Gratitude Gourmet (tm)

Hanna Teeter, US Olympic Snowboarder, says Organic Food is the Secret to Going Big in the Halfpipe. Check out the video below and set it at 2:21 minutes. A bonus: US Gold Olympian Snowboarder Shaun White is next on the video with his Secret.

Zhena's Gypsy Tea has released Superberry Tea, Teas for Women's Health. There are five, USDA Certified Organic and Fair Trade Certified teas including Acaiberry, Cacaoberry, Cherryberry, Pomberry, and Wholeberry.  If you like chocolate, you must try Cacaoberry (ingredients include Sencha green tea with rooibos, cacao, raspberries, and dark chocolate).
Zhena, who has a degree in aromatherapy, love of tea, and Ukranian Gypsy ancestry, started selling her teas out of a cart on California street corners. Now she has an Award Winning Brand!

Have you been watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics? What are your favorite sports? I recently saw this Olympic Ring Cookie Cutter sold by Ann Clark. Do you know the history of the Olympic Rings? The rings were adopted by Baron Pierre de Coubertin (founder of the modern Olympic movement) in 1913 after he saw a similar design on an artifact from ancient Greece. The five rings represent the five major regions of the world: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.

Did you know Chateau Picard is the estate red wine produced at Jean-Luc Picard's family vineyards in La Barre, France? Picard kept a few bottles of the wine on the Enterprise-D for special occasions (Star Trek Nemesis).
You can see this wine and the ship's scene at the Star Trek Exhibit happening at the San Jose Tech Museum. Unfortunately, they are not doing tastings. :-)

Along with more than 350 creative and wholesome breakfast, salad, soup, snack and side, main dish and sweet recipes, based on the company’s commitment to good health and deliciously better living, the book includes helpful information about how to cook with unusual grains such as teff, amaranth and Kamut®. Gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan recipes are featured throughout the book in addition to recipes that incorporate familiar ingredients such as brown rice. 
"We sifted through many hundreds of recipes, testing and fine-tuning each dish to ensure great results and developing a number of new creations to round out the mix. Not all home cooks are well acquainted with quinoa, much less blue cornmeal, millet, and triticale, so it was important for this cookbook to make the full range of whole grains accessible, appealing, and easy to use,” said Miriam Backes. “And everything had to be tasty. When you're cooking with whole grains there is no reason ever to sit down to a meal that's anything short of delicious."

My favorite Marshmallows are made by Sweet and Sara, and you must try their Smores! Check out the Food Network video below on how they're made, and use the special Food Network 20% discount code (FN20) on the Sweet and Sara site.

I saw the Circle of Life Movie in Budapest when I was a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Hungary. I've always had a respect for animals at a very early age and appreciated the movie's message. During my US Peace Corps Service, I decided to become a vegetarian. Here's the Circle of Life Song which always inspires me when I listen to its wonderful lyrics and music. Life is Precious.

The March 20, 2010 Fourth Annual San Francisco International CHOCOLATE SALON participants include over 70 chocolatiers, confectioners, wineries and other culinary artisans. New 2010 Chocolate Salon Additions include the Chocolate Chef Competition and the TasteTV Wine Competition. Other Salon highlights feature chocolate tasting, demonstrations, new product launches and flavor combinations, fair trade & organic offerings, chef & author talks, wine pairings, a live chocolate body frosting demonstration, ongoing interviews by TasteTV's Chocolate Television program, and book signings. More information and registration information is here.