Miniature...

I bought a basket of cherry tomatoes yesterday, and when I got home I discovered the smallest cherry tomato I've ever seen. Isn't it cute? A perfect little miniature tomato. I just wanted to share! :-)


Next to a regular tomato and a regular-sized cherry tomato for comparison:

Bacon Chocolate Bar, Anyone?

My local Whole Foods store sells these bacon chocolate bars -- I had seen them there several months ago, but they must have sold out, because for the longest time they didn't have them. Then when I was there the other day, they had them back in stock, so I decided to give it a try!

It's called Mo's Bacon Bar by the Vosges chocolate company. It's deep milk chocolate (41% cacao) with applewood smoked bacon and Alder wood smoked salt.

From the picture you might get the impression it's just like a chocolate-covered slab of bacon, but really it's more like tiny little crunchy bacon bits throughout the bar (as well as the pieces of undissolved salt).

It's actually quite tasty if you like salty/sweet combinations. Have you ever had a breakfast plate of pancakes or waffles with eggs and bacon on the side, and then the maple syrup gets over everything? If you like the bacon with maple syrup on it, you'd like this. Some other things it reminded me of while I ate it:

* Chocolate covered pretzels

* Peanut M&Ms

* Trail mix (with salty nuts and chocolate chips)

The bacon taste is not extremely pronounced...really, bacon is just more of a "salty" taste than anything when you think about it!

So, if you ever get a chance to try it, I'd recommend it. I won't be buying them on a regular basis, but it's fun to be able to tell people I've eaten a bacon chocolate bar!

Avocado Love

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, with parents who possessed decidedly bland, predictable tastes in food, I was not exposed to avocados. Not once. The only thing I knew about them was that they were the main ingredient in guacamole, which I never tasted because my mom thought it was gross; I just assumed I wouldn't like it, either. (Note to moms out there: if there's some good-for-you food that you don't happen to enjoy, you should still buy or make it for your kids to try. They might like it, and it doesn't mean you have to eat it yourself!)

Anyway, after moving to California eight years ago, I suddenly discovered this wonderful little fruit! Now, I eat avocado almost daily.

Fun Avocado Facts (courtesy of www.avocado.org):

*Avocados were once a luxury food reserved for the tables of royalty.

*California produces about 90% of the nation's avocado crop. San Diego County is the Avocado Capital of the U.S., producing 60% of all the avocados grown in California.

*The avocado's smooth, creamy consistency makes it one of the first fresh fruits a baby can enjoy. Sodium- and cholesterol- free, avocados contain valuable nutrients including 8% of the recommended Daily Value (DV) for folate; 4% DV for fiber and potassium, 4% DV for vitamin E; and 2% DV for iron. A serving of avocado also contains 81 micrograms of the carotenoid lutein and 19 micrograms of beta-carotene. Per serving, avocados have 3.5 grams of unsaturated fats, which are known to be important for normal growth and development of the central nervous system and brain.

Some of my favorite ways to eat avocado:

*In a sandwich, mashed up and spread on the bread.

*Mashed up and mixed with fresh salsa (basically homemade guacamole) and served with chips.

*Cut into small pieces in a salad.

*Sliced and mixed with sliced tomato, with a sprinkling of sea salt on top, as a side dish to almost any entree.

If you haven't caught the avocado train yet, hop aboard! You'll be glad you did!

What a sandwich!

Yesterday, after church, Andrew and I decided to drive up to Auburn, one of the historic mining towns in the Foothills around here. It's about a 40 minute drive from our house. The weather was beautiful -- blue sky, sunshine, and temps around 60 degrees.

We actually stopped in "Old Auburn," the historical, "touristy" part of town. We had lunch first, at a little place called Mary Belle's Restaurant. Then we window shopped for a while, and got some specialty coffees to drink while we walked. Here's what part of Main Street looks like:













It was very relaxing, and one of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon...just Andrew and me, exploring a town we've never explored before. If you can call walking up and down Main Street checking out all the little shops "exploring!" We actually did have to walk a ways up a side street to get to the coffee shop someone told us about, which took us past the Placer County Courthouse -- isn't it impressive?















But back to Mary Belle's Restaurant. When I first opened the menu, nothing was sounding good. I wasn't extremely hungry, which didn't help. I decided on the Reuben sandwich. That turned out to be a very good decision.

This Reuben sandwich was delicious! The rye bread was grilled to a point of crunchy, buttery perfection and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. The sandwich was filled with a warm, tasty combination of chopped corned beef, sauerkraut, grilled onions, and melted Swiss cheese. What I especially loved was how they didn't pack the sandwich so full that I could barely get my mouth around it. The amount of "sandwich filling" was just right. The Reuben looked something like this (although this is not a picture of the actual item I ate):









As I began to eat the sandwich, I commented to Andrew how good it was. I offered him a bite, and he agreed that it was, indeed, very tasty. I told him I would be craving this Reuben from Mary Belle's in the future. I speculated that someday, I will be at some restaurant, and order a Reuben, and it will arrive at my table, and I will take a bite, and I will comment that "it's nowhere near as good as that one I had in Old Auburn." I said that one day I'm going to say to him, "Can we go back to Old Auburn for lunch so I can have another Reuben sandwich from Mary Belle's?"

(Alas, my prediction came true, for I am craving another one of those sandwiches as I type. I even stopped by our local family restaurant on the way home today to see about getting a Reuben to go -- although I knew it would not surpass the one I had yesterday -- and they didn't even have them on the menu!)

The waitress at Mary Belle's came to the table and asked how everything was. I told her, in short,

"This is pretty much the best Reuben sandwich ever made."

(I know, I know...like anyone could even know that!) :-)

May all your sandwiches be delicious!