Calling all Foodies. I am working as a marketing consultant for my friend Les Cooper who owns Coeur d’Olives, purveyors of fine foods specializing in premium extra virgin olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars with unique flavors like black cherry, pomegranate, tangerine, fig and red apple. The oils are to die for too. I recently made a Southwest style crab cake with chipotle mayonnaise using the chipotle infused oil. If you would like the recipe, sign up for Les’ email list on his Facebook page and we’ll send you our newsletters. My first official promotion is to hold a recipe contest. If you come up with a recipe or serving suggestion using one of Coeur d’Olives products, and we use it in our newsletter and post it on the Coeur d’Olives website, we will send you a free product of your choice. And my fellow bloggers out there, if you announce  this campaign on your site we will send you a free product just for giving us your pitch.

I don’t usually describe food as fun, but recently I tried Bear Naked granola and I loved it. ( I would just like to interject here that I am not a paid endorser of the product, and I didn’t get freebies to try it either. I just liked it and want to share it with you.)  My kids were asking me to make them yogurt, fruit and  granola parfaits so I picked up some Bear Naked granola and some Stonyfield yogurt and on the inside lid of the yogurt I found this recipe for granola cupcakes. I have made them twice. The first time with The Heavenly Chocolate granola and the second time with The Vanilla Almond Crunch granola.  The added granola makes for a very interesting and fun texture. My family loved them. For the recipe visit my kids’s craft blog: Just Imaginate.

A reader named Shelly recently commented on my blog post Ocean Ditty New Dirty about how much she loves crab cakes. She is from Maryland, of course. Whenever readers comment on my blog and they have a blog too, I always check it out. Shelley’s is one you should read too. It is called, I’m Still Standing. She writes about her special needs child to offer insight into what her life is like. She also loves crab cakes and has a great recipe for them. Click here to read all about her.

I have been asked by Stoneyfield to review their Yobaby yogurt. Up until now, every product or Foodie review I have done has been on products of people that I know or have a personal connection to. And I only review things that I like. Often times I am approached by marketers and PR people asking me to plug their line or service; like The American Dental Association who asked me to write about the importance of early dental hygiene. As much as this may be a gripping topic for you, it would bore me to tears.  So I passed on that one.

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.

One of my dear friends here in Santa Cruz, Suzanne Silverglate and her husband David Silverglate have a toy company called Rhino Toys. If you walk into any toy store anywhere, you will see their imaginative, creative, fun and very tactile toys.  It is really cool having friends who make toys, especially going to their house and being a test subject for a new product. Their most popular toy and my personal fave is The Oball. It comes in an assortment of colors and sizes and is the ideal starter ball for a baby because they can grab the openings in the ball with their fingers. Suzanne tells me that the O-Ball has therapeutic purposes as well, and is often used by many physical therapists in their treatment with clients who have arthritis and have difficulting grasping objects with their hands.

If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to check out their complete line, I highly recommend that you do.