Sip With Me – Détails, épisodes et analyse

We put the FAN in Fannie May, because we’re lifelong lovers of these iconic chocolates! From Pixies to Mint Meltaways, Ioanna and Aaron have indulged in Fannie May chocolates every holiday since they were kids. Aaron’s twin brother even worked in a Fannie May shop!

Fannie May has been around since the 1920’s when it all began as a neighborhood chocolate shop in Chicago. Since then, they’ve grown from a few recipes to over 100 tasty treats!

We meet Fernando Bernardo, Marketing Director at Fannie May, who takes us back to when Fannie May all began. We learn about how they became so popular and why their emphasis on quality & in-store experience has made them a forever-classic holiday treat.

Learn fun stories behind how your favorite chocolates came to exist- from Trinidads to Pixies, each chocolate has a tale!

And, get the run down from our expert chocolatier (Bernardo) on how to gift Fannie May this holiday season and beyond, including what deals you can bite into this Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and during their annual customer appreciation weekend Dec 8-9!

We end with rapid fire, discussing our favorite chocolates, a flavor we’d create, and our most nostalgic Fannie May memories!

Cocktails crafted by Muddling Memories at Fannie May’s “Cheers with Chocolate” event include the Pixie Espresso Brown Sugar Martini, Mint Meltaway Mint Chocolate Margarita, and Milk Chocolate Vanilla Buttercreams Vanilla Mimosa!

Shop at the links below and follow Fannie May on Social for deal announcements and more signature events like the one featured in this episode’s Instagram content!

SHOP FANNIE MAY: https://www.fanniemay.com/us/en/

STORE LOCATOR: https://locations.fanniemay.com/

FANNIE MAY SOCIAL: https://www.instagram.com/fanniemaychocolates/?hl=en

MUDDLING MEMORIES INFO:

https://muddlingmemories.com/

MUDDLING MEMORIES SOCIAL:

https://www.instagram.com/muddlingmemories/

What’s better than one jack-o’-lantern? How about 1,000!

Exclusively at Chicago Botanic Garden, Night of 1,000 Jack-o’-Lanterns features professionally carved pumpkins hand carved with a whole host of designs, from album covers, to Chicago icons, and even some TBT cartoons like Courage The Cowardly Dog!

Jodi Zombolo joins us for her 2nd appearance on Sip with Me to discuss this year’s Jack-o’-Lanterns! Find out about how their team chooses designs and carves 1,000 pumpkins, not once, but twice each Halloween!

Hear behind the scenes facts and find out what kind of Halloween goodies & cocktails are available each night!

We end with, you guessed it, jack-o’-lantern themed rapid fire!

The second installment of this event runs October 23-27 from 6:30-10:30pm. Tickets are already selling out so get them NOW!

*We also recommend you listen to our 2023 interview with Jodi about Holiday “Lightscape” and buy your tickets now! Both linked below!

Event Tickets: https://www.chicagobotanic.org/halloween

CBT: https://www.chicagobotanic.org

Social: https://www.instagram.com/chicagobotanic/?hl=en

Holiday Lightscape Tickets: https://www.chicagobotanic.org/lightscape

Quick Links: https://linktr.ee/sipwithme_

2023 Lightscape Holiday Interview with Jodi: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sip-with-me/id1522224564?i=1000634625687

All aboard the Big Bus! One of the most moving experiences we’ve had in the city, the “Sunset Live Tour” by Big Bus Tours explores Chicago while the city’s architecture, historical landmarks, and lake are draped in the velvety shade of golden hour.

This tour takes tourists and locals on a 90-minute journey around the Chicago loop and surrounding neighborhoods. Atop their iconic red, double-decker buses, you’ll see the city above even our CTA buses.

We chat with John Curran, Senior Vice President & General Manager at Big Bus Tours, about the Sunset Live Tour and the company’s traditional hop on & off experience.

John shares some of the facts you’ll learn on the tour, including that Lincoln Park used to be a huge cemetery and how there is a piece of burnt debris from the Great Chicago Fire you can visit. Highlights for us included driving down Lakeshore Drive with the wind in our hair and pulling over on Fullerton for a one of a kind view of the city.

We end with rapid fire and learn John‘s favorite Chicago restauraunt/neighborhood, and he brings us to tears, describing the one person in the world he would want to take on a big bus tour.

Sunset Live Tours run through October 19. They currently depart at 7:30 PM, but this time moves progressively earlier as the sun begins to set sooner.

TICKETS/INFO: https://www.bigbustours.com/en/chicago/chicago-sunset-live-night-tour-ticket

SOCIALS: https://www.instagram.com/bigbustours/?hl=en

Jake Draviczki is a Registered Dietitian who creates easy to digest nutrition, fitness, and wellness content on Instagram and YouTube that has earned him a loyal and continuously growing fanbase. In light of ongoing stay-at-home habits and the approaching winter months, Jake joined us to share some of his expertise and tips on how to stay well healthy during the holidays. We learn from Jake about different foods and nutrients and how they impact the body. We discuss popular ones like alcohol, sugar, and caffeine, plus hear his recommendations on macronutrients and which vitamins are most important. Jake also taught us how to pick which foods we eat, what not sleeping enough can do to the brain, and why Aaron’s eye twitches when he has too much caffeine. We end the episode with a round of rapid fire to find out Jake’s favorite healthy cocktail and hear which vitamin he’d vote his favorite!

Andrea O’Bert is an Arizona-based wedding photographer with an eye for capturing the most beautiful moments between her clients. Her unique style, ability to frame masterfully, and the genuine rapport she builds with couples makes her one of our (and yours after you see her work) favorite photographers in the country. Seriously, if you’re getting married, check out her portfolio, she does travel for weddings! We met Andrea at a Tucson wedding this summer and she lit up the wedding venue as much as the bride and groom, so we knew we needed to find out what makes her passion for photography work so well. We chatted with her about covid impacts on wedding photography and trends she saw emerge during the flood of 2021 weddings. Plus, hear about some of her favorite spots to shoot and what it’s like being a travelling photog. And of course, since Ioanna’s wedding is rapidly approaching, we had to ask how she works with clients from beginning to end. We stroll down the aisle to end this episode with a round of rapid fire to find out her fave cocktail, the best wedding food she’s ever seen, and whether or not she’d ever say no to travelling too far for a shoot.

Lisa Jacobs is the founder and CEO of Imagine it Done, a business she founded in 2004 after discovering her innate ability to organize whatever chaos came her way. With a trained team of 12, Imagine it Done provides home organization services to clients throughout the NY and Tristate area. Featured on Business Insider, HomeBeautiful, Pop Sugar, and Fox News, Lisa and her team “teach you how to edit your belongings, keep what you need and love, while discarding what you don’t”. Lisa has a podcast, among many other things, and she joined us to talk about her business and to help some of you navigate the challenging process of organizing our most personal spaces. We talk about how her business and organizational skills have evolved since the early 2000’s, and learn what it takes to actually “imagine it done”. Plus, a round of rapid fire to find out Lisa’s favorite cleaning tools and her fave NYC restaurant! This interview is a must-listen for anyone looking to tidy up their space for the coming winter months!

Hey all you cool cats and kittens. This week’s guest needs no introduction. One of the most famous and viral folks to emerge from consumer pandemic habits, Carole became a globally recognized name after appearing on Netflix’s “Tiger King”. Beyond being a television star and appearing on Dancing with The Stars, she is first and foremost the CEO of Big Cat Rescue, her non-profit organization. We caught up with Carole to discuss her long career advocating for Big Cats and stricter laws protecting both their habitat and treatment by humans. Plus, we hear her true thoughts on how she was portrayed in Tiger King and what she thought about the show itself. And a chat about Carole’s Big Cat legislation that is currently making its way through congress! Plus, a purrrrfect round of rapid fire to find out Carole’s favorite cat, the highlight of her career, and what three words she would use to describe Tiger King.

Joanne Lee Molinaro, known widely as “The Korean Vegan”, has always been a leader. A Lawyer, activist, runner, mentor, & viral TikToker, she’s done it all & more! With 3.5 million social fans and growing, she now has a best-selling cookbook! Like her TikTok, the new cookbook, “The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma's Kitchen”, weaves together delicious veganized recipes with intimate stories and details on her life, both past and present. She talked to us about some of the recipes in the book and how her family influenced not only her plant-based diet journey but who she’s become as a human. Beyond the food, Joanne explains some of the myths behind the popular notion that you can’t veganize Korean food. And we hear about the concept diaspora and how she navigates her identity as Korean American. Last, we play a riveting round of rapid fire to find out her favorite vegan spot in Chicago, what her favorite cocktail is, whether she has a favorite TikTok, and her most loved recipe!

In this special investigative episode, we speak with Celine Wysgalla, the Chicago resident who formed a now viral petition to save the Crystal Gardens, a free indoor botanical garden located on the famous Navy Pier. Plus, we discuss the muddied political history of Navy Pier that she found as wild as we did. With almost 20,000 signatures in just a matter of days, it would appear it is only the beginning of the fight to save the Crystal Gardens, currently slated to be replaced by Illuminarium, a completely virtual attraction that utilizes footage from places like the African Safari and Outer Space to transport visitors elsewhere. Opponents of the closure cite the increasingly important mental and emotional health benefits of green space as a reason to keep it open, and say the replacement of the gardens by an attraction that is completely devoid of any real nature, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, is “dystopian”. The new attraction will cost you $30-50 per visit based on estimates and is seen by Navy Pier as being part of their longer term strategic plan for financial longevity and modernization. We talk with Celine about her motivations for starting the petition and what she sees as a possible path forward. Plus, a statement to Sip With Me from Navy Pier, Inc. But it doesn't end there. Did you know that in 2011 Navy Pier was spun off from government ownership, infused with millions in taxpayer dollars, and left to operate independent of taxpayer accountability as a not-for-profit organization? While that might sound nice, it leaves us feeling uneasy. In true Chicago political fashion, we discuss the complicated and sometimes corrupt history of Navy Pier and why several Local lawmakers have introduced bills to push for increased transparency with the non-profit following scandals involving former Governor George Ryan and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Follow the petition movement on Instagram: @savecrystalgardens Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/navy-pier-save-the-crystal-gardens-at-navy-pier-chicago?lang=en-US Follow “Sip With Me” or sign the petition: https://linktr.ee/sipwithme_ Sources: https://www.bettergov.org/news/greising-scrutiny-of-navy-pier-s-operations-is-long-overdue/ https://chicagoonthecheap.com/navy-pier-events/ https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/09/27/navy-piers-crystal-gardens-are-being-turned-into-virtual-scenery-but-residents-are-pushing-back-with-a-petition/ https://navypier.org/assets/Navy-Pier-Form-990_2019.pdf

In episode 32, we get some help walking down the aisle from Wedding Planner Jove Meyer. Founder of Jove Meyer Events, Jove started his business after planning his best friend's wedding (how cute)! He is all about making your wedding personalized, reflecting each couple’s unique personality. This was all Ioanna and I heard before we knew we needed to chat with him! Featured many times on our fave “The Rachael Ray Show” and in all the biggest wedding publications, Jove’s talents have been recognized by Harper’s Bazaar, Martha Stewart, US Weekly, Brides & more! Jove has also been recognized not only for his design but his work supporting marriage equality and inclusion, creating the viral “Totes Getting Married” tote bag to raise funds to support this cause! We chat with Jove about his inspirations and how he works one-on-one with his couples. Then we dive into some of the post-quarantine wedding trends that are here to stay and ask him about Ioanna’s wedding! Last, we play a round of wedding rapid fire and discuss his famous colorful home!