When Only a Perfect Ending Will Do….
Purists prefer to use fresh butter and eggs to make a homemade cake rather than buying a store-bought version but for those special occasions when an exceptional cake needs to be sent as a gift (and arrive as beautiful as it looks in a picture and taste better than a homemade cake), look no further than a Perfect Endings Vintage Cake. Perfect Endings of Napa, California makes a line of vintage cakes – Coconut, German Chocolate, Red Velvet, Banana, and Devil’s Food – reminiscent of what a layer cake should be: fluffy, moist, and delicious. That the cake looks as good as it tastes is….well….icing on the cake. Read more 
Meduri World Delights Dried Fruit
Meduri World Delights create some of the most delicious dried fruits – unsulphured and preserved naturally without artificial colors or preservatives. The company chooses the highest quality fruit from growers all over the world – Sweetglow apricots from California, apples, cranberries, blueberries, Rainier and Bing cherries from the Pacific Northwest, Morello cherries from Eastern Europe, peaches, sugar plums, raspberries and blackberries from Chile, Mandarin oranges from China, lingonberries from Scandinavia, and strawberries and grapefruit from Mexico – and prepares the fruit using the “Meduri Method” which means the fruit is placed in shallow trays and dried in small batches with a very small amount of sugar, sunflower oil, citric acid and/or ascorbic acid added to preserve the fruit naturally. Read more
“The Mother Who Stayed”
Most books of short stories are collections of unrelated stories or “slices of life” according to Laura Furman, the long-time editor of the annual PEN/O.Henry Prize Short Stories. The good ones are concise, satisfying and self-contained. At the other end of the spectrum is the novel – a longer piece of literature whose chapters link together to form an involved story. Between the short story and the novel is the short story trilogy – three short stories linked together by a “set of characters whose lives are connected through family, location, or sheer coincidence.” The stories can stand alone – and many have in published journals – but collectively they result in a more revealing and thought-provoking piece of fiction. Read more
Nicobella Dark Chocolate Truffles
Dark Chocolate should be its own food group.
Nicobella Organics makes all natural organic dark chocolate truffles in six flavors: Pure Cocoa Bliss, Ginger Green Tea, Pumpkin Chai, Walnut Flaxseed Crunch, Blueberry Almond, and Sunflower Banana Butter. Rich and decadent, these silky smooth truffles will melt in your mouth making it hard to believe dairy products are not used to make these decadent treats. Instead of milk and cream, Nicobella uses oat milk and coconut oil along with pumpkin seed butter, ginger, green tea, walnuts, flaxseed, blueberries, almonds, sunflower seed butter, raw agave, brown rice syrup, sesame seeds, vanilla beans, cocoa nibs and spices to make their truffles and then enrobes them in Theo’s 70% dark chocolate. The result: pure bliss. Read more
Chocolate Caramel Turtles
Valentine’s Day is just days away so there is no better time to talk about chocolate than right now. Many connoisseurs of the cocoa variety prefer their chocolate pure as in a bar, as a truffle, or filled with a flavored ganache but there is also a group of people who think there is nothing more decadent than putting three ingredients – chocolate, caramel, and nuts – together to form what is commonly known in North America as a turtle. Read more
OLOVES are the New Olives
Eating olives on the go has always been problematic because most olives are sold in a marinade within glass or plastic containers which guarantees airport security will confiscate the Mediterranean fruit. Even if travel is by car or train, transporting olives is difficult because fishing olives out of a jar is not the easiest task while sitting in a passenger seat. Then there is the problem of what to do with the pit. Enter OLOVES, a delicious ready-to-eat packet of olives with no pits and no liquid. A natural healthy alternative snack, OLOVES come packaged in 30 gram (1.1 ounce) packets that are easy to take along anywhere. Read more
“The Laughing Policeman”
Mass murders seem to be an American specialty. And the compendium gives some plausible theories as to why it is so…the glorification of violence..the career-centered society. The sale of firearms by mail order …
The Laughing Policeman was written by Maj Sjowall and her husband Per Wahloo in 1970 although the book could have very well been written in the 21st century and still be relevant. The setting is Sweden, a small Scandinavian country in northern Europe that borders Finland and Norway. With a population of about 10 million, Sweden is widely considered to be a safe country (there were only 18 homicides (0.19 per 100,000 population) by firearms in 2010 while the United States recorded 11,078 firearm homicides (3.6 per 100,000 population)) the same year. So when a “person with a Suomi sub-machine gun model 37 fires 68 rounds of ammunition into nine people on a public transportation bus on a cold November night in 1967 on a deserted street in downtown Stockholm, the people of the country are shocked. Mass murders are not supposed to happen in Sweden. Read more
The Yumiko Yasu
My friend, Matisse, a professional ballet dancer introduced me to Yumiko, a line of high-quality, great fitting and beautifully designed dance and fitness wear. For women, the very reasonably priced clothing is divided into three categories: Read more
Oats Any Time
In a small town in central Maine just west of Bangor, a company called Oats Any Time (O.A.T.) makes whole grain oat tarts with real fruit filling and a crumb crust that taste rich and scrumptious and there isn’t an ounce of butter, eggs, or dairy used to make these treats. Gluten-free and vegan, the O.A.T. Fruit Filled Crumb Tart is a moist, delicious, and satisfying confection that can be eaten for breakfast or enjoyed as a snack or dessert. Read more
Wild Garden Hummus Dip
This post should be dedicated to United Airlines who is responsible for me learning about Wild Garden Hummus Dip. On a recent flight, I ordered the “Tapas” snack box which had a variety of snacks but most importantly Wild Garden Hummus Dip. Before opening the single serve packet of hummus, I read the ingredient list and was impressed because the dip contains chick peas, sesame paste (tahini), water, sea salt, natural spices, and citric acid. And, then I tasted the hummus dip and found it delicious – no overwhelming garlic flavor (because there is no garlic) and not too salty – with a smooth creamy texture that was easily spread on chips or crackers. Read more
Paddock Post 