The best hot sauce is Yellowbird from Austin, TX

Recently, I was down in Texas for SXSW Edu (no, not the fun music one), and I had the chance to eat many many breakfast tacos.

The little gourmet grocery store near the downtown convention center, called Royal Blue, was excellent and had the coconut water I love and also migas breakfast tacos all wrapped in foil and ready to go.
They also had a hot sauce bar where you could add things before you left, and that is where I discovered Yellowbird.

The sauce is made of habaneros, so it is definitely spicy, but it has a great fruity flavor and a thick texture like Sriracha. I loved it!
They sold it at Royal Blue for $10 but I didn't want to have to check a bag on the way home so I passed.

My last morning there, I knew it would be a while until I got the hot sauce again so I really loaded up my taco. I wrapped it back up and took it to my first session, where I sat in back and bit in.
Holy crap, I almost died. Turns out, you can't really make up for lost time by having all your hot sauce at once.

Despite that, I still loved it and when I got home I ordered some online.
The shipping costs more than the bottle of hot sauce itself, which makes me a little crazy, but it is worth it.


$8 Yellowbird Sauce

One of the best things about it is the squeeze bottle, but on their website it says they are moving to a glass bottle next month for preservation purposes. So get one now!

I was thinking of ordering a whole case now so I could have a lot of squeeze bottles, but E reminded me that I wouldn't be able to go through them very quickly and by that time the perishability which necessitates them moving to the glass might come into play.


Here are the ingredients, and why it has so much flavor:

• Carrots
• Onions
• Habanero Peppers
• Distilled Vinegar
• Tangerines
• Limes
• Garlic
• Kosher Salt
• Organic Evaporated Cane Juice (also known as organic sugar)

I'll pack-a for an Alpaca getaway

This Living Social option came through my email today and I thought it was a cute idea for a weekend getaway from NYC.


It's an alpaca farm in NJ about a 1.5 hr drive away from the city and you stay in a B+B and get a wine tour and a bottle of wine and a bag of alpaca food.
It doesn't say so explicitly, but I believe that you feed the alpacas and don't have to eat the food yourself.

I asked E if he wanted to do this for a weekend and he said "Do you like alpacas that much?" and I said "I don't know yet, I haven't met any."

How can you judge before you meet? That would be alpac-ist.


Chimney Hill Farm
2 nights for $319

Comes with the room and:

• Daily Full Breakfast for Two
• Wine Tasting and Tour for Two at Unionville Vineyards
• In-Room Bottle of Wine
• One Sack of Alpaca Feed

Where I went on my honeymoon

I had such a great time in the Greek Islands, and it was in large part because of the awesome hotels we stayed at.

We spent 3 nights each on Santorini, Folegandros, and Naxos, and then one night in Athens.

BTW, everyone is SO nice when you tell them you are on your honeymoon. On the flight there, Delta gave us some champagne. When we arrived at the Katikies hotel in Santorini, they informed us that we were being upgraded to the honeymoon suite! It was crazy nice and totally unexpected. It was especially great because the hotel (even with a deal online) was pushing our budget limits already, and then we got the best room there that we never could have afforded otherwise.

The Katikies Hotel is on the northern tip of Santorini in a white cliffside village called Oia (pronounced EEEyah).

You know when you see pictures of a hotel online and they look prettier and cleaner than when you actually get there? Not this time, it actually looks even better in person.

We stayed in the main hotel (they have other properties and villas too), which had 2 pools and cascaded down the side of the cliff. One pool was a grotto style white cave, and the other was the infinity pool you see in the pic above.
But we had our own private pool, being in the honeymoon suite and all.

We didn't get poolside massages like in this picture, but we did get breakfast on that patio every morning, which was a great way to start the day.

Here is a picture of the  room itself. Everything is bright white and calm.
Our room was the farthest down the cliff which meant we had privacy but also meant we had to climb a ton of steps when we wanted to go anywhere. Since we are both the type of people who like to see things and explore, we got a workout.

Our hotel on Naxos, Finikas, was also exceptional. 
This was the one hotel I booked without consulting E because it just looked so great and I'd tried to book it before but it had been sold out. Then all of a sudden it was back on hotels.com with a cheap promo rate for the nights we wanted to go, and I jumped on it.



What you see in that picture is the view of the pool from behind a 600 year old cypress tree that has a flowered vine growing in it. It's really pretty. Also you can see the native palm trees that they are very proud of which grow naturally only on 2 parts of the island.

The Finikas hotel is also new but is not modern in style like the others we stayed at. The rooms were comfortable but the purple stripe theme we had wasn't quite my taste.



The food was great at this hotel, though, as was the staff. And it was just so pretty and peaceful. Sitting by the pool and looking over at the beach and ocean was very appealing.
This hotel was probably the most isolated of the ones we stayed at, which we liked. Instead of being in the main port town of Hora, this is about 20 min south, and past a park of protected cypress trees and down a dirt road. The beaches around it are pleasantly uncrowded, if a little windy.

If you are going to the Greek Islands, I truly believe these are the best places to stay after having researched others and staying there.

And that's (some of) what I did on my summer vacation!

Frida Kahlo's Style

Frida Kahlo's clothing is now being exhibited at her home/now museum.
It looks really cool! I wish I was able to go to Mexico City to see it.
The clothes shown will be changed every 5 months to preserve them better and to rotate the collection, so you could go many times and see new things.

Check out this video:


The idea of showing what Kahlo wore to both showcase her nationality and hide her disabilities is really interesting.

Plus the clothes are just cool.


This is Kahlo painting her body cast.

From the linked article:

The intimate exhibition will feature 300 different items of clothing, headpieces, jewellery and corsetry. Many of the clothes which were locked up in trunks and wardrobes for so long still carry the scent of the late artist’s perfume and cigarette smoke or stains from painting. Entitled “Appearances can be Deceiving”, the exhibition importantly highlights the sadder, truer side to Kahlo’s flamboyant style.

Wall dock on Zulily

Attention rabbit owners and others who want to avoid cords:

This wall dock is a good thing.


$9.99 Zulily iphone/ipad wall dock (was $30)

You plug this in to the outlet on the wall and there are NO CORDS to chew on or get tangled or collect dust. And it has a little shelf to keep your device on.

Note that this works with any 30 pin i-device, like iphones, ipad 2, but NOT the ones with the new new charger thing like the ipad mini.

Wallet with foldable umbrella

$9.96 each for 50 custom folding umbrella wallets

I wish these came in smaller quantities!
Aren't they cool?

It's a little wallet that comes with a tiny folding umbrella in it so you always have one on hand.

Anyone (*or any 49) want to go in on it with me?

Shopping for flights? 10 tips for booking plane tickets online

I just learned a bunch of useful information from this Hairpin thread and I thought I'd share with you.

It might not all be accurate, because hey, these are just people on the internet, but if these tips do save me (or you) a few bucks somehow, it's worth a try.
Some of them sound like conspiracy theories, but honestly the technology for most of these things is out there, they are not impossible. The question is if anyone is actually doing them...



Tips from the thread:
1. Book from a pc instead of a mac for lower fares on Orbitz
2. Clear your cookies and your browser history before checking out fares again so they don't "remember" you and your search and charge you more the next time
3. Buying on a Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever day you have heard doesn't work.
4. It's possible that the more people search for a particular flight, the more the airlines jack up the price, so don't search too many times if you can help it.
5. Airlines might also track you by browser and give you prices based on how rich they think you are (avoid Safari I guess?)
6. Someday in the near future airlines might use your IP address to screw you by zipcode, so if you live in a rich neighborhood you see different prices than people in a poor area.
7. If you buy on Southwest airlines, keep watching to see if prices drop after you purchase, and then cancel your flight and rebook (you get to keep the leftover credits)
8. Book directly with an airline instead of on Orbitz or an aggregator for better treatment/upgrades etc. Usually prices will be the same
9. It might be true that fares online change every 15 minutes, so you maybe should ignore tip #4 and search again? After clearing your history, of course.
10. Mostly fares get more expensive as the flight date approaches so book now and don't hold out hope that it will magically get cheaper (though rarely it will)

Mailing envelope ipad case

$22.95 Undercover tablet sleeve

This case looks just like a used envelope, but is actually a nice foam padded ipad pouch.

"made of strong PE foam construction with a tough outer layer of tyvek (think FedEx envelope). It's shock protected, splash proof, writable and tearproof"

Which makes you wonder if you should just use a padded mailer for real...

ThermaCheck travel throw

Land's End is always having sales, it seems.
And always emailing me about them, which gets a little annoying, but then I see things like this throw and I realize I should stay on the list.

$9.99 ThermaCheck Travel Throw (was $29)

This is a throw blanket that folds up into a case and becomes a travel pillow.
For an extra $6 you can get it monogrammed, which is a pretty good deal.
It would make a great birthday, college, or going-away present.

You can get it in blue/cream, green/blue, or khaki/orange. I like the blue the best.

Etsy Finds of the Day: Icelandic Animal Hats

These totally adorable and reasonably priced hats are a steal.
I wish I'd seen them in shops when we were in Iceland!

I especially love the puffin, but I really like them all.

$33 Beige handknit puffin hat
You can also get the background in navy or black.
I prefer beige since the puffins stand out so well against it.

$30 Brown Icelandic horse hat
Hi little horsey! If you think that the proportions are off and the head is too big and legs are too short, you should look at a real one:

see?

$33 Whale knit hat
A spouting whale? What more do you want out of life?

$33 Polar bear knit hat
Oh, I see, you want a polar bear. Well, you can have that too.

Icelandic Knit Tie

Wearing a whole Icelandic sweater can be a little much- they are very warm (and itchy to some) and it's "a lot of look" as Project Runway judges might say.
But there is a way to sport some of the style without going all out: the Icelandic knit tie.

$68 Sheep's Tie

The knit wool tie has the same patterns and colors as the Icelandic sweaters, but doesn't dominate your outfit as much.

Plus, at $68, it's a lot more reasonably priced as a souvenir than a $150+ sweater.

The other good thing about the tie is that you can wear it a lot more than a sweater because it doesn't have to be super crazy cold to put one on.

You can get it without a pattern, which I think is kind of boring, or in brown:

Cute, right?
E didn't get one since he thought it was a little expensive for a tie, but if he hadn't gotten a sweater, I definitely would have gotten one for him

Icelandic beauty products from the Blue Lagoon

On our way to the airport, we stopped at the Blue Lagoon for a last-chance hot tub soak.
We went right as it opened at 9am, and there was a line of people waiting to get in, but once we were in, it didn't seem crowded.

I think I'd call it the whitish-blue lagoon. The silica from the hot springs coats the rocks and turns the bottom of the pool white, and with the water over it, it looks a little blue-ish. When we were there it looked mostly white though.


And another pic:


I guess that does look blue in the pictures.

The silica and algae that live in the hot springs and the lagoon are used to make cosmetics, much like the Ahava Dead Sea products.
Lotions that use the silica mud are supposed to restore youth to your skin and tighten it up. The algae formulae are supposed to be healing or something.

In the lagoon, there are a few wooden boxes around the sides that you can reach into and get some of the extracted silica mud and smear it on your face. It goes on almost clear and dries paper white. It's fun to see people lounging around with their masks on. Everyone does it--men, women, all ages.
I didn't bring my camera in, so here is a random pic of a guy with the mask on:

They also sell a bunch of more refined products in the gift shop (and a few other stores in Reykjavik)

My skin was really dry after bathing in the lagoon, so I went into the gift shop and sampled a bunch of face and body lotions :)

$59 Blue Lagoon Algae and Mineral body lotion
Helped a lot with my dry skin!

$69 Blue Lagoon Mineral intensive cream
Was thinner than I thought it would be, but worked well.

$40 Blue Lagoon shower gel
I didn't try this one, but it looks pretty.