Let Them Eat Panettone

A Classic Italian Holiday Cake—with a lovely twist. Bauducco Panettone comes from a Brazilian food company with Italian roots—Bauducco Foods. With high-quality ingredients like Sun-Maid raisins and Hershey’s Chocolate Chips in one variety—you will find the taste delightful. There is no mistaking this holiday cake for others you may have tried in the past. Bauducco Panettone is not dry but has a golden rounded taste that is just sweet and rich enough to let you know you are eating something special. Have it as it is or add ice cream or fruit or powdered sugar. It also makes delicious French Toast.

  So does panettone get its name from the baker’s helper Toni in Northern Italy who accidentally knocked some raisins into a bowl of bread dough and continued adding more ingredients? His employer tasted it and named the scrumptious accident pane di Toni. We can’t say for sure but we do know Bauducco Panettone tastes divine. And what a thoughtful gift for a host or hostess.

Olives, Water, and Sea Salt..and a Lovely Wreath

If you like Olives, you want to taste the olives, not a lot of chemicals and preservatives.



When you buy Lindsay's Naturals Olives, you get nothing but Olives, Water and Sea Salt. Choose from Green or Ripe, Sliced or Whole. If you've never tasted olives without the usual heavy disguise, you may be surprised at first. But after a few tastes, you will find you like olives, just they way they are--with a little seasoning, but not too much.

And here is a fragrant gift that gives back. Lindsay Olives is offering gift-ready wreaths in two sizes, each a fragrant restyling of the traditional olive branch wreath. Holiday shoppers can give a charming 14-inch round wreath, or an impressive 18-inch round wreath. The wreaths are hand-woven from freshly harvested olive branches, universally recognized as a symbol of peace, along with branches from bay and eucalyptus trees.

The branches are harvested from California groves and, over time, dry to a beautiful silvery green. Fragrant bay and eucalyptus branches add that special holiday aroma. Each wreath is packaged gift-ready in holiday red tissue paper with a personalized gift card.

All proceeds --that's right--all proceeds from the wreath sales go to The Meals On Wheels Association of America (MOWAA), the oldest and largest national organization in the United States, representing programs that provide meals to people in need.

The Lindsay Olive Holiday Wreath is available exclusively at www.lindsayolives.com or by calling (800) 765-2029. The 14-inch wreath is $30 and the 18-inch wreath is $35 plus shipping, with delivery until December 31, 2009.

About Meals on Wheels

The Meals On Wheels Association of America (MOWAA) is the oldest and largest national organization in the United States representing those programs that provide meals to people in need. To obtain more information about MOWAA or to locate a local Meals On Wheels program, visit the MOWAA website at www.mowaa.org.

Chocolate, Chocolates, More Chocolates

Chocolate and Valentine’s Day. They do go together very nicely. And Cupid’s day is February 14, and that’s coming up very quickly.
But even if you don‘t keep Valentine’s Day, chance are you wouldn’t mind celebrating chocolate. But, what kind of chocolate? And what brand?

Pay a visit to
http://www.chocolate.com/ This is a very useful online marketplace that offers 2318 Products from 92 Vendors in the U.S.A. and Canada. You will have plenty of all-things- chocolate options from which to choose, including Cookies, Brownies, Cakes, Dard Chocolates, Baking Chocolate, Popcorn, Sugar-Free Chocolates, Kosher Chocolates, Organic Chocolates, Fair Trade Chocolates, Corporate Gifts, Bulk Orders and more. And in this one place you can see what different chocolate specialists from coast to coast have to offer.

And if you have any questions about shipping, product details, or other questions you can send them an email from their site and expect a response to your question. You will get a reply from chocolate.com within an hour letting you know your query was received and if they cannot answer the question right away--if it concerns very specific product details--they really will get back to you in a timely manner with an answer.

There even some gifts on sale, such as, from Ashland, Oregon, Creek House Patisserie’s set of 8 gift boxes each containing 4 scrumptious molded truffles—perfect if you have a number of sweeties you would like to give a little sweet something to or perhaps, not on sale, but nicely priced assortment of gift baskets —286 at last count.

With a column about interesting facts and factoids about chocolate, the website itself is a pleasure to visit even if you are not interested in placing an order—but it will be very hard not to order something.