Personal – Page 3

How to finish 12 pounds of strawberries in less than a week

I have been seriously slacking on my blog posts. They’re now just building up in my head until I’m sure I’ll do a word vomit in one night. Recently (and by “recently,” I mean “two weeks ago”), I went strawberry picking with my friend, Niki.

The last time we picked strawberries, we were ambitious and naive.. so we picked 36 pounds of strawberries and lugged home 18 pounds each. To be fair, it’s charged per basket and if you pick six baskets, you only need to pay for five. This year, though, we were smart. We each picked 12 pounds instead. If you’re looking to go strawberry picking from Chicago, Thompson Strawberry Farm is your best bet. And go fast, because strawberry season is soon ending!Read More

Why I’m running a 5k when I hate running

Let’s get facts straight here. I hate running. I hate conventional exercise like lifting weights, doing the elliptical, aerobic classes, and again, running. Hate is a strong word, I know. And I hate running. At the time of this post, I will have completed 7.33333 straight weeks of running, which is 22 runs in total. That is 19 more runs than I did in the year 2012. My first race (ever) is The Color Run 5K on June 16. If I’m going to be a masochist, I might as well go with a run that calls itself “The Happiest 5K on the Planet.” Plus, I get hit with a packet of color at every 1K mark.Read More

Brunch it out: The Publican

The Publican has been on my Chicago restaurant list (to be published soon) for the last three years. The restaurant seemingly comes up in conversation at least once a week and I’ve heard enough mouthwatering menu items to finally make it out to a brunch. After thoroughly enjoying a full meal with some close friends, we all agreed that we needed to return for Sunday brunch, a dinner, and a pig roast. We were suggested to eat in family-style so we ordered up one appetizer, three entrees, and backended the meal by donuts, of course.Read More

Six lessons I’ve learned in the last year

One year and two days have passed since I left Groupon employment. I’ve posted before on the trials of starting a business. Since then, I’ve waded through difficulties and learned even more about how I operate. I’d like to pass on a few key items that I may have initially dismissed as someone preaching to me:

1) Advice means nothing if you ignore it.Read More

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

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

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

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

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

In review: GastroIntellectual Property Law Symposium as it relates to the coffee industry

Last night, I attended the GastroIntellectual Property Law Symposium, presented by the Chicago-Kent Intellectual Property Law Society & The Chicago Bar Association. The tagline for the event was “global innovations in food: from molecular gastronomy to organics & GMOS.”

To put it simply: food law.Read More

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