Author: Ann Bauer

Let’s face it. The economy sucks. Doesn’t matter who you are these days, you’re feeling the squeeze. Soaring gas prices, plummeting real estate values, low returns on your mutual funds. So what do you do? You cut out the non-essentials: fine wine, fancy dinners, charitable giving. After all, who has the money to go out…

She may look like a lost cast member from Charmed, the former WB’s show for Gothic teenyboppers that featured beautiful, modern-day witches living in San Francisco, fighting evil lords, and dyeing their long, silky hair. But Jessica Nielsen is, in fact, the wine captain at Cue and a first-level accredited sommelier (which is rare these…

I have to admit, when Wilde Roast Cafe first opened its doors back in 2004, I was a little underwhelmed. It was, for one thing, hidden — at the tail end of the "working" segment of East Hennepin, and turned sideways so it was hard to spot. Inside, it was quaint and roomy, with a…

Back in the late 1980’s, when I was weaning my oldest child and attending meetings of the breastfeeding network La Leche League, I became convinced that pasteurized milk was the root of all evil. Hey, I was 22 years old. I’d fed my darling infant nothing but 100 percent pure breastmilk for the first 10…

About three months ago, John and I decided we were in a rut. We went out to eat and then to a movie; we went to a movie and got a bite to eat. There was something missing. Music. So we pledged to go out at least twice a month and listen to some band…

Photo by the Associated Press.   While in Italy earlier this month, my husband and I cancelled our trip to Naples and headed instead to the north from Rome. We’d been going to visit the southern region mostly because we wanted to see Mt. Vesuvius and tour the wineries in Campania, where one of my…