Introduction

I have been meaning to start a blog for a while – me and everyone else! For me, life kept getting in the way. But here I am writing the first post wondering how to introduce myself and this blog.

Simply put: my blog is about my recommendations for traveling, dining, entertaining, cooking and home decorating. And yet I’m not a trained chef. I’m not an interior designer. I don’t work for National Geographic. And I’m certainly no Martha Stewart (believe me – I know her personally, admire her greatly, and I can only be so lucky as to one day possess a fraction of her expertise on all of these matters!).

In this day and age, people want to make the most of their life and get the most for their money. When you start planning a vacation, start looking for a new piece of furniture, or even trying to figure out where to make dinner reservations, the research can be overwhelming. There are books, there is the internet, there are catalogs and a million different other sources. It’s at this exact moment, that many times, the easiest thing would be to simply get a recommendation from a good, trusted friend. This is where I hope to come in.

Some people say I have a good eye for detail, others say that I have good taste. I like to travel a lot, eat well, some times stray a bit off the beaten path and like everyone else, I like a good deal. And for many years, I have been creating lists upon lists (some written down, some stored in excel sheets, some in my head) of all the wonderful places I’ve eaten at, stayed at, and shopped at during my travels and in my everyday life.

I can appreciate a good hole-in-the-wall restaurant that only uses fresh, seasonal ingredients and has taken care into every detail from the beautiful plates to just the right ambience. Or an antique shop whose owner has hand-picked items from around the world that will provide its new owner with something completely unique for their home. Or a farmer that each week lays out his earthly gifts at a local market that will add more flavor to a home-cooked meal than anything you get at a conventional grocery store. Or a hotel that heeds every last detail to make your visit as comfortable and memorable as possible. I feel so fortunate to have been on so many adventures, big and small, that I’ve kept notes along the way in order to pass along the information to others. Any time my friends or family members need such a recommendation, I pull out my notes (or rack my mental file cabinet) and offer my most personal recommendation best suited for the request at hand. And over the years, they have come to trust me as their go-to source.

So I’m embarking on this blogging journey with the dream that maybe one day when you need a recommendation, you’ll say “I’d like to try this, Agnes said it was good.”

I hope you enjoy my list of hidden treasures, tips, thoughts, ideas and inspirations and most importantly, that you find them useful and insightful.

xoxo

Agnes