Reader Asks Where To Purchase Quality Foods Online

As my regular readers know, healthy and quality foods are important to our family. One of my readers has asked if I know of quality food sources online, and yes, I do know a few, but I wonder if the rest of my readers know of any others.

So please help us out by commenting. Here is Leo’s complete question posted in response to yesterday’s Wow! Every Cookie Imaginable!:

wow…thats all I can say…wow! I love this blog!!!!
Do you by chance, know of any quality online food services? I am starting to order all my food online because of various reasons. (Health being one of them) So far I have found 2 services, Fresh Dining (an LA company) and Celebrity Foods, but you have to call them so they can talk to you about your need. I would really like any suggestions that you may have, so I can widen my list of quality places online where I can order healthy food from.
Thank you and have a great night or day…depending on when you read this. LOL!!!!

Nov 30, 1:33 AM — [ Edit | Delete | Approve | Spam ] — View post “WOW! Every Cookie Imaginable!”

Leo, here’s the sources I can personally vouch for. (Click on the links.)

1. Whole Foods Market — They are headquartered in Texas and have regular stores throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. While they do deliver, their delivery policy however varies by store so you need to check with your local stores. Whole Foods carries a wide variety of foods, cleaners and body products.

2. Country Sun Natural Foods is a small, very friendly store in Palo Alto, Calif. Their online store carries groceries, organic wine, vitamins, herbs and body care products. They have monthly sales and they provide senior discounts. If you don’t see what you want, but they carry that item in the brick and mortar store, they will usually add it online just for you. If they don’t carry it, they will often special order it or at least point you in the right direction. Yes, they really are that friendly. You can see what I said about them in the post Flavor and Flowers at Farmer’s Market. Your previous shopping carts will be remembered for 60 days for faster reordering too. They also publish Taste For Life Magazine which is available instore and shipped with every order.

3. Infinity Goods — Yes, that’s us! We are an online Amazon Affiliate store. Amazon now has a grocery store. We have requested more health foods and quality foods for our affiliate store at infinitygoods.com. For now we carry products in our gourmet foods section like Alaska wild salmon, Omaha Steaks (and other Omaha foods), maple syrup, stevia and even whole black winter truffles direct from France, and much more. We will start carrying more foods as Amazon makes it available. If you want a specific food which Amazon carries, but we do not have listed, we will add it to our products for you, just let us know. When you shop at Infinity Goods, you use the same Amazon shopping cart, products come to you directly from Amazon and we have the same Amazon return policy. So be sure to shop with us whenever a product attracts your eye. You’ll be helping me and my small family.

4. Fabrique Delices — It is a French charcuterie or delicatessen. It’s not a one-stop shopping since they only provide deli products, but they are excellent. They serve the Pope and the White House, but remain a good value for the quality. I also mentioned them in my Farmer’s Market post, along with a couple of small family businesses with online stores, Prevedelli Farms and Bolani and Sauce.

Dear Readers, if you can, please don’t forget to post your own suggestions for Leo and all of us. It will be greatly useful to all who visit here. In advance, I thank all of you.

Refreshing Tomato Chicken Salad for Labor Day Weekend

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

It’s the last long weekend of the summer and for many of us in the United States it means a great barbecue with family and friends or even a potluck.  Where we live right now it has been far too hot this last week with the weather people predicting no relief in sight, so no barbecue for us this year.  The news and even commercials have been telling us to not use our appliances until after 7 p.m. to prevent power grid outages.  Usually in the middle of the night when it’s cool we can open windows, but with this heat wave we’ve been forced to keep our air conditioning on 24/7.  The front page of the paper showed a local business’ room-thermometer’s needle hitting the maximum reading of 120 degrees Farenheit, or 50 degrees Centigrade!

With all this heat I was inspired yesterday to make something which required no cooking whatsoever.  It tasted great, and after lots of compliments I thought I would share it with you.  It will be a hit at your Labor Day potluck or your family’s table.  I thought about what was in my refrigerator and came up with this spur-of-the-moment recipe, and it was refreshing and quick — ready in about 10 minutes flat.  You can’t beat that!

Get yourself a serving bowl and a cutting board.  I grabbed four small tomatoes on the vine and sliced them.  They’re only about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter.  I love the grape-sized tomatoes too.  If you prefer, you could use about four handfuls of those and leave whole, or if you’re patient, cut in halves.  One great big tomato will do too, but then you’ll need to dice it.  Add about an equal amount of mozzarella cheese, diced.  If you don’t have any on hand, a feta or Baby Bell or provolone should work well, too.  Whichever cheese you choose, pick one that’s not too hard like a comte or too soft like a triple cream brie.

I always have sun-dried tomatoes at the ready.  They add some really nice flavor which you adjust from mild to strong simply by the amount you use.  This time I used about 10, which I minced.  I had a beautiful roasted chicken on hand, so I put in a whole breast, also diced.  Here, instead of the roasted chicken you could substitute tuna, salmon, crab or sardines.  They would all taste great too, so just use what you happen to have and love.

Add some dried spices like Chef Emeril’s Bam or 21-Spice No Salt Seasoning found in a small, convenient bottle so you won’t loose too much flavor over time.  No worries if you don’t have any, just add your favorite spices to taste like thyme, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, some onion and garlic powder.  Add fresh sweet basil leaves.  We love basil so I put in lots, fresh from our yard.  Mint leaves would work very nicely, too.

Add a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some balsamic vinegar.  Toss the whole salad and it’s ready!  Try it. I know you’ll love it and it’s real healthy.  Any leftovers can be turned into a great sandwich, too.

Enjoy!  Bon appetit!