Mother’s Day is May 9th, less than three weeks away. It’s the second-biggest chocolate-buying holiday, after Valentine’s Day.
We make gift giving easy: Send Mom a box of chocolates from one of our Top Pick Of The Week artisan chocolatiers.
What does it take to get chosen as a Top Pick Of The Week chocolate?
Quality, consistency and good service. There are wonderful boutique chocolatiers who don’t [yet] have the resources to provide good customer service for online orders—for example, they’re too busy making chocolate and have no one to pick up the phone and answer questions. Our selected chocolatiers were put through their paces via online orders with special instructions (no coconut or no chile, for example), and passed with flying colors.
Are you ready to discover a wonderful new chocolatier?
The shirt says it all (and is a unique gift
for bacon-loving friends).
Bacon lovers: Here’s your chance to wear your heart on your sleeve (or more precisely, your chest).
San Francisco chef/butcher Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats creates tee shirts that celebrate his products. “Bacon Is The New Black” is a shirt that will appeal to many people we know.
The limited-edition tees are printed on American Apparel 100% cotton jersey shirts. They’re available online at 4505meats.com while supplies last, for $25.00.
We squeeze fresh lemon juice into our water bottle and enjoy lemon water all day long. It not only tastes good; it gives us a big hit of vitamin C.
THE NIBBLE kitchen enables us to squeeze fresh lemon juice. But if your workplace doesn’t afford that luxury and you drink lots of water, bring extra bottles filled only with 1/4 to 1 teaspoon of lemon juice. The almost-empty bottles don’t weigh much, and you can fill them with tap water when you get to work.
Other options:
Keep lemon juice at work if there’s a fridge. Italian Volcano Lemon Burst is the only bottled lemon juice we use. It doesn’t have that “reconstituted” taste because it isn’t reconstituted—it’s real organic lemon juice and tastes like fresh-squeezed.
True Lemon is a powdered option that requires no refrigeration. It comes in tiny packets like artificial sweetener and has an excellent flavor.
Another option needing no fridge: lemon extract. Find it in the supermarket with the other extracts and add a few drops to your water bottle. (We use a medicine dropper to do this neatly.)
Try lime water, too!
When life gives you lemons, make lemon
water. Photo courtesy Italian Volcano.
Several mouth-watering flavors of Mama’s
Goodies. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky |
THE NIBBLE.
Mom deserves some goodies on Mother’s Day, so share these if you win this week’s Gourmet Giveaway prize of Mama’s Goodies Butter Nut Crunch. The winner will receive five boxes—one of each flavor—which is enough to give some to mom while still having plenty to enjoy yourself!
Mama’s Goodies blends seeds and nuts with honey, maple syrup and real butter. This all-natural (and kosher-certified) treat can serve as dessert or as a sweet snack. It’s not a classic buttercrunch (made with sugar and without the seeds), but it’s a honeyed delight. (Don’t know the difference between toffee and buttercrunch? Find out in our ABCs Of Toffee Article.)
THE PRIZE: One winner will get to taste all five flavors of Mama’s Goodies: Almond, Cashew, Macadamia & Coconut, Pecan and Sesame Seed. All five boxes will be shipped just in time to share with mom. Approximate retail value: $25.
To Enter This Gourmet Giveaway: Go to the box at the bottom of our Toffee & Buttercrunch Section and enter your email address for the prize drawing. This contest closes on Monday, April 26th at noon, Eastern Time. Good luck!
So you have a glass cooktop. Terrific! But cleaning it is not so terrific. To remove a cooked-on mess, you need to use a razor blade-type instrument, ?very carefully.
The SKrAPr was born after its inventor scratched his own glass cooktop with the conventional razor-type cleaning implement. Made with a patented blend of ?resins that will not mark or damage any surface, The SKrAPr easily pushes through hardened food deposits. The hard edge also is effective for digging into corners.
But The SKrAPr (we’re getting dizzy from looking at this silly spelling) has proven its usefulness for multiple scraping tasks. It safely cleans pots, pans and glass cooking ?vessels, and enables scratch-free scraping of hardwood floors, tiles, granite counters, windows and ?more.
The tool sports an ergonomically correct handle for optimum ?leverage and scraping ability. It’s dishwasher safe.
Scrape without scratching. Photo courtesy
Handy Home Products.
More benefits: You save money. You can clean a glass ?top stove with nothing more than water—no need for expensive glasstop ?cleaners. There’s a lifetime warranty, as ?opposed to a razor blade scraper, which constantly needs fresh, sharp ?blades.
And you preserve that pricey cooktop from ugly scratches.
Learn more about The SKrAPr. You can get the 8-inch SKraPR and a mini 4-inch SKrAPr for $14.99 at: TheSKrAPr.com.
