recreated the Millennium Falcon from spare LEGO bricks. As Matthew started to sell larger sets, he needed to use shipping boxes. If you look to buy boxes at the store, a single box can run $1.00-$5.00 per box depending on the size. Those are costs he didn't want to spend and would leverage the shipping boxes we would get from Amazon or Target. At a point where this becomes a full time business, he may then need to buy boxes that show his brand or at the very least not someone else's. Until then, these are free boxes our family collects on a regular basis from all of our personal online ordering. Conversely, if you happen to be one of the few who doesn't order online, as we were running low at one point, I reached out on Facebook to one of the local town groups and asked for boxes. The offers came pouring in and we made arrangements to pick them up. We also asked family members and had to ultimately tell them to stop as we were getting too many too quickly and we did not have a place to store them. We also got help from friends, specifically with Michael's photography business. Since he was selling at craft fairs, one of our college friends offered to make him shirts and a table cloth with his logo on it. She also noticed he loves wearing hats and he now has touch of nature logo hats as well. The offer was generous and unexpected and really appreciated by our entire family. Matthew also got shirts made for one of his LEGO events he participated in last year. It's fun to see their brand on merchandise. Again, do not underestimate your costs and try to find ways to mitigate or reduce your costs every step of the way.  Chapter 7) Choosing the Right Company Name Pick a name that relates to your product or service. You want to make sure the customer can easily identify what you are selling. Names can be changed over time. The original name of Yahoo was Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web. Picking a name for your company can be really easy or insanely difficult. For those of you who are old enough to remember the Yellow Pages, company names that started with the letter A were often picked first when someone was looking up the need for a service like a plumber. Many people would just pick the first name they saw and as a result "AA Affordable Plumbing" was coming to your house to fix your leaky sink. There are lots of different opinions on picking a company name. Some will say you should create a brand new name such as what Google did while others suggest picking a name that has symbolic meaning such as Nike. Other scenarios including how Starbucks got their name was from a character in the book Moby Dick.  Most likely you don't have the marketing dollars to build your brand so make it relevant to what you are selling or personal to you to make it more meaningful. For Matthew, he picked his name, Summerfield's Toys, after his favorite stuffed animal, Summerfield. With Michael, his business was selling nature photography and we tossed around a few names before picking touch of nature photography by michael fiore. He wanted all lowercase for the way it was printed on any documents. In the case of my family's former business, Fiore Brothers, the simplest idea is to just name it after you. There are two other things to consider, uniqueness and is it available across all social platforms. For uniqueness, find out if the name is already taken. For example, picking the name Tony's Pizza, will be one of hundreds around the country and difficult to differentiate your pizza from someone else named Tony. The other recommendation is to google your proposed name on all of the major search engines as well as the major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You want to make sure nobody has your name already. Matthew's first logo, he initially changed it to Summerfield's Bricks to align more to selling LEGO sets and bricks. Chapter 8) Creating a Logo Match a logo that fits your brand, product or service. It is also important to have it fit your personality. Consider the future possibilities of your business growing. You do not want to be limited by your logo. Leverage free sites or friends to help with logo creation. You might not be creative but someone you know might be. Picking the right logo for your company can be daunting. Do you want it to be just words or a picture or something abstract or all of the above?. As well, do you want it to match your company name or limit it to just the one product or service you are selling?. There are lots of decisions to think about and hopefully this post will help offer some ideas to simplify the confusion. The first question you need to answer is to design the logo around your company name or the product. My preference is the company name as over time you may have more than one product or service. You also want it to fit your personality as well as your brand's personality. For example, if you are a very artistic person who is selling flowers, you may want lots of bright colors in your logo. When Matthew was deciding on a logo, he asked a friend in his class and she was nice enough to give him a few options. After just a few minor adjustments, his logo was ready to go. For Michael, he initially did not have one but as he started participating in more craft fairs, his sister Emma made him a big poster board with his name on it with a big tree. Over time, we combined a few free photos we saw on the internet and came up with the tree and camera logo. Michael's logo for touch of nature. He later created his own logo for his next business venture. Chapter 9) Getting Started with Social Media Pick one or two social media sites to get started. Start where you may have lots of personal connections. Using social media can be very beneficial but takes some work. Set the pages as a business that is linked to your personal account. Just like everything in life, getting your social media site up and running and growing takes work, a lot of work. This post will cover some of the challenges we experienced in getting subscribers and followers and hope you have better success than we did. To give you an idea of how challenging it may be to grow your followers, here is a quick story. A few years back I taught a college level class on information systems and analytics at Bryant University in Smithfield, RI. The students' assignment was to work in groups of 4, pick something on campus to take pictures of, post on Instagram and grow their subscribers and user engagement (likes and comments). Many of the students thought this was an easy assignment as they had many personal Instagram followers. As they picked their theme, which included pictures of scenic campus pictures, sports, and even campus food, they quickly found it wasn't easy to grow followers. In the 6 weeks we ran the assignment, they got up to about 250 followers at the high end. One of the more popular sites was the pictures of the campus food, but while they got to an early and wide lead over the other groups, they struggled to grow once they hit 200. The reason I created the assignment in the first place was based on the experience Matthew and Michael had with their sites. They both have Facebook and Instagram sites but topped out at about 175 subscribers on Instagram and 50 or so on Facebook. It was hard to gain users organically by just posting. After you get some friends and family to subscribe, getting actual followers is a lot of work and something I myself am not skilled at, nor are my kids if you will believe that. For a while I was posting pictures every day for both of them. Posting pictures for Michael was easy as I was pulling from his collection. However, after I went through the really good photos, it was hard to pick through the rest to post. After a while he lost some interest in taking photos and I got frustrated with the lack of subscriber growth. With Matthew, he took a few pictures that I used, and I took the rest from his personal collection. Same thing happened with Matthew's Instagram and Facebook pages where we couldn't get the subscribers to grow. My assumption is content is king and our pictures along with the hashtags just didn't connect with the audience to get the algorithm to work in their favor.  After all these experiences, they still post every once in awhile but not often. My advice to those who are starting a business is to keep trying, especially if you are dependent on social media to grow your following. Try different strategies like a few hashtags or lots of hashtags, but most of all, make sure the content (ie pictures) look great.  I hope these two posts gave you inspiration to start your own side hustle or help your child get started in their own business. Let me know if you have any questions and how it's going.

Photo credit by Wang Sheeran "Disclaimer: This article shares personal experiences and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not replace professional medical consultation." Every day when we make a purchase, we make an investment. It may not be the traditional investment like buying a stock, but you are choosing to invest your time and dollars on that product or experience. Even buying necessary products, like clothes are investments. For example, you may buy an outfit for work or for a night out. Technically, any piece of clothing would do but your decision to purchase that special outfit may make you feel good or at the very least, not feel out of place compared to everyone else. We make these investment decisions every day. However, how many times do we make investments in the products we purchase, even if they are expensive, because it's worth it. Let me give you an example. Once the pandemic came, I started to work from home all the time. I used to be out visiting customers a few days a week and my physical activity was a lot more including simple things like getting up more often, moving around, walking from meeting to meeting, etc. Now, and for the last few years, I have been stuck to my desk. While I try to walk around and move as much as I can, sometimes I am just beholden to my computer, desk, and chair. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Take inventory of your physical state today. Are you experiencing tight muscles, sluggishness, brain fog? Avoid the volatility of fad diets or extreme workouts. Select one activity and create a win this week and then layer a second win next week. Building habits on themselves, or habit stacking is an intentional and successful approach." As a result, my body just started to get tight. It wasn't necessary stress from the job, just a lack of inactivity (and change of routine) from what I was used to. Plus, I was getting older and things don't move as effortlessly as they did in my teens and 20's. I would try all sorts of things including yoga and stretching but no matter what I did, my body was tight. I found myself on the couch at night watching TV and moving my legs up in the air to try to stretch out the muscles. No matter what I was doing, nothing was working, and more than that, I just assumed it was something I had to live with. Not because I was old or stressed, just part of who I was. It got to a point where I didn't know any different. Personal Health Investment Then I met Louie. As mentioned in my post, The Olive Oil Conversation That Transformed My Kitchen , Louie started talking about how there was a specific olive oil had a significant amount of polyphenols (refer back to the link above to learn more), which help reduce inflammation (most good Italian olive oils have some level of polyphenols, but there are certain ones that provide more than others). By the way, there are other foods like honey and blueberries that also offer high quantities of polyphenols. During the conversation, my first thought was this would be a great olive oil for Mary Beth to use as she has been complaining about tight muscles for years following her acoustic neuroma surgery and a few subsequent surgeries. Louie shared that a tablespoon a day was a good amount to see the benefits. Mary Beth tried it. Now here is a fun fact. A really good olive oil will have a peppery aftertaste, especially if you try it straight. Because of this, it just wasn't something she could get down. She finished the bottle putting it on salads and other food items but for the sole purpose of helping with inflammation, she opted to pass due to the strong taste. At this point in time, I didn't try it yet. About 2 months went by and I was on my ongoing quest to get better performance out of my daily activities. Much of that was focused on building a routine around eating better and exercise, all to get optimal performance out of my day. My ultimate goal is to be at my 100% best all day long, all week long, all year long, for years. I remembered during my initial conversation with Louie that this specific olive oil helped him with focus. One of the things that come naturally to me is good focus. For example, when the kids were little and would play "Star Wars" with lightsaber battles or LEGO and I wouldn't even hear them (with my office right there with a 1/2 wall and no door). I don't know how I do it, but I can just tune out the noise and distraction. However, if I could improve my focus even a bit more, that would be another advantage I could have. So I decided to try the olive oil myself to improve my personal health investment. After about a week of a tablespoon a day, I didn't see any improvement in my focus. But I figured I would give it one more week. At the end of week 2, I still didn't notice any improvement in my focus. But I did notice something unexpected. I started to feel looser. My body wasn't stiff anymore (same job, same routine). My legs didn't need to be stretched at night, and I wasn't doing stretching exercises during the day either. I was amazed at the results. I felt 10 years younger. The great thing about this olive oil is it is not some off the wall infomercial type product It is a genuine Italian olive oil that just has some specific nutritional properties to it. For about 3 years now, I take a tablespoon a day straight and just chase it with water. Recently, I have been putting a little Himalayan salt to help cut down on the peppery taste. Mary Beth, and our son Matthew put it in their smoothies as a means of cutting the bite. They aren't as religious as I have been in doing it every day, but I stand by it personally (note, I am not a doctor or medical professional). Long story to share that this olive oil costs about $48 a bottle and it lasts about a month. Even being out of work, which I currently am at the time of this writing, the investment of the $48/month is an investment in myself. Regardless if you drink olive oil or do something else, the idea is to take the time (and money) to invest in yourself. If you do, your performance will improve, and thus the other things you are focused on, whether it be a promotion, a new job, getting to the next performance level in a sport, etc, will be easier to achieve. Investing in yourself should be necessary, not optional. Cover photo by Micheile Henderson

"Disclaimer: This article shares personal experiences and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not replace professional medical consultation." My Blue Zone smoothie journey has been nothing short of evolutionary. Photo by Mikey Frost I have always been a breakfast eater. I remember when I was a kid, my mom would always make me breakfast. Sometimes it was eggs, other times it was pancakes or waffles. Some days, I would make myself breakfast cereal with milk. The thing that I loved the most was reading the back of the cereal box. That is what we did before the days of scrolling on a cell phone. As I became an adult, I continued to eat breakfast but during the work week, I would usually have breakfast cereal augmented by eggs on the weekend. About 7 or 8 years ago, I noticed that I wasn't feeling great after breakfast (even after switching to the healthier, organic cereals. I don't know if it was the milk sensitivity or the lack of real nutrition that was derived from the cereal, even though it was fortified with vitamins. After consulting with some friends, my wife and I embarked on making smoothies. We purchased an organic protein powder with Mary Beth choosing the chocolate flavor and me picking the veggie flavor. Researching the ingredients, it had everything we could ask for including 20 grams of protein and 6 grams of fiber (21% of your daily allowance) and up to 50% of the daily allowance needed across over 15 vitamin categories. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Smoothies can provide a complete meal experience. Periodically assess how your daily smoothie is making you feel and make adjustments as needed. Treat the process as an ongoing experiment in sensory health. Assess how you feel two hours post-consumption, both physically and cognitively. Make adjustments as needed." Mary Beth's smoothies were fairly basic with the protein powder, a banana, ice, one or two other supplements and she was good to go. Mine was much more involved adding frozen fruit, bananas, ginger, and a few other items. Over time, my smoothie kept getting more involved. I should mention now that I pre-make the smoothies on Sunday for the 5 workdays, usually still having eggs or an Acia bowl on the weekends. In general, I felt great and so much better than I did when I was having cereal and milk. I even talked about it in my TEDx Talk, How Drinking Olive Oil and Curiosity Changed My Life . However, a few months ago, Mary Beth started to pull back on her smoothies referencing that she was starting to feel bloated from them, and for me, it wasn't having the same effect that it had when I started. Something was off and I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I read a post by Azadeh Gharehgozlou about protein bars and the reason why people are experiencing the same symptoms as Mary Beth. It was the way some of the proteins were processed. As a result, I decided to do something which seemed a bit radical but honestly, not that strange once I started digging into it a bit more. I replaced my protein powder with a combination of 1 can of Black Beans and 1 can of Garbanzo Beans (also known as Chickpeas). I think I almost gave my mom a heart attack reading this as I can't tell you how many times she tried to get me to eat beans as a kid. Now I am putting them in my smoothies and consuming them daily. The reality is that the black and garbanzo beans don't have a taste, and their texture gets mixed in with everything else. I do want to share that I do eat both on a regular basis anyway, but this is a deliberate way to consume both daily. I also wrote in another post, The Books That Transformed My Purpose and Longevity , where the author, Dan Buettner shared that one of the best foods that people consume in the Blue Zones regions are beans and they are consumed on a daily basis due to their inexpensive cost combined with their high protein and fiber content. For those of you who are wondering, here is what I put into my smoothies. I use an older version of the Ninja Professional and we also have this Ninja blender version for more daily use. My Blue Zone Smoothie Ingredient List: Frozen Wild Maine Blueberries Frozen Organic Strawberries Frozen Pineapples Frozen Spinach 2 Bananas 1 can of Black Beans 1 can of Garbanzo Beans 3 Tablespoons of Local Honey 2 Tablespoons of Pure Maple Syrup 3 cubes of fresh cut Ginger 1 Fresh Turmeric Root (or 1 tablespoon of the Turmeric Spice ) 1/4 cup of Steel Cut Oats (I pre-grind them so I am not chewing my smoothie) Ground Pepper 1/2 Teaspoon of Sea Salt 1 teaspoon of Cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon of Cayanne Pepper 5 scoops of Bran 2 scoops of Peanut Butter Powder 2 scoops of Cacao Powder Daily, I add a trio blend of Chia, Hemp, and Flax Seed Mix (because it will expand and harden if premade) I think I got it all. I know this combination of foods is not for everyone (including my family), but it works for me. Plus, I know I am getting a well-balanced breakfast each day. I would love to hear about your breakfast / smoothie experiences in the comments below. For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

Photo by Sid Saxena "Disclaimer: This article shares personal experiences and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not replace professional medical consultation." I am not an avid reader. I wish I was but never truly enjoyed reading. I do recall going to visit bookstores and the library on many occasions where I would walk in and wish I could absorb all of the great information by osmosis. When I was growing up, my schools didn't require a lot of reading either. I remember reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller but that was about it. In fact, most of my time was spent reading the daily comic strips in the newspaper with my favorite being Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. If you don't know about Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is a 6-year-old boy and Hobbes is his stuffed tiger but comes to life in his imagination and they do great things together as well as get in a bit of trouble. I miss that strip and now pick up a daily dose on Facebook. You can also pick up the books as individual or the complete collection on Amazon. Balancing my love for Calvin and Hobbes, I have fallen in love with two books that I would recommend to anyone. More importantly, these two book recommendations are rooted in everything we do within this lifestyle website. The first book focuses on your purpose and the second focuses on your longevity, and honestly both go hand in hand. Intentional Living Books The first of the intentional living books is Start with Why by Simon Sinek . Simon gained popularity around the world from his TED Talk on the same topic. The book helps you understand why your why is so important. Basically, it's your purpose in life. Simon created a company around it called the Optimism Company. The company's why is " We are here to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that, together, each of us can change our world for the better ." To give you a personal example, I like to help others. Very early in my career, I started mentoring colleagues and still do so today. I also spent a few years as an Adjunct Professor which I loved and hope to be able to do it again in the future. As well, I was a TEDx speaker on a topic of personal productivity, wrote a blog series on it, and even created a Udemy course about it. I post an article each year around college graduation on advice from others in the business world, both experienced and recent graduates. These last few items are pinned to my LinkedIn profile if you would like to know more. So regardless of what action I am taking, if I can relate it back to helping people, such as this starting this website, it aligns to my why. The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Think back to your favorite book as a child. Take a trip to your local library and find a quiet place to read it. Settle into the emotions of how it makes you feel. Enjoy the elevated sensory experience." The second book is The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner . The book chronicles 9 regions around the world that have a significantly higher than average life expectancy. Dan, originally highlighted the regions with a blue marker on a map, hence the name, visited each region and interviewed many of the individuals who were well into their 90's, 100's and beyond. There were a few key themes that emerged from his book including movement (walking, gardening, exercise) and eating a plant-based diet, with a strong focus on beans based on their combination of supplying protein, fiber, and other key nutrients at a very low cost. Two of the other key factors was having purpose (such as volunteering, helping others, ie- finding your why) and connection, such as having good friends. Driven from much of what I read in the Blue Zones, I have a mindset to live to at least 100. Hiking in Stowe, Vermont I turned 50 last year, and people look at me funny when I tell them I’m at least five years away from my midpoint. Yup, my plan is to live to at least 110. Living to 100 makes you a Centenarian. Living to 110 makes you a Supercentenarian. That’s my plan. It’s really a mindset more than anything else. I eat right and try to do all of the things that will keep me healthy, but I don't go overboard. I do eat cookies and drink wine occasionally, but for the most part, I live a healthy lifestyle. By subscribing to the concepts in the Blue Zones, I started putting beans into my daily smoothies, walk frequently and try to get a much movement as possible, connect with friends and family, focus on meditation and other stress related activities like walking without my phone, and offering help to people, such as publishing this website to have people get closer to sensory experiences they had when they were kids. As well, if you read many of my other stories in each of the sections, you can follow along to the activities and mindset I follow. It didn't happen overnight, but it does make a difference in how I approach life. Regardless of your age, enjoy life! As you have read through this entire post, you can only see there are just 2 book recommendations (outside of Calvin and Hobbes). What books have helped you level up your lifestyle? Cover photo by Sid Saxena For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

"Disclaimer: This article shares personal experiences and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not replace professional medical consultation." In this post, I want to share some background on how our tastes have evolved over the years and how we learned to appreciate the subtleties of foods that are highlighted in this site. Family photo (Oct 2020) of one of the few times we made homemade pasta. From left to right, me, Mary Beth, Michael, Emma, and Matthew. I read a LinkedIn post recently from Azadeh Gharehgozlou where she described what happens to your body when you stop eating sugar for 14 days. The host of benefits are too many to list, but you can read about them here . Within that post, in the comments section, she shared a common question around “Isn’t fruit sugar too”?   Her post got me thinking about all of the times my mom would try to get me to eat sweet potatoes, peas, and asparagus and I would turn my nose up at it as a kid. I ate some basic vegetables like corn and broccoli, and I was a bit better on fruit with oranges, apples, bananas, and watermelon but beyond that, I was pretty limited.   A vendor at a farmers' market in Kauai making a pure sugar cane drink. This is real unprocessed sugar. Michael actually thought it was a bit too sweet and he wound up mixing it with something else. Like most kids, I loved cookies and other sweets and that was a good portion of my diet. Don’t get me wrong, I still love chocolate chip cookies, but I don’t eat 5 of them each afternoon like I did when I was a kid.   Although as an adult, especially in my 20’s, I can’t say I was much better. I remember vividly shopping with Mary Beth when we were first married and waiting to buy the Oreo’s when they were buy 1, get 1 free (we would buy 4 as a result of the sale). Each bag of Oreo’s would last about a week between the two of us, but sometimes quicker. We didn’t think anything of it and that buying process lasted well into our 20’s and early 30’s.   The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:   "Moving to a healthier lifestyle can be a slow and steady approach, stacking habits. Start by reducing soda by one glass a week, replacing it with water. Then two. Then three. Next, pick another habit and slowly build on it. Over time, you will notice a significant impact from many small changes." Then something changed. Our oldest son, Matthew, was diagnosed with Aspergers (now High Functioning Autism) at an early age. As we navigated this, Mary Beth also began exploring how nutrition might play a role in his daily comfort and routine . We had an experience early on where we noticed a pattern. We typically take an annual trip to Aruba We typically take an annual trip to Aruba where we have timeshare, and in one of our first trips, Matthew, age 1 at the time, didn’t like the milk we had to buy so we did without it for the week.   We noticed as the week went by, he seemed more settled  and wasn’t as fussy. When we got back home, we introduced milk again not thinking anything of it, only to quickly see that agitation return . We started digging into whether he had a sensitivity to casein (milk protein). When we removed milk from his routine, we noticed he seemed more physically comfortable, which helped him stay calmer during the day . Over the years, we had to do this a few different times, typically with foods he loved the most, and unfortunately foods that were seemingly good for him like peanut butter. While he was never allergic to any of the foods, there was definitely a sensitivity to them that caused his mood to fluctuate.   Then another big event happened. A few years after Matthew’s diagnosis, which was a constant battle in and of itself with the mood swings, Mary Beth got diagnosed with a benign tumor in her inner ear canal, called Acoustic Neuroma. There are some very famous people who have had this as well including Mark Ruffalo , the late Pat Summitt, who was the legendary women’s college basketball coach, and Kelly Stafford .   After Mary Beth’s surgery, she experienced debilitating headaches. To support her body's recovery and reduce inflammation , she decided to cut out things like sugar and soda from her diet. It was a major lifestyle shift, but she feels much better today . In a bit of solidarity, I did the same but while she cut out soda cold turkey, my process was a bit slower over time. I used to drink a can of soda every night at dinner (and had been ever since I was a kid). I went from every night to 5 nights a week to 3 nights, to 1 night, to zero.   Two unexpected things happened as a result of my lack of soda (and subsequently reduction in processed sugars like Oreos). Those vegetables that my mom had been trying to get me to eat ever since I was a kid started to get introduced into my diet. It didn’t happen overnight but the actual real foods that I was eating on a regular basis anyway started to taste better. I then became a bit more adventurous and started to try things like sweet potatoes, asparagus, beans, and even fresh peas. All foods I would stick my nose up at for 40 years. The second and more surprising change was that I noticed  my lips didn't feel chapped anymore. I haven’t really used lip balm in 15 years but used to use it all the time when I was drinking soda.   Mary Beth apple picking Over time, I started to eat more and more whole foods and less and less processed foods. My family gets a bit annoyed at me that I have a strong discipline where I can eat just 1 potato chip and bypass the Oreos if I see them. Although I still love (and eat) chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, and other sweets but these are typically freshly made, not processed.   Even after doing research for 20 years now on different foods and their effects, we are still learning. Mary Beth had shared recently that the smoothies she was drinking was making her bloated and not feeling good. Coincidently, Azadeh Gharehgozlou had another post about protein bars and the reason why people are experiencing the same symptoms as Mary Beth. It was the way some of the proteins were processed. Five years ago, I changed my breakfast from a "healthy” cereal and milk to a smoothie, and I started to notice me feeling much better. Emma helping make eggplant parmesan from 2011. Since I am always on a quest to improve, over the years, I started to experiment with lots of things in my smoothies including fresh turmeric and fresh ginger to chickpeas and black beans. I am currently now working to figure out how I can replace my 20 grams of protein from the protein powder with other more natural sources like adding both black beans and chickpeas at the same time (it doesn't taste bad but it has a bit of a neutral taste that I am still working on to get a bit of flavor back).   If I was to offer one tip, it is not to start introducing healthy foods first but maybe start eliminating certain foods, whether it be soda, Oreos, potato chips, or something similar. This is a long story to share but it was because of these experiences, from Matthew’s autism diagnosis and Mary Beth’s surgery that started the change to improving our health. If you are interested, here are a few links for more information.  Steve's TEDx Talk- How Drinking Olive Oil and Curiosity Changed My Life Matthew's TEDx Talk- Navigating Life with Autism Cover photo from Boston Public Library