Agoura Hills Mom, Author at Agoura Hills Mom

GiftYou: An Easy Way to Say “Here’s What You Can Get For Me”

December 2, 2016 by Agoura Hills Mom Leave a Comment

giftYou is an easy new way to share wish lists and gift ideas – complete with sizes, color preferences, and more – with your friends and family.

These socks are on my giftYou list

Now that we’re in holiday season, family and friends keep asking me for gift ideas for my kids. What sizes are they now, including shoes? What clothes do they especially need? I have the same questions about my sister’s kids and she is terrible at getting back to me. (I am also terrible at getting back to people, but it’s more fun to throw her under the bus.)

But what if there was a central place you could keep all this information? Not just for you and your own kids, but for all the people you love to shower with gifts throughout the year? This is one of those things I didn’t know I needed until it popped up in my life: giftYou!

giftYou is an online tool that makes it easy to create and share gift wish lists with friends and family. Creator Richard Fields says he and his techie partners “wanted to make the gift giving process easier on ourselves (and in turn, easier for everyone else, too)! Most of us love giving and receiving gifts… but, quite frankly, it can sometimes be a bit stressful.”

Wish Lists For Everyone!

giftYou goes beyond Amazon’s wish lists (although it uses Amazon links to populate your list easily) by allowing you to easily share wish lists among groups of family and friends. “At giftYou, you simply create a group, invite everyone you want to join, and that’s it,” says Fields. “Everyone in the group will have their wish lists shared with each other automatically, instead of each person having to manually share each separate wish list with one another.”

Plus, giftYou can add links to any online retailer, AND indicate your general preferences and the kinds of things you like, so that people can choose their own gifts for you instead of picking something directly off your wish list. You can use it for this season’s gifting holidays and keep it around for birthdays and other occasions.

When you log in (for free!) and create you own account, you are prompted to start a wish list for yourself. You can also create a wish list and preferences for a dependent or someone else in your family. giftYou is easy to use on your mobile phone too – it’s optimized for that format so you don’t have to download a separate app to use it.

Other cool functions: when someone wants to buy something for you from the wish list, they can “claim” it, but you won’t see who it is! And, the site makes sure gifts aren’t claimed more than once. It’s kind of like an awesome group gift registry.

There’s Still Time

So if you’ve been meaning to gather some ideas for your family to send presents for the kids that you know they would love, instead of blindly ordering the latest hot toy from the internet, try out giftYou.com. And make a wish list for yourself while you’re at it!

I promise you this post is not just a giant hint for you to click through and send me presents. The wish list I posted above is just for an example. (I already asked Santa for these things, so since I’ve been a good girl this year, I think I’m all set.) What I really want is a shiny new car. I wonder if that can go on a wish list? Hmm…

Many thanks to giftYou.com for partnering with me on this post. Shout out to Fairy Season for the photo and the existence of the awesome socks. Happy holidays!

Filed Under: Holidays Tagged With: birthday, Christmas, family, friends, gift ideas, gifting, giftyou, Hannukah, shopping, wish list, wish lists

ButcherBox For Meat of the Month

November 28, 2016 by Agoura Hills Mom 5 Comments

ButcherBox is your monthly box of meat.

Ok. I was wrong. Subscription boxes are awesome…but only if the box is filled with something you love and need. Like meat. A meat box. A box of meat on your doorstep once a month! ButcherBox is the new monthly subscription box that’s just like a farm box or a produce box or whatever, except it’s filled with frozen meat of the best variety. If you’re like me and you don’t have a giant extra freezer to share a 1/4 of a side of beef with a neighbor, this is perfect, better than shopping for your organic meat at the local health food store, even. Everything is organic and grass fed and pasture raised. For $129 per month you get 7-10 pounds of meat. You select the mix – beef, chicken, or pork or a mixture of two or all three.

My sample box included beef tenderloin, ground beef, the juiciest pork chops, beef tips, and our favorite, breakfast sausage. Everything is vacuum sealed and arrives at your door in a cooler with dry ice so you don’t have to worry about it while you’re at work. Delivery is free!

The box has recipes in it, too. I made cranberry meatballs one night, simple beef sirloin another night, pork chops on a rainy Wednesday, and the best — I thawed and browned the breakfast sausage and stirred it into some homemade marinara sauce and then served that over penne. There were barely any leftovers which is unusual for pasta night at our house.

It’s easy to get started with ButcherBox and you can even order it for someone as a gift. Just go to GetButcherBox.com and put in your zip code to see if it’s available in your area.

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: box of meat, butcherbox, dinner, meal, meat, meat of the month, paleo, review, subscription box

Sweetfin Poké at the Village in Woodland Hills

November 14, 2016 by Agoura Hills Mom 73 Comments

I’ll sum up my meal at Sweetfin Poké in one word: satisfaction. It’s satisfaction in a bowl, folks. You heard it here first.

To expand, I’ll even say it’s surprise, delight, savory, and filling.

But let’s go back to the beginning. This is only the second location of Sweetfin Poké in the universe; the first is in Santa Monica. I love that so many forward-thinking businesses are choosing Woodland Hills as a place to expand. Anyway, when they invited me and a guest to try their poké bowls, I went with more curiosity than anything (okay yes, my appetite too) because raw fish as the main ingredient of a meal has never been my number one choice. But if I am going to torture myself with death-defying workouts in the name of a good story, I’ll put raw fish in my mouth for you. (Cue the Breakfast Club music.)

Sweetfin Poké is a fast-casual style restaurant on the first level of The Village toward the south end. You can build your own bowl by choosing the meat, the base, the sauce, and any add-ons, or choose from a list of “signature bowls.” And it doesn’t have to have raw fish – you can choose tofu or chopped vegetables instead. And even with the signature bowls, you can subtract, add, substitute, and generally go crazy with mixing and matching.

Because I am a novice, I let the staff pick for me. I ordered (with manager Calista’s help) the mango albacore bowl which comes with ponzu-lime sauce, macadamia nuts, and fresh ginger. But I had them omit the ginger (I’m not a fan) and add sweet potato and kale to the bowl along with a rice back. All bowls also have scallions, white and black sesame seeds, and salt. I also poured myself some lemon water after sampling all of the freshly brewed teas, which had interesting flavors but I wanted to have a palate cleanser for my meal.

My trusty plus one, Jennifer, is more of an experienced sushi fan, so she went for the spicy tuna bowl with avocado, creamy togarashi sauce, hijiki, and crispy onions on top, using kelp noodle cucumber slaw as her base. She liked the mango black tea.

Much to my delight, I really liked the tuna! It was actually a great vehicle for all of the other flavors that were mixed into my bowl. Jen enjoyed hers too, and we both ate it all, which is a bummer for my husband, who loves to eat and review my leftovers.

He did get to sample the dessert-type goodies they sent home with us though. These flavored popcorns were unique and tasty, and he loves the fresh taro root chips seasoned with sriracha powder.

The bowls are only $7.95-$9.95 for a small and $11.95-$13.95 for a large. I had a small and it was the perfect size to satisfy but not make me feel stuffed. The atmosphere in the restaurant is open and friendly, if a bit too cold. We sat outside since it’s still summer in November in SoCal.

I am looking forward to returning to Sweetfin Poké with my fish-loving husband, and my wacky kids who will love the climbing features just outside the restaurant. Let me know if you try it out – I’d love to get some suggestions for other flavor combinations to try!

Sweetfin Poké
at The Village
6256 Topanga Canyon Blvd. #1310
Woodland Hills 91367

Filed Under: Around Town, Food, Local Businesses, Restaurants Tagged With: fast casual, new restaurant, poke, poke bowl, raw fish, restaurant, The Village at Topanga, Topanga Canyon, Woodland Hills