Whole Foods Market is one of my favorite places to stock up on treats for the holidays.
I can count on finding fresh and exciting foods and friendly folks to point me in the right direction if there’s anything I can’t find on my own.
This weekend, Dec. 9-11, you can nosh your way through Whole Food’s holiday open house, celebrated noon-4 p.m. each day. Sample goodies and order ready-made dishes for entertaining and your holiday feast.
Your guests might even think you made them yourself!
Mother Nature gives us hair. Then Mother Nature throws sun and humidity at us, turning our crowning glory into brittle frizz.
Enter Giovanni Eco Chic Cosmetics, the maker of 2chic Ultra Repair Leave-In Conditioning & Styling Elixir. It’s infused with blackberry, coconut milk, antioxidants and other ingredients that smooth away frizz and restore hair’s natural elasticity.
I put a review sample of Giovanni to the test on a recent weekend when I shampooed after a morning hike–and only an hour and a half before heading to an outdoor music festival. With no time to fuss with my tresses, I worked the conditioner through my hair before blasting it with the blower dryer.
Giovanni performed as promised. No frizz. My hair felt smooth, supple and strong, ready to take on Mother Nature. 2chic Ultra Repair is part of a line of shampoos, conditioners and hair masks formulated to revive and restore hair. You can find them at lots of retailers, including Ulta, Target and Whole Foods. Expect to pay about $9 for a four-ounce bottle of ultra repair.
What do you get when you take DeVita’s Solar Protective Moisturizer and combine it with mineral color blends?
The answer: Moisture TINTS, a tinted SPF 15 sunscreen moisturizer that incorporates enlightening pigments and ingredients designed to combat aging. Expect a sheer, barely there finish. Think dewy, not gooey. (The moisture tint comes in light, medium and dark and is currently listed at 25 percent off at $23.96.)
DeVita offers a full line of skin care and Absolute mineral makeup that is vegan and free of paraben and other preservatives.
Soft, natural lipsticks are made from exotic flower waxes, including tuberose, jasmine and rose, blended with macadamia, avocado and jojoba oils. DeVita glides on smoothly and stays put. Best of all, DeVita keeps lips hydrated, a real plus in winter. Never icky or sticky. Pink Diamonds is a soft, feminine shade that looks especially fetching with pale skin tones. (Sale price: $17.96.)
You can find DeVita products in Whole Foods stores, select salons, natural products boutiques and the company website. Free shipping with orders of $50 or more.
No Father’s Day should pass without the patriarch of the family receiving a new pair of socks. After all, tradition is important.
Granola grandpops and earth-friendly dads will appreciate PACT socks, fun and funky footwear made from organic cotton in a factory powered by wind power. If dad’s underwear drawer is bare, you also can buy him classic tees in crew and v-neck styles, as well as briefs.
Move over, quinoa.
Here comes Freekeh — rhymes with eureka! — the latest in ancient grains.
Freekeh means “to rub” in Arabic. Freekeh was created by accident nearly 2,000 years ago when a Middle Eastern village was attacked and their crop of young green wheat was set ablaze.
Happily, the villagers managed to salvage their crop. They rubbed off the chaff, cooked it and created Freekeh, a delicious roasted green wheat that is as easy and fast to prepare as rice.
At our house, we team Freekeh with many of the same foods we serve with other grains. We discovered it’s a nutty, tasty accompaniment to stir-fried shrimp and veggies. Even better, it’s bulletproof, cooking on the stovetop in 20 minutes.
Each 8-ounce package contains four servings with eight grams of protein, four grams of fiber and 130 calories each. No wonder Oprah and Dr. Oz like it. Freekeh comes in various flavors, packaged in resealable pouches. MSRP: $3.99.
You can find Freekeh in Whole Foods, Wegmans, health food stores and various websites.
On every bag of veggies and sauce from Lisa’s Organics, there’s a three word message: Lisa likes this.
That makes sense. If you are going to put your name on a product it should be something that you enjoy.
But would other folks like it, too? The nice folks from Lisa’s shipped me some samples so I could try them and report on my thoughts.
What I discovered was a happy blend of convenience, good taste and nutrition. The veggie combos come in flexible, recyclable plastic bags that you can easily tuck in a crowded freezer. Each package contains generous two servings.
I mixed Lisa’s sweet peas with onion and parmesan sauce with my own faro for a quick nutritious dish. (If I had not been in a hurry, I would have made risotto.) I enjoyed the fresh flavor of the peas with the nuttiness of the faro. For added oomph, stir in more minced onion and chopped parsley from the garden.
Lisa’s broccoli with gorgonzola sauce is a natural with pasta. I blended the veggies with fettucine and added a splash of half and half and a twist of cracked black pepper. If you have leftover steak, slice that and toss it in at the end. Fast. Easy. Yummy.
Southwest vegetables in ranchero sauce offer the dual benefit of being the quickest and most flavorful combo. Lisa’s ranchero sauce is a slow-cooked, mildly spicy blend of organic red chiles, garlic and tomato with organic sweet corn and onions, plus red and green peppers. Sweet potatoes are the wild card, adding just the right hint of sugar and even more color.
I rolled the veggies in a whole wheat tortilla in less time than it would take to call out for pizza. De-LISH.
Lisa’s vegetables are all grown organically in the U.S. and Canada and are frozen the same day they are picked. (And if you are wondering who Lisa is, she is Lisa Marie Boudreau, a mother of three who works from home.)
You can find Lisa’s in the frozen food section of select grocers, including two of my favorites, Whole Foods and Wegmans. MSRP: $3.49.
In this especially virulent flu season, hand washing is the first line of defense.
You can clean your hands — without worrying about the drying effects of repeated hand washing — with (seed) Therapeutic Hand Wash. (seed) scrubs away dead cells that make hands look old before their time and then replenishes skin with grapeseed and safflower oil.
It’s so gentle that I also have used (seed) to clean my face when I wash my hands first thing in the morning. Multi-tasking! And because winter is hard on hands, I then smooth on (seed) Healthy Hand Cream, with Shea butter, grapeseed and other oils. It’s not oily or greasy, so I can slip on my ring and get on with my day.
There’s an extended line of (seed) products at affordable price points starting at $5.99. You can find them at Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, Wegmans and a number of other retailers, as well as online.