Missy Maintains » coffee

Gevalia Kaffe Giveaway!

MissyMaintains — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:11:25 +0000

I can’t start my day without coffee so I was super excited last week when I received two flavors of Gevalia Kaffe to review from MyBlogSpark!

I don’t really make coffee at home anymore because I am lazy and it never tastes as good as Starbucks but this was the perfect opportunity to try out my French press.

What makes Gevalia Kaffe so special?

Gevalia Kaffe is much more than your average ‘cup of joe.’ It’s a Swedish-style break from the usual coffee grind. Perfected by the Swedes’ passion for quality coffee for more than 150 years, Gevalia is an exquisitely rich smooth coffee experience that is never bitter. Gevalia isn’t just coffee, it’s ‘Kaffe’ to savor.

The Swedes know a thing or two about coffee. They know quality coffee should be savored and enjoyed. They also know you deserve a more unique/special coffee experience than what you can pick up on every street corner.
Gevalia is a luxurious departure from the everyday, an escape from the routine cup of coffee. Whether it’s a morning ritual made just for you, or the finishing touch at a dinner party, it brings the taste of Swedish-style luxury into your home.
In Sweden, where the citizens drink more coffee than almost anywhere else in the world, Gevalia is their preferred brand.
In fact, Gevalia enjoys the honor of being an official coffee of the Swedish Royal Court.

Gevalia, now available at Safeway, brings unexpected Swedish-style luxury and rich, never bitter taste to the Safeway grocery aisle.

Gevalia has been refining the art of luxurious coffee since 1853 and has a deep history of finding and blending the finest Arabica coffee beans from locations around the world.
Gevalia is expertly made with carefully selected beans, ground extra fine, to produce a rich coffee experience.
Previously available online only, Gevalia is now offering its top-ten varieties in U.S. coffee supermarket aisles nationwide in 10 varieties, including roast and ground, whole bean, flavored and decaffeinated varieties:

Gevalia Traditional Roast (ground and whole bean):
Gevalia Traditional Roast provides a perfectly balanced taste every time. Our most beloved blend – made of choice, mountain-grown Arabica beans – this coffee has a distinctive body and flavor with a lighter intensity. (Medium Roast).

Gevalia House Blend:
A Gevalia favorite, House Blend is a robust yet never bitter coffee. This roast has a captivating aroma that is only matched by its exceptional flavor. (Medium/Dark Roast).

Gevalia House Blend Decaf :
Delivering the same rich, never bitter flavor, House Blend Decaf has the same robust taste without all the caffeine. (Medium/Dark Roast).

Gevalia French Roast (ground and whole bean):
Gevalia French Roast is a coffee of impressive richness and dimension, expertly crafted from prized Arabica beans grown in Colombia and Brazil. Hints of aromatic smoke give this dark-roasted French Roast blend an intense, yet uniquely satisfying flavor. (Dark Roast).

Gevalia Colombia:
Grown high in the Colombian Andes, these beans produce a rich, bright and well-bodied Colombian coffee. This single origin classic is world-renowned, which is why we have sourced these beans for decades. (Medium Roast).

Gevalia Espresso Roast:
Gevalia Espresso Roast is made of premium, mountain-grown Arabica beans from East Africa and Central and South America. This roast is bold and full-bodied with a hint of caramel undertones. (Dark Roast).

Gevalia Vanilla:
This rich blend with vanilla flavor notes is crafted from choice mountain-grown Arabica beans, then roasted for exceptional body and flavor. Gevalia Vanilla is a flavorful and balanced experience with a heavenly aroma.

Gevalia Chocolate Mocha:
Gevalia Chocolate Mocha allows you to indulge your passion for decadent flavor. Rich, velvety chocolate flavor is blended with mountain-grown Arabica beans for a sweetly satisfying experience.

With its Swedish heritage and rich, never bitter taste, Gevalia is a premium coffee unlike any other.

Sounds good, right? And it was!

Wow, I figured out how to use my french press! It will no longer collect dust.

It made a delicious cup of French Roast coffee.

I really enjoyed this cup of coffee. It had a crisp, rich flavor and was not too bitter or strong. I will be using my french press much more in the future to make this coffee. It is going to save me $2.00 a day at the corner deli store!

GIVEAWAY!

MyBlogSpark and Kraft Foods are offering one lucky Missy Maintains reader the following prize pack:

(1) sample of the House Blend from Gevalia Kaffe
(1) sample of the French Roast Blend from Gevalia Kaffe
A Gevalia Kaffe branded coffee mug

How to Enter:

1) Leave me a comment telling me which of the Gevalia Kaffe varieties are you most looking forward to picking up at Safeway to try?

2) Tweet about the giveaway. “Win a Gevalia Kaffe prize pack from @MissyMaintains and #MyBlogSpark. Enter here: http://bit.ly/wB2ty3″

I will choose a winner this Friday, February 10. Good luck!

Kraft Foods has provided sample product to me and is providing the prizes for this program at no cost to me. This program is not administered or sponsored by Kraft Foods or its affiliates, but solely by Missy Maintains.

Naturalizer Shoe Giveaway!

MissyMaintains — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:18:03 +0000

Last Wednesday before heading to Philly for Rosh Hoshana dinner, I attended a really cool blog event in Times Square. I feel like I turn down so many blog events because they are during work hours so I was really excited that I had the day off for the holiday! The event was hosted by Naturalizer, a shoe company that specializes in providing both fashion and comfort. Naturalizer recently came out with their new fall 2011 collection so they invited me to come to the store to learn more about the brand and to try on some of the shoes! Like most girls, I love shoes so I gladly accepted this invitation!

I walked inside the beautiful store and spotted several bloggers taking photos of shoes (and food). I spotted a lovely spread of bagels, pastries, fruit, coffee, and orange juice. Yes please!

I enjoyed half of a whole wheat bagel, fruit, and coffee while admiring all of the pretty shoes!

I honestly never had purchased a pair of Naturalizer shoes before because I always thought they were just comfortable, old people shoes! I was totally wrong! Yes, they are super comfortable but the new fall collection is stylish, fashionable, and really pretty!

Angelique Joseph, the Director of Product Design for Naturalizer, spoke to us about what makes their shoes so comfortable and explained that women expect both fashion AND comfort when purchasing a new shoe.

What is the Naturalizer secret?

The N5 comfort Elements deliver the key features that keep a shoe comfortable all day – flexibility, softness, balance, breath ability and lightness.
Available in hard-to-find sizes and widths
Perfect for casual, business, or nighttime looks
Provides the ultimate in style plus comfort

After seeing so many cute shoes and learning about the brand, I could not wait to try some on for myself! Best part? We got to pick out any pair in the store to take home with us!! A woman’s dream!

I fell in love with the Oxford Milano Black Suede Boots.

I tried on a few other shoes but decided that I needed these boots!

I wore my new boots the other day to work for the first time and got so many compliments! I even forgot I was wearing heels because they were so comfortable. I love these boots and plan to shop at Naturalizer in the near future.

Guess what!?

I am giving away a FREE shoe card for any pair of Naturalizer shoes on Naturalizer.com (with the exception of Naya)!

How to Enter:

1. Head to Naturalizer.com and let me know which shoes you would choose and why?

2. Follow Naturalizer on Twitter. Let me know you did in the comments section.

3. Tweet about the giveaway. “Win a free pair of @NaturalizerShoe’s from @MissyMaintains. Enter here: http://bit.ly/riHe6v”

I will choose a winner this Monday, October 10. Good Luck!

Disclaimer: I was not paid to write this post. Naturalizer provided me and a reader with a free pair of shoes. All opinions are based solely on my own.

Mimosas at Noon

MissyMaintains — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:02:13 +0000

Good evening! Hope everyone had a nice weekend! I started my Saturday off with an early IntenSati class! Saturday is usually the only day of the week that I don’t take it so I figured I’d change things up a little. It is always nice to take class with a new teacher every once in a while. It was really fun and totally worth waking up a few hours early for! After class, I headed to Astoria for brunch with Marina! She moved there last week so now I have another blog friend in Queens! I decided to introduce her to a good restaurant near her apartment called Grand Cafe. This restaurant was the first one in Astoria that popped up in my head because I knew that brunch comes with a free alcoholic beverage AND coffee!! Can’t beat that!!

I got a Mimosa and several cups of coffee! I don’t usually combine the two but could not decide between waking up and getting drunk! Why not both? I like anything that gets me buzzed.

Nothing beats vodka at 12:00 in the afternoon! Well, warm muffins right out of the oven might be right up there with the alcohol!

I started off with the dark one. Dark bread usually means healthier, right? Wishful thinking! The muffin was soft, fresh and tasted like cinnamon! So good! I also tried the poppy seed muffin after breakfast. I can’t let muffins go to waste! It was the perfect dessert!

I ended up ordering a spinach and goat cheese omelet with whole wheat toast.

I liked that they give us the option of ordering mixed greens, home fries, or french fries. I went with the greens since my muffins and toast satisfied my carb addiction for the day. The omelet was perfect and not oily like most diners. My only complaint about Grand Cafe was the poor service and the fact that they charged us an extra $1.50 for egg whites!! I loved the food and the techno music playing in the restaurant so I would definitely eat there again despite the steep prices!

I am off to bed since I plan to wake up for more IntenSati in the morning! I am slightly addicted! In my next post, I will talk about the 6 hour Sati/life coaching workshop I went to on Sunday! I will also have an updated schedule of when and where I am teaching! I plan to teach every week in February!! I will also announce the winners of my RelaxZEN giveaway! Don’t forget to enter! Have a great night!

EasyLunchBox Winner + Sacred Chow Meetup!

MissyMaintains — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:11:02 +0000

Hello! I will start off with the winner of the EasyLunchbox giveaway!

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:

106
Timestamp: 2010-04-09 14:00:00 UTC

The winner is….

Kristen! “I would love love this lunchbox because I work full time as a nanny and have my breakfast and lunch while I’m working. I would use this lunchbox for any concoction I make!! =)”

Congrats! Please e-mail me your address so I can ship out your prize!!

Thursday Eats

Yesterday morning before the gym I was a little hungry so I reached into my bar drawer and found one of these:

It was about to expire at the end of April so good thing I found it! I had half before the gym and then half after. I also had some more Click Espresso!

For lunch I went to Hale and Hearty and made a salad.

It contained cucumbers, carrots, goat cheese, garbanzo beans, and broccoli with low-fat carrot ginger dressing.

After work I had plans to meet a blog reader named Jenna at Core fusion and then have dinner! She is visiting New York from London for the week. She tweeted me a few days ago and told me she tried Core Fusion because of my blog and thought it was the most amazing class! We decided to take the class together before she left for London! Unfortunately she did not make it to the class in time last night. I didn’t know what she looked like so during the whole class I was staring down each girl trying to figure out if it was her! Even though she missed class, she was nice enough to wait for me in the hotel lobby after class so we could still have dinner!!

We decided to try a vegan restaurant called Sacred Chow. It was sad that Jenna knew her way around New York way better than me and she lives in London! I felt better when she told me that she used to live in New York! I loved listening to her talk because of her amazing accent!! She said she discovered my blog from SHAPE Magazine and has been reading ever since! So cool! She is starting her own vegan bakery in London!! I plan to be the first to try out her baked goods

Jenna was at Sacred Chow once before and recommended the Vegan Caesar salad. I had to get it out of curiosity!

It was delicious! It was even better than a normal fattening Caesar salads! I have no idea what they used for the dressing but it was amazing. The croutons were little bread bites. MMM.

I also got the Hummus Salad Hero * Hummus of the day, shredded beets, carrots, Dijon vinaigrette, and our own blend of mixed greens, Served on toasted whole wheat french baguette* w/Chow slaw, pickle

This was also wonderful! The whole wheat baquette was warm and soft and covered in delicious hummus. I loved the “chow slaw” too! I guess it was shredded carrots and cabbage with a really good seasoning.

Jenna got the Mama’s Soy Meatballs * Meatballs w/ a Sicilian sauce

How good does that look?? Yum! I would definitely go back there! We talked forever and had a great time!

After dinner I got caught up in some drama at Penn Station! I was waiting in line to use the restroom and all of the sudden a gay guy runs into one of the stalls. This woman starts screaming at him saying he needs to get out of the ladies bathroom! The woman runs out to grab a cop!

Meanwhile this woman behind me in line says to me, “You mean to tell me there was a stall open and you didn’t go in??:

I said, “Um I didn’t see one open.”

She said,”Next time I’ll go right in.”

I said,”No one came out so I had no idea it was open. If you saw it, you could have said something to me!!”

She kept fighting me with and next thing you know the cop comes running in and starts yelling at the guy in the stall. I decided it was time to leave the bathroom because it got too scary for me. The guy’s boyfriend was outside of the bathroom telling him to come out. The cop comes out holding the guy in handcuffs. The boyfriend tries to follow them and the cop says, “Where do you think you’re going? Your friend is going to jail. Go home and drink a coke and watch the butterflies.”

Yeah crazy. I guess maybe the guy was doing drugs in the girls bathroom. Never go to Penn Station after 10:00. All of the crazies come out! Other than that it was a great night and I made it home fine! Now I am ready for the weekend! I have a bridal shower, birthday, and blog brunch so it should be fun!

1) Are you doing anything exciting this weekend?

2) Do you want to guest blog for me next week while I’m on vacation? Let me know!

Have a good weekend!

FitBloggin!!

MissyMaintains — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:25:04 +0000

Hey everyone! I am back in New York after a great weekend in Maryland. I was at FitBloggin for 2 days and at my friend’s house on Sunday. For those of you who don’t know, FitBloggin’ is a conference for anyone who blogs about fitness, wellness, good food, and a healthy lifestyle. It was a great place to connect with other bloggers and learn more about social media and other health and wellness topics. I will start with a recap of Friday!

I had off from work so I went into the city nice and early to get my nails and hair done. I stopped at Pax Foods for some breakfast.

I got an egg white, mushroom, and cheese omelet on a whole wheat wrap. It was delicious!

After my nails, I took the train to my house in Philly to get my car. I picked up another wrap from Penn Station for the train ride.

I got a California wrap. It had lettuce, cucumber, tomato, avocado, and roasted red pepper. I got to Philly, picked up my car, and drove the rest of the way to Baltimore. I made it there by 5:30, just in time for the POMtini cocktail party!

We were served complimentary POMtinis. I had about 3 because I didn’t taste much alcohol in them!

It was great meeting so many bloggers!

After an hour at the party, a bunch of us decided to head to dinner because we were all starving. About 20 or 30 of us found a nearby restaurant. My hotel roommate, Jen from PriorFatGirl and I immediately got drinks at the bar while waiting for a table. We could not wait!

I got a vodka soda with a splash of cranberry.

We all sat outside and got very loud! It was nice to see that I am not the only health blogger who drinks a lot!

I got a house salad to start.

I got the vegetarian sandwich with avocado, fresh mozzarella, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, lettuce, and tomatoes. I asked for a whole wheat wrap instead of the white bread. It was delicious! I loved the huge chunks of avocado!

After dinner, Jen and I decided to call it an early night and head back to the room. We had a really pretty view!!

We ended up bonding and chatting for an hour before bed. It was great to finally meet her since I’ve been stalking her blog for a year now!

On Saturday there was a 5K walk/run but Jen and I decided to go to the hotel gym instead. I did about 25 minutes on this crazy elliptical machine and also did a few weight machines. I love working out in hotel gyms for some reason. It felt like a real vacation!

The event was sponsored by Quaker so of course we were served oatmeal for breakfast!

I made a bowl with cinnamon, dried cranberries, pecans, and banana.

I had some Starbucks and skim milk to drink! Perfect breakfast!

After breakfast I wandered around to meet people and get free stuff from all of the booths!

New Balance gave everyone really cute running shorts!

The conference had 2 talks at once so I chose the ones I thought would be most helpful to me. I started with a Search Engine Optimization session.

This was a bit technical and confusing for me but I learned a few helpful tips about WordPress.

Next I went to Get Noticed: How to Pitch to Traditional Media.

This one was not too helpful because they talked about how to pitch your stories to local TV. I thought it would be more about getting into magazines and freelance writing. They did tell some funny stories about people trying to get on TV and in the paper.

Eventually it was lunch time and I was starving!! I started with delicious mushroom soup.

I also got a grilled veggie sandwich and filled the rest of my plate with salad, asparagus, eggplant, squash, and mushrooms. It was all very good!

Dessert was fruit and Jell-O since Jell-O was another sponsor.

I met Melissa from Crunches for Cupcakes! She was really nice and we ended up spending the whole day together!

I was also excited to spend the day with Julie from Cheese and Cookies! It was great meeting her since I read her blog every day!

The next breakout session was Beyond the Blog: Getting Published. It was nice to hear Caitlin speak about how she got her Operation Beautiful book deal. All of the panelists gave great tips on how to write a proposal and shop around for an agent.

We snacked on some delicious raw snacks from the Pure2Raw twins. I had another cup of coffee since it was a long day!

The final breakout session was about how to earn money through blogging.

The day ended with a Jell-O reception. We got to try their new Mousse Temptations.

I tried the Dark Chocolate Mousse. It was very good!

I also had some sushi rolls for dinner.

I did not stay in the hotel that night because my best friend from college lives in Maryland so I spent the rest of the weekend with her! We went to a bar in Federal Hill Saturday night. There was Bubblegum vodka involved so I don’t have too many memories from the night!

The weekend was so much fun! It was great to meet everyone. I have about 20 new blogs I need to check out now!! We left with some awesome goodie bags.

Thank you to Roni for planning such a wonderful event! I’m really excited to try all of my new goodies! Stay tuned for some giveaways as well!