Our business model has changed considerably in the past few months and Paul and I are enjoying working together and planning our new marketing strategies. My current studies in Internet Marketing are helping immensely. Yesterday Paul presented a seminar and afterward I was in the mood for sushi. They have great sushi restaurants here in L.A. Instead we tried something different and very unusual to me: shabu shabu. It is so cool. You have to try it. You cook your own food in pots of boiling water at your table. I know. It sounds treacherous, but it’s not. The meat is sliced very thin and it only takes a few minutes to cook. You can add your own spices and garnishes and top with sauces like miso and soy. Boiling the water draws out the fat in the meat. Then it is served with vegetables and noodles. Very good and very satisfying.

I recently discovered this great blog called  Piece of Cake Decorating. They offer custom made cakes as well as directions on how to make your own. My favorite is the slumber party cake, a variation of which I have made for my own kids. Check it out. Great fun.

As with everything else on this trip, I wanted to share this experience with my children and I have to say they did not recoil in disgust as I feared they might.  First I taught them how to hold a live crab so that it would not bite them. (I consider this one of my special talents and part of my charm.) Then my brother-in-law, who did the cooking, showed them how to steam them in a large pot filled with some water, beer and Old Bay seasoning. The sauce was later poured over pasta and enjoyed along with the crabs. The final lesson was showing them how to break open the crabs to get the meat out. This they found to be a fun, albeit, messy challenge. And they loved the crabs. It was a perfect sendoff to a perfect trip.

When I got a pleasant email from Stonyfield’s marketing person and I remembered that my ex-husband’s ex-college roommate was their VP of Something,  I figured I would give them a try since I have always enjoyed all of their other products. I bought a couple of six packs and tried them with the kids. We tasted the apple, blueberry, banana and peach. They were all delicious in a way a baby would love–very smooth and creamy and mild tasting without that tart, sour taste some yogurts have. Mark commented that he liked how there weren’t any chunks of fruit in it. If I had babies,  I would definitely feed them Yobaby yogurt.

My good friend Les Cooper, owner of Coeur d’ Olives,  lives in Carmel, CA  and makes the best plain and infused olive oils I have ever tasted. I am not biased just because he is my friend. I met Les about 7 years ago when I first started my pressed flower glassware business. We met at  a promotional event at one of our stores and hit it off. Since I decorated olive oil bottles with pressed flowers and he made fantastic olive oils we decided to partner and sell our products together. For years we shared booths at festivals and sold side by side at the farmer’s market. When I sold my glassware business I carried Les’ products in my food repping business. I  still sell  for him occasionally, conduct product demonstrations and am always coming up with new uses and recipes for his diverse line of oils, balsamics, rubs, tapenades and spreads. I used his habanero infused oil to make  a Manhattan clam chowder and entered it in the Santa Cruz Clam Chowder cook-off and I won. I also make habanero brownies and  cookies. Recipes for these are included with purchase.  I tell customers that using Les’s oils and vinegars makes creative cooking easier. Pour his basil walnut dipping oil on pasta and get instant pesto. Use his aged balsamics to marinate chicken,  fish and vegetables  for a gourmet flair.