LIFESTYLE – Page 2 – Castle Foundations

Farmer’s Markets + Family Style Eats at Monell’s

April 21, 2017April 21, 2017Leave a comment

While in Nashville, we wanted to make sure we got a meal at Monell’s, because their whole dining experience is so unique and nothing like a restaurant we had ever been to!
Their concept is family style dining with the slogan, “Enter as strangers, leave as friends.” But unlike typical family style, your group doesn’t get its own table with just larger portioned shared foods — you actually share a table with several other groups of people! I think there were about 13 people at our table and after saying hello to your new tablemates, food just starts coming around the table.

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A Day of Nashville Staples

April 10, 2017Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

After we got our fix of the Nashville skyline and remembered the country music greats at the Walk of Fame Park, we went straight to Broadway for some cowboy boot shopping! There are a ton of stores that have aisles and aisles of boots so if you’re looking for some, why not get them in Music City!? They were all so fun and intricate, but they had some great classic pairs too. The shops we went to definitely had the most unique cowboy boots I’ve seen – so they were the perfect place to find those statement boots. Tara found a pair that looked so good on her, but they were all super expensive to no surprise, so we mostly window shopped.

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East Nashville’s Best Eats

April 2, 2017April 7, 2017Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

After our morning of traveling, shopping and checking out some of the city’s coolest street art, we headed to Barista Parlour for much needed coffee and snacks! If you’ve checked out our blog at all, you know we love discovering and hanging out in new cafes. Most Nashvilians raved about Barista Parlour and we liked that it had such a cool cafe space and motorcycles just chilling out front. And of course, the coffee!

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Exploring East Nashville

March 31, 2017Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

Even though we all had traveled and just arrived to Nashville that morning, we wanted to make the most of our day and check out our new stomping grounds! We got an Airbnb in East Nashville and it was an adorable house near a huge park and conveniently 5-15 minutes from everything. A lot of the other houses in the area, like the one below, were super colorful and almost every one seemed to have an adorable porch swing! We personally love staying in Airbnbs because it’s cool to be in a more residential area and get a glimpse of how a Nashvillian lives! We picked one in East Nashville because we had heard the area was growing and had a lot of cool spots, but was outside of the toursity areas.

Well what we heard was true — because East Nashville quickly became one of our favorite pats of the city! After stopping into our house to get the Greyhound off of us, we headed to Five Points to walk around, see some street art, and shop! Five Points is the center of East Nashville in terms of food and businesses! Right away we stumbled upon a huge few walls that had a bunch of murals and grabbed some photos.

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Spektor Coffee Roasters

March 23, 2017Leave a comment

BY TARA BURKE

We’ve got another coffee oasis spot for you guys! As you all know by now, finding cool coffee shops wherever we go is kinda our thing. There are too many amazing coffee places in the city that no matter how hard we try we will probably not make it to all of them…which is what makes the city so great in a way, but in Upstate NY you have to sometimes search for them. Cailin came across Spektor Coffee in Glens Falls, NY on Instagram so on a nice day we drove up for an afternoon caffeine kick!

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Honey & Tea Tasting

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

Nothing new here — this post talks about matcha, again! … But for all of the matcha lattes in NYC, my favorite green drink is few and far between in Upstate New York (our hometown). I was looking up where I could find matcha in the area, and saw that Saratoga Tea & Honey had one on their menu! So there we went!

Before we grabbed a latte, we went straight to the back to see their “Honey Room.” It’s just how it sounds, a room with jars of honey everywhere! You can taste all of their varieties which was so fun! I love honey in my tea, yogurt, and smoothies, but for some reason don’t like to eat it plain — so I wasn’t jumping up and down at the chance to sample tons and tons of honey.

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Exploring the Omi International Arts Center

March 10, 2017March 17, 2017Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

If you haven’t noticed by all of our Feature Fridays, we are huge art lovers so if there’s ever a chance to check out a new artist or head to a museum, we’re there!
One day while scrolling through Instagram, I stumbled upon Omi International Arts Center and it looked incredible! Even better, it was located in NY! It wasn’t too far of a drive, so one weekend we headed there to check out all of the art in their Fields Sculpture Park.

We had always passed Storm King Art Center on our drive to college and wanted to go check out the huge sculptures, but never had the chance. So when we saw that the Omi Center had a similar concept and admission was –FREE– we had to go! It’s basically a huge outdoor area with different sculptures strewn throughout the premises.

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Day Trip to Hudson

March 3, 2017Leave a comment

BY TARA BURKE

We’re always checking out cool coffee shops, so when we found Moto Coffee Machine we had to make a little day trip to Hudson, NY. Moto Coffee Machine is a coffee shop that also doubles as a motorcycle dealership. In turn, the cafe is decked out in motorcycle helmets and bikes! Cai and I both got a cappuccino, which was delicious. The space has a few tables out front, maybe three round tables with a pair of chairs, bar stool seating and a communal table. There were several people on their laptops and it seemed like a chill spot to get some work done!

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Matcha at Whole Foods

February 24, 2017Leave a comment

BY TARA BURKE

One day while picking up some groceries at Whole Foods, we noticed that their Allegro Coffee Bar was serving up a bunch of matcha drink options. I’m not sure how we missed this before, but once we spotted a Matcha Chai Latte on the menu we knew we had to try it. So on our next visit to Whole Foods we both got a Matcha Chai as well as a few cookies to split! We thought the drink was excellent and refreshing! Chai and matcha have such distinct flavors, but they ended up working great together. We both tend to prefer iced matcha drinks, so this will definitely be a go-to drink as spring approaches.

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Fruit for Thought – A Subscription Box for Fruit Lovers

February 14, 2017March 23, 2017Leave a comment

BY TARA & CAILIN BURKE

We were excited to receive February’s Fruit for Thought box, especially since it’s theme was “Strawberries & Champagne” – the perfect Valentine’s Day combo! Fruit for Thought is a monthly subscription box for all those fruit lovers out there. Each month they have a new fruit-centered theme and in the past have done boxes like Piña Colada, Fruit Salad, and Pink Lemonade!

We wanted to give a little review of the box and all the fun items it contained — kind of like an unboxing! Subscription boxes are great because they’re so fun to go through and discover new item after item! Fruit for Thought’s boxes have 6-8 curated items all centering on the monthly theme.