Hotel Review: Brook Farm Inn (Lenox, MA)

Fall is a great time to visit Massachusetts, especially towards the mountains. I used the opportunity to visit The Berkshires for some leaf peeping, staying at a Select Registry property, Brook Farm Inn in Lenox. Time for some fall foliage!

Brook Farm Inn is a small, cute inn/bed and breakfast set in a cottage built in 1882.

I was staying on the 3rd floor, in The Poet's Room. It's a cozy and romantic room.

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IONutrition: Ready to Eat Organic, Gluten Free Meals

As I get older, somehow I feel like I'm always busy. When I was in college, I was taking 5 classes and had 3 part time jobs and had no problem doing that. Now I have one job and one blog (OK, and doing random things here and there), but I always feel like I never have time for anything! Like cooking dinner.

I mean, cooking just takes a lot out of me! But as they say, if you want to eat healthy, you need to eat at home. Well, luckily, I got to do that for a few days thanks to IONutrition who sent me some samples of their meals. IONutrition delivers chef-prepared, organic, gluten-free meals to your door.

Catfish with lentils

The company is based in Chino Hills, CA, but they package everything up and ship nationwide. They deliver weekly and the meals are sealed and keep for a while.

It's easy to heat them up just with a microwave or oven.

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Island Creek Oyster Bar (Boston, MA)

When out of town family or friends visit me in Boston, they (naturally) ask for seafood, so I end up at Island Creek Oyster Bar quite a few times. Really, the trio of restaurants/bars at Hotel Commonwealth is a trifecta of amazing spots dangerously easy for a food/drink crawl. Starting with dinner (and drinks) at Island Creek Oyster, you can move next door for cocktails at The Hawthorne, and then keep going for late night eats and more cocktails at Eastern Standard.

But back to Island Creek Oyster Bar first, a mecca of fine seafood in the Fenway Kenmore area. It's started by the people behind the Island Creek Oyster farm down in Duxbury, MA, so you know they're getting their Duxbury oysters super fresh directly from the farm.

They have a nice variety of the freshest oysters. A lot of them come from Duxbury, and naturally while the other varietals rotate, they always have Island Creek oysters.

A great place to sample some varietals you haven't tried before.

Bread with honey butter

Their most popular appetizer is perhaps the oyster slider ($4 each)

A crispy fried oyster is served between brioche bun with lime chile aioli.

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