What’s Good? Our Picks for February 2020

jean trebek recommends

Andean Dream Pasta

Andean Dream Pasta was created by my beautiful friend Ingrid.  It’s made from Royal Quinoa, the finest quality quinoa in the world… it’s gluten free, corn free and vegan.  Serve Andean Dream Quinoa Pasta just as you would any pasta dish, and enjoy the benefits from its high nutritional content and wonderful flavor.  

This company is member of the Fair Trade Federation, and products can be purchased on amazon.  Here’s to a healthy 2020. 

Trish Geiger recommends

Creator Cards by Jean Tinder

These beautiful cards were created to help us find answers within ourselves. There are 44 creator cards in the deck and a book. Each card has a beautiful design, number and a phrase. 

I like to pick a card in the morning and place it on my desk to start my day. I shuffle the cards, lay them face down, take a deep breath and pick a card. I look at the card’s beautiful art first. It’s meditative. Then I read the phrase and find the corresponding paragraph in the book. The cards are not designed to give you answers but for you to find the answer within yourself. In fact sometimes there are questions in the answers. Like, today I picked, #33 “What choice would be FUN?”

In the book it asks “Can you allow yourself to simply have fun with life?” These cards have helped me live a more conscious, creative and fun life. Try it! You don’t have to buy the cards. Go to the website and pull a card from the virtual deck! It’s free!

Creator Cards

alison martin recommends

The hike from Mulholland Drive to San Vicente Mountain – “Nike” walk

This is a little known hike on the top of the Santa Monica Mountains. On one side, you can look down into the whole valley and on the other side you can see downtown and, on a clear day, all the way to the ocean. It’s called the “Nike” hike because of its incredible view and high point, it was the location of the Nike missile control site. It sounds a little weird but it truly is beautiful. You can read more about it here.

patti ring recommends

Silpat Perfect Baking Mats

My daughter gave me a reusable Siplat 1/2 sheet baking mat as a gift this past Christmas and I am in baking heaven! I’m done with greasing and parchment paper. Biscuits and cookies come out of the oven with a perfect golden brown bottom and evenly baked without sticking. Also great for meats and fish. Good for rolling out pastry dough too! Watch the quick video for even more uses. Works in any type of oven and is good for  temps up to 500 degrees. They come in a variety of sizes and are super easy to clean with hot soapy water.

Next up, I’m going to try out the baking molds. If have used them, let me know what you think!

We purchased ours at Sur La Table and you can view more Silpat products here

Stephen O’Bryan recommends

Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS218j

Confession time. I’m a gearhead. It’s true. I try really hard not to be. I long for the days when I didn’t crave for more storage, faster upload times covet my neighbor’s RAM. It’s true, I do all those things and it doesn’t look like I’m going to stop anytime soon. If you’re like me and you don’t have a home server you are missing out! However, the good news is that I have a solution for you!

Synology is a rock-solid server brand that does a lot of things but it’s known for creating Network Attached Servers for a variety of technology solutions. The Synology DS218j does a great job for a home office, home network, and a variety of other solutions. The Synology DS218j has room for two hard drives so that if one drive fails the other will protect your data. It’s important to understand that when you purchasing the DS218j that you MUST also purchase two hard drives to be installed inside them. It will do you no good if you don’t purchase the hard drives as well. However when you do this then everyone on your home network can utilize the NAS (networked attached storage). This means that you no longer have to crazily search through every drawer, cabinet, box, and suitcase in your house desperately searching for a small thumb drive that you can load your files on, in order to transfer it to another computer. You simply navigate to the DS218j and either transfer your files on to or off of your computer. This is a huge win for those who take lots of photos, drone video’s or have a lot of music on their computer.

Because the DS218j, is a networked attached device you make it accessible to the whole family or you can keep it for yourself! It’s up to you! I particularly love it because I can regularly back up my Mac via the time machine to the DS218j and  BOOM! I’m backed up and secure! One note. I love the DS218j and it does come with security protocols. Because I’m a computer nerd, I like going that extra mile and so I also bought a Sonicwall SOHO (Small Office Home office) Security appliance which I use as a firewall. I’m quite happy and I think that after you do your homework you’ll be happy as well!