Christmas break brought the opportunity to enjoy meals with family and try new foods like Vivi's gourmet Carnival Mustard and Stichelton cheese.
During Christmas, I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation from work. I visited art museums and took day trips with several dear friends. And I spent time with my grown kids, relaxing, exchanging gifts, and preparing meals together. There is nothing I’d rather do than spend time with my kids.
Christmas morning we fixed a brunch of waffles, scrapple, spinach omelet, home fries, and cappuccino. Later that day we visited with the rest of the family for traditional turkey dinner.
I also rediscovered the fun of ordering foods over the Internet and having them delivered to my door. There were the apples, pears, and oranges from Harry and David. I bought dried bananas, carrots, and tomatoes from Just Tomatoes, Etc. I ordered delicious low-cal gourmet Carnival Mustard, touted as the ultimate condiment, from Vivi’s. There were the packets of instant, low-calorie, all-natural edamame and wonton soups from Mishima. I even found two hard-to-find dinner plates to replace my chipped ones from Replacements, Ltd.
But I had the most fun learning about and ordering the “traditional new cheese” known as Stichelton that’s rocking the cheese-lover’s world. Stichelton is made from raw-milk cow’s cheese, just as traditional Stilton used to be. Today, however, because of health concerns, whether real or perceived, it is illegal to produce a Stilton made with raw milk. So the creators got around this law by naming the cheese “Stichelton.”
Delivery to the U.S. is spotty. I finally found the cheese through Zingerman’s Mail Order [www.zingermans.com]. What an awesome gourmet food mail order site! If gift-giving to a special someone is in your near future, check it out.
