Drum roll….Ever hear of mochi?  What?!?!  Ok, this was a personal crusade for me.  I lived in Hawaii about 5 years ago and would enjoy mochi all the time.  It tastes way better than it sounds, so I won’t pretend to do it justice, but think of soft, chewy, rice cakes with a remarkable texture.  Darn, that hardly describes it.  Well, whatever.  So, back on the mainland this delicious treat is much harder to come by.

However…In my neck of the woods there has been this yogurt craze with tons of copycat shops popping up like Pinkberry, Red Mango, and Berry Wild.  You can get really great yogurt, but it’s more about the toppings…And, yes, you guessed it!  Hands down, the best topping are these small mochi balls.  Trust me.  Sometimes though I don’t feel like paying 6 bucks for a yogurt.  I just want the Mochi, and I don’t want to fly back to Hawaii.

Are you sitting down?

Mochi Rice Cakes in the house!

First, the same exact variety you will find at the yogurt shops, regular mochi rice cakes:

And we didn’t stop there.

To add even more excitement, we ran with rainbow mochi rice cakes and what may actually be the hippest and most delish, black sesame mochi rice cakes

Rainbow Mochi Rice Cakes

Black Sesame Mochi Rice Cakes

OMG!  Double OMG!  I can’t remember if I read about cheese sticks in a magazine or saw them at a food show, but regardless, we added them to our new product wish list.

For whatever reason we lost sight of these guys for a couple of months, when suddenly we got a call from one of our equipment vendors asking us if we would lend one of our bag sealers to a cheese stick company…and the rest is history!

If you haven’t yet indulged in cheese sticks, that’s ok. For now.  These guys will knock your socks off, whether you are a casual snacker or a connoisseur.  Twice baked twists of sourdough or whole wheat coupled with luxurious cheese flavors will totally tickle your taste buds (cheddar, dijon swiss, garlic romano, jalapeno cheddar, melting parmesan, tuscan swiss).  You can snack on them as is (I can’t stop) or you can use them as a perfect accompaniment to onion soup, your favorite chili, an antipasto platter, or atop a salad. And for dessert you can try the sweet stick varieties (dutch chocolate, java cinnamon).

Rapid fire blogging here.  Oh my!

Not sure what to try?  Looking for a variety of snacks to bring to work?  Want to send some treats for your son or daughter to snack on at work?

Wonderful.  We have an answer.

Sampler Packs in 7 different varieties:

Woohoo! Woohoo! Lots of our neighbors up North have been asking us to ship to Canada….for years! Now, after 79 years, we have finally figured things out and are now shipping to Canada! And it’s pretty affordable and fast too!  Yippeee!

Drum roll please!!! Ok, so we were cooking up some nut butters over here in the nut shop and were making some progress, but things got a little messy, so we decided to instead search for a really great outside source for nut butters. We settled on a really great worker owned co-operative that makes wonderful nut butters and are proud to offer the following (so far):

Organic Peanut Butter (Crunchy, Unsalted)

Almond Butter (Roasted, Smooth)

Organic Almond Butter (Raw, Smooth)

Organic Cashew Butter (Roasted, Smooth)

Organic Peanut Butter (Smooth, Unsalted)

On Thanksgiving my Aunt Elsie was reminiscing about the olden days and how my Poppy Sol would roast chestnuts for the employees in the back of the nut shop. We haven’t had chestnuts in a while, but it’s never too late to bring back a tradition. And just in time for the holidays. Fresh chestnuts and dried chestnuts are now available! I am so excited!!!

Haha! We’ve just been featured on the cover of the UPS Compass Magazine Fall 2007 Print Edition. Check out our nuttiness! As a little boy I thought it was so cool to come to work with daddy and get to climb on what seemed to be mountains and mountains of peanuts. Maybe one of these days I’ll grow up, but not yet! Haha!

I just wanted to check our inventory of nuts. About 70,000 pounds of raw peanuts. Should be enough! Now we just need to roast roast away.

NUTS to CBS!

We’ve been getting an onslaught of orders for peanuts and various other nuts as the fans of the CBS show Jericho unite and fight to keep the show on the air.

In the final episode Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) borrowed the historic phrase “NUTS” in response to a final offer of surrender from a hostile neighboring town. CBS decided to cancel the show, and fans are uprising to save Jericho by sending, you got it, NUTS to CBS executives.

We’ll keep you posted with any new developments.

Check these out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abp70CFzT88

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdAYDxG_4Q8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjFu_8CKLoI

Dark chocolate lovers – ARE YOU READY?

We’re upping the ante for you connoisseurs, introducing a 72% dark chocolate!

We’re starting with two items out of the gate, but will be eager to add more based on your feedback.

Supreme Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds

Supreme Dark Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans