05.22.13

Personal branding: what to expect from me

As the first post on my new domain, it seems fitting to write about personal branding. I once bought jennchen.org (because .com was already in use) with the intention of setting up a photo portfolio. In my naiveté of personal drive, I thought the $9.99 I paid for the domain name would motivate me to create content. It went unattended for an entire year. A few years later, after establishing two wordpress.org blogs and registering two additional domain names, I finally have the drive to finish what I started. A few weeks ago, I was randomly browsing and Googling myself with select iterations (e.g. jenn chen coffee”) when I discovered that this domain was on sale. I don’t even remember who had it before. Fifty dollars seemed a small price to pay for a name that exists thousands of times over across the globe.Read More

05.18.13

WordPress: thecuriousbean

 

My previous iteration of a personal blog was hosted on WordPress.com. I used the template “Confit” and modified it to my preferences. Sidebar widgets included menus, photo, social media links, and a follow button.
thecuriousbean wordpress confit

05.08.13

Lofty desires: Potential birthday gifts

My birthday is coming up really, really fast. If I go by tradition, I would be planning to spoil myself for it, which oftentimes include: birthday shoes, birthday dress, birthday mani-pedis with friends, birthday dinner, [and more recently] birthday massage. The dress and shoes may still happen, mostly because the heel fell off of one of my more comfortable shoes- it’s lingering somewhere on Bryn Mawr between the train station and Walgreens. The dress would happen, well, because I want it to. What can I say, I like pretty things.

The point is, I’m creating this post for those people who love me & want to give me something that is so outlandishly expensive that I probably won’t be able to accept it. Probably. Here are my lofty birthday gift desires:Read More

04.26.13

In review: Chicago Roasters Jam

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending an event that was the first of its kind in Chicago. The Chicago Roaster Jam brought together roasters all in one room in a roundtable discussion, which was then followed by a blind cupping. The jam was organized by Miss Shannon Steele-Knuckles of Passion House Coffee, Andrea Otte (Otter) of HalfWit Coffee and was part of the New Gotham Coffee Community list of events. Hosted at Counter Culture Coffee‘s training lab, a large group of coffee professionals and coffee enthusiasts gathered to hear [aggregated] decades of experience opinionated in one short span of time.Read More

04.25.13

Quick life update

Can’t believe it’s nearly May. Just bought the domain jennchen.com, which is unheard of. My name is SO common that I took about 2 hours to make the decision and outright bought it at $50. If you try going to the site within 48 hours of this post, you will get a “domain for sale” page. In the next few weeks, you may or may not notice a few changes to this blog. I’ll no longer be at thecuriousbean.wordpresscom… I will be migrating from a wordpress.com site to a wordpress.org site. The layout will yet again be different. I’ll also be reorganizing a bit to incorporate a portfolio & resume. The blog itself will still exist, it just might not be the first thing you see when you go to my site.Read More

04.02.13

Coffee trip across Michigan: One dozen shops

Last week, I journeyed across Michigan in quite possibly my biggest coffee crawl drive yet. In 3 days, I hit up a dozen shops and met an unbelievable amount of passionate coffee people. As a side note, I’m probably not the best person to travel with if you’re the itinerary type: I didn’t know I was going until three days beforehand, had only my sleep spots figured out, no real time tables, & meetups with people were either planned the day before or an hour before via Twitter.Read More

03.21.13

Introversion behind the bar

I had a conversation with a customer the other day that resonated with me. This customer is a bartender and has bounds of energy every time I see him. He’s constantly cheerful, even at 7 am and genuinely loves people. He identified himself as an extrovert and said that when he’s down, he goes out to a coffee shop and soaks in the company of people. After an hour of this, he leaves with more energy than when he arrived.Read More

02.27.13

RECIPE: Frozen marshmallows dessert

For record’s sake, I’m going to be writing up recipes that I’ve found to be tasty & useful. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I love making food from scratch. My palate tends toward the adventurous side, but I also don’t shy away from intensely sweet desserts, either. Everything in moderation. People still say that, right?

Dieters, you should stop reading here.Read More