By Audrey van Petegem, Chief Editor

Who knew that it was an American bartender, working at a bar in Paris in the roaring 20′s, that would come up with the iconic American drink that is the Bloody Mary.

Traditionally, the Bloody Mary is made with vodka, tomato juice, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and garnished with a lime; all served in a tall glass. This cocktail has come a long way. It is probably one of the only cocktails that can have such diverse inclusions and still be called a Bloody Mary. Anything goes for garnishes; combining everything from shrimp, oysters and bacon to olives, pickles and cucumbers. Even the vessels they are served in can be very creative; from Mason jars to martini glasses. Also, vodka is now being replaced with either gin or tequila! Just look on Pinterest for ideas for serving them this Memorial Day weekend.

What I particularly like is that the Bloody Mary cocktail is now considered to be a super-food!

OK, just kidding.

But really, it should be! Add the right garnishes and surely this cocktail could be part of my five daily veggie intake, plus it is full of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.

To be called a Bloody Mary, the cocktail does have to keep its tomato juice roots. To keep pace with all the lavish garnishes and glasses, Bloody Mary mixes have stepped up to the challenge.

Here are some mixes that bring, shall I say, even more of a kick to the drink:

	Longbranch Bloody Mary Zinger - Perfect gluten-free Bloody Mary mix and made with only fresh ingredients with no high-fructose corn syrup or thickeners. Matt Horne, the founder of Longbranch, recommends garnishing with a skewer of mozzarella cheese, salami, shrimp and two blue cheese-stuffed olives. Now that sounds like a complete meal! It can be found to purchase on their website.
	Stu’s THIS IS BLOODY MARY mix - Created by Stu Water’s who felt that the way to bring a punch to a Bloody Mary cocktail was to add sour pickle brine to the mix. This is what gives the drink a tart-spicy. Add an oyster in the shell, a couple of olives and one of Stu’s pickles for garnish. Buy directly on Stu’s website.
	Mott’s Clamato Juice - I cannot do an article about Bloody Mary’s without mentioning the Canadian counterpart, the Bloody Caesar. Made with Clamato, which is a clam/tomato juice, the Bloody Caesar tastes even better than a Bloody Mary, but the mélange is not as thick. Amazingly few Americans know about this great alternative even though it can be found on almost all major grocery store shelves in the juice isles.
	Tipsy Cocktail Stirrers - Best garnish ever! No need to be creative with personalizing your own garnishes, Sable and Rosenfeld’s Tipsy Cocktail Stirrers have made it easy for you. These skewers are made up of a crunchy pickle, green olive, slice of red pepper and a pearl onion. Yum! I am getting hungry!

So, what will your Bloody Mary look like this long weekend?

By Susan Keats, Contributor &  Seize-the-Day Propagandist

My new next door neighbor has 2 little kids. When we moved into this house years ago, I also had two little kids, and in the very house where my new neighbor lives there lived 3 teenage girls. I would look at my tiny kids and then at the big girls next door and find it very hard to imagine that my girls would ever be as big, independent and accomplished as the girls next door.

Now, I look at the tiny kids next door and wonder if my kids were ever that small. I watch the sweet hugs and kisses they give their mom and I feel wistful for those days. Sometimes I watch their mom putting suntan lotion on their little faces. With a plate of peanut butter and jelly in front of them, they hardly notice what she is up to. Ahhh. I remember that trick. That’s a good one.

I can’t shake the feeling of the new ushering out the old. Soon after we moved into this house, the old neighbors sent their girls to college and then moved out. Now that my kids are the teens, the feeling of being replaced is made stronger still by the surprising twist that our new neighbor’s youngest child shares the same beautiful and unusual name that my oldest has. Lilah.

Their Lilah is 2. My Lilah is going to college. Little Lilah has moved in and big Lilah is moving out. See what I mean? Hard to shake the feeling…

So people are asking me now, how does it feel for you to have a child going off to college? I have two ways to answer this question.

“Oh, I’m going to miss her terribly. I know that the day we drive her to school, and we leave her there, I’ll be a sobbing mess all the way home. I know she is ready to go, but I can’t imagine the house without her. I wonder how long it will take before I get used to going to bed at night without thinking, wait, where is she? She’s not home. It is going to be strange. I’m probably ready, but this is going to be hard for me.”

If Lilah has overheard these comments, because I didn’t realize she had been listening, this is what happens next:

“Mom, I’m soooo out of here. I can’t wait to go. You won’t be able to tell me what to do, you won’t be making sure I’m in bed at a certain time, you won’t be there asking if I’ve done my homework. I can’t wait to just do whatever I want to do. You won’t just show up and visit without telling me first, will you?”

If my daughter is in the room and I know she is listening to how I will answer the question, I will answer like this:

“Oh, I’m ready for her to go. Not that I won’t miss her terribly, because I know I will. But she is old enough now and ready to be on her own. I think it will be good for her to spread her wings, discover new interests, make new friends. and be away from her younger sister for a while. We’ll miss her, but she’s ready to go. Plus, my house will be so much cleaner with only 3 of us here. So, I suppose I feel good about it.”

When she hears me say this, this is what I get:

“I’m the CLEAN one!” she’ll remind me. Then hugs. Lots of delicious, beautiful, I’m-going-to-miss-you-mom hugs.

See, I still know a few tricks of the trade.

By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife

Wine aficionado, wine snob, wine geek or sommelier in training? We all know one. Or want to become one. Well, here  are some great kits to up the ante by Le Nez du Vin by Wine Aromas.

Le Nez du Vin make the optimal oenophile training kits. Each kit – and there are 6 of them – contains petite vials, each filled with different aromas and notes imbued in wine.

“Le Nez du Vin Series is a discovery tool to educate and develop your sense of smell and enhance your enjoyment of wine”.

The foundation principle of Le Nez du Vin kits is that smelling is essential to tasting: Train your sense of smell, develop your scent memory for the various notes, teach yourself to recognize and describe the aromas that compose wine. Also crucial to this principle, of course, is that this extra knowledge will help us heighten the pleasure of drinking wine. That makes it all sounds so hedonistic – in a good way – doesn’t it?

More precisely, the kit helps to help to develop the sense of smell and to memorize the various notes from fruit aromas (lemon, melon, lychee, cherry…), to floral (rose, honey…), vegetable (clove, thyme…) and grilled aromas (chocolate, caramel, coffee…). You’re not let to your own device. The kit also includes an instruction manual and aroma guides. The whole is beautiful packaged in a cloth-bound “book”.

The Master Kit, which contains 54 wine aromas, is actually required course material at many oenology schools ($399). The Intermediate kit comes with 24 vials, with aromas of red and white wines ($229). A selection of 12 vial kits for each red and white wines are also available ($119). And, let’s not forget the Wine Faults kit, which is for the critical critic. It contains vials with aromas of the 12 prevalent faults found in wine. How interesting. I guess that faults are as essential to recognize as the good scent notes in aiding in our appreciation of good wine.

Le Nez du Vin is “Education Tool it helps develop the sense of smell and creates a common language to describe, understand and better enjoy wine.” And with such a beautiful presentation, we think it makes an ideal gift for the wine snob. Or geek.

P.S.: Coffee lovers. There is a kit for you too!

By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife

Father’s Day is coming up. Might you have a rabid vintage music fan as a husband, father, brother? Or a wannabe music historian? The Burton History Trees are for them. What an absolutely fantastic – and exciting – gift idea for those hard-to-shop-for men.

The Burton Trees are unique kind of wall art, a visual & artistic rendition of music history. These graphic “trees” document music history along the recognized “format” of the family tree. Each tree is arranged by chronological order, where the roots describe the “building blocks” of an era, a band or musical genre. The trunk represents its major influencers and instigators while the tree “leaves”  and “fruit” feature other prominent figures of the moment; the size of font reflects the significance of the bands during that time. It’s all meticulously thought out.

This was all started in Chicago by Bruce Burton who drew his first Burton History Tree of British Rock in 1979. The collection has now evolved to include history trees by genres of music or decade. Being from Chicago, the resident teams are represented (Bears, Blackhawks, Cubs, White Sox) as well as the St-Louis Cardinals and the Green Bay Packers. Golf and the Brazil World Cup get their own trees as well.

I loved these the moment I came upon them at the One of a Kind Show in town this past December. What greatconversation pieces and the perfect gift to trigger “remember when” nostalgia and memories.

You can buy Burton History Trees directly from their website. Do these deserve our Gift-Worthy badge or what?

By Liza Kovacs, M.S.C, M.A., Fitness Contributor

Wow. I know I am not the only one who thinks about the future and wish for this, to be spared somewhat from the ravages of time and to sail through the twilight of my life with ease and elegance. My older sister reminded me again recently about Baby Boomers and their needs. While I fall a year short of being officially included in that demographic group, I do feel their pain. Having been a dancer for 20 years, I understand the need to care for a body not too happy with what it has been put through over time.

Many of my movement students are middle aged. I see how they too struggle with issues that creep up after years of bad habits and, in this respect, I dare say that aging gracefully is also of concern to the young: their sphere of interest might lie elsewhere, as aging has not yet shown its disheartening effect, but many aspects of physical health that come into play later start to develop. The hard core physical activities we give ourselves to in the splendor of youth; or in reverse the physical activities we do not give time to {later we tell ourselves}; the postures we adopt; the habits that become ingrained and that are repeated day after day, year after year… all of this is part of living and will embed itself in our body, etching itself deeper and deeper with each day.

So… great! Now what? Most of us have not had “perfect” lives, doing the “perfect” activities for us, eating the “perfect” foods, sleeping a perfect night. Nor should we expect that of ourselves. Our bodies thrives on novelty. The issue however comes if one is physically feeling that they have been paying the price for this.

I would like to offer you a secret that would enable you to breeze through time and aging with grace and effortlessness, tips on how to wake up each morning without a twinge or two, on how to keep your hips swaying easily when you walk, on reaching up to high shelf without a click in your shoulder, on taking the stairs without knees complaining.

Alas I must disappoint you. There is no magic bullet, no special potion, no secret other than the daily efforts we put into our lives to care for ourselves and our body, our instrument of expression and communication with the world. Those deliberate acts of kindness feed our bodies, mind and souls and I cannot think of a more graceful approach to aging than a gentle nurturing and loving of the self as a whole. Well, that and my not-so-secret recipe for the fountain of youth as illustrated below:

Stay well my friends!

By Audrey van Petegem, Chief Editor

Recently, I wrote an article about feeling beautiful as I age. In the article I included BOOMbox Network’s beauty survey that asked the question, ”How do women over the age of 45 REALLY feel about ‘beauty’ at their age”. A not-so-surprising finding is how important hair is to women. Healthy hair defines our youth and can determine if we age “gracefully” or not.

I have a dear friend, you all know her, who has always had gorgeous hair, and for 20 years I have been jealous (yes, jealous) of her hair. Beautiful thick, silky long mane of hair. I have written about my hair in the past and you may know, it is limp, frizzy and now (gulp) thinning!

Stress, nutritional and thyroid imbalances can all trigger hair loss, but it is during peri- and menopause, and the hormonal imbalance that comes with it, that can cause the most amount of hair loss. You may have noticed yourself that your forehead has grown higher or that your part has gotten wider. One-third of women will experience this as they enter peri-menopause with thinning hair increasing to 75% after the age of 65.

Plus, adding to our hair loss is the over use of harsh products, the build-up of product on the scalp and hair, sun damage and over-styling over the years.

Have no fear ladies. There is an INexpensive solution available. B’iota Botanicals has been available in Europe for over a decade and has just been introduced in the United States. This all natural herbal solution to thinning hair has been proven to not only reduce hair falling out but to also grow faster, thicker and fuller hair within 30 days.

How does it work? The blend of herbal extracts, vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids (sound like we could drink this!) nourishes the scalp to encourage faster growing hair that is stronger, thicker and fuller.

And the best part is that it is available at all major pharmacies and Amazon for $7.99 to $9.99 for the shampoo and $29.99 for the serum.

To good to be true? Check out these testimonials!

By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife

I’m a wannabe locavore (that means eating locally produced food all year round). But, living in the Midwest, it’s just not practical. I need food with color all year round, not just in the summer.

With farmers’ market season rolling in, I can play the locavore part  - for a few short months at least. I get ambitious strolling down the market, poking fruit and veggies and asking questions on how to prepare obscure produce such as garlic scapes or salsify. All this freshness is so tempting that I invariably stock my basket with much more than my family can reasonably consume over the course of the week.

I don’t want to be one of those unconscious persons that contributes to the horrible statistic that states that, as a society, Americans throw away 40% of their food. That is wrong for so many reasons.

The FreshPaper™ by Fenugreen is a great remedy to help me save my produce by keeping it fresh longer. FreshPaper, nicknamed the “dryer sheet for produce“, is a 5″ x 5″ sheet of spice infused paper that you simply drop at the bottom of your refrigerator’s vegetable bin. This will keep produce fresh 2 to 4 times longer.

How does it work? FreshPaper is infused with natural anti-microbial organic spices. Besides inhibiting bacterial and fungal growth, these organic ingredients also inhibit the enzymes that cause the over-ripening of produce. The sheets work well both in and out of the fridge and each biodegradable, compostable sheet of FreshPaper will last two to three weeks.

Now I can really have a field day at the farmers’ market!

Buy from Fenugreen.com or from your local Whole Foods store.