Food & Drinks | Bite of the Best

Earthbound Farm Organic Baby Arugula

Bonnie: The peppery taste is what draws me to arugula. It’s not crunchy like iceberg or the ribs of romaine; it’s soft like mesclun with a peppery kick. I’ve had trouble finding good quality fresh arugula locally, that is, until Earthbound introduced this organic pre-washed version. I often toss it with a light balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette— sometimes adding artichoke hearts and diced tomatoes—and serve it as is or atop grilled pizza. That’s a recipe I demonstrated at the Hartford Civic Center with my cousin Susan Tandy assisting as my sous chef. A memorable demo, as off stage behind the scenes we had no facilities other than a folding [...]

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang|2017-08-31T16:18:15-04:00May 23rd, 2007|Food & Drinks, xyz misc|7 Comments

Craisins Sweetened Dried Cranberries

Bonnie: A cranberry bog? I couldn’t resist when the folks at Ocean Spray offered the opportunity to actually go into one and help harvest cranberries. What fun, I thought.

After giving a talk on food trends at Expo East, a natural products show in DC, I boarded the commuter jet to Boston on my way to East Sandwich, Cape Cod.

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang|2017-08-31T16:18:15-04:00May 16th, 2007|Food & Drinks, xyz misc|10 Comments

Campbell’s Select Gold Label Golden Butternut Squash Soup

Bonnie: Oddly, many of my tennis girlfriends have birthdays in spring. Although none of us belong to Ridgetop Pool and Tennis Club where we all met and bonded playing singles and doubles, we still get together. Or try to. Not so much for tennis, although we attempt to play a couple of times a summer. In our heyday (pre injury, surgery and aging) we were all pretty decent players, aggressive, competitive and—to the bane of those on the red clay court next to us—laughing while we played. So much fun. That is, other than the couple of times we decided to enter the women’s doubles club championship where four of [...]

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang|2017-08-31T16:18:16-04:00May 2nd, 2007|Food & Drinks, xyz misc|58 Comments

Angelina’s Hot Chocolate

Bonnie: For years I’ve been sending friends heading to Paris to Angelina’s for hot chocolate. I’ve only gotten raves back. Back up to 1992. There I was in Paris, not with foodies, but with my 8- and 11-year-old sons. We had won the airfare for the trip. First class. But that’s a whole other story. We were economically squeezing in as much as we could afford, which wasn’t much, as I was a single parent freelance writer just getting by. Paris with young boys is different than with a lover or, for that matter, any adult. We climbed almost every set of stairs in the city, hung out with the [...]

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang|2017-08-25T13:47:09-04:00April 25th, 2007|Bites from the Road, Food & Drinks|91 Comments

Häagen-Dazs Light Mint Chip

Bonnie: Okay, I admit that it’s true. I’m middle-aged. With two sons in their 20s, and the evidence of gravity on my body parts, I can no longer hide that fact. Years ago when I could jog miles a day, play tennis almost daily and easily bike ride twenty-five miles more than once a week, I could luxuriate in a bowlful of super premium ice cream without it ending up on my hips. I’m talking Häagen-Dazs chocolate chocolate chip ice cream. That’s rich-and-worth-every-mouthful ice cream. I don’t eat ice cream often, but when I do, I want to relish each and every bite. Once my activity lessened due to arthritic [...]

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang|2017-08-31T16:18:16-04:00April 18th, 2007|Food & Drinks, xyz misc|5 Comments

Frieda’s Zululand Queen Baby Pineapple

Bonnie: Whenever I cut into a fresh pineapple, my mind floods with memories of the college summer my friends and I lived in Waikiki. I attended the University, while my roomies worked the line in the Dole pineapple cannery just off Nimitz Highway, returning each day reeking of the fruit. While they packed sliced and diced hala kahiki in its juice, I studied ethnobotany and climatology and—to make pocket money—sewed muumuus. While others carried surfboards aboard the plane to Honolulu that summer, I toted my baby blue Singer sewing machine. Having been to the islands a couple times before, I knew of their fabrics, with vibrant colors you’d never see [...]

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang|2017-08-31T16:18:16-04:00April 11th, 2007|Food & Drinks, xyz misc|3 Comments