reviewing the situation

Newman's Own Winner!

We had 227 entrants in the Newman's Own Thin and Crispy Pizza Giveaway contest. 

Thank you SO much to everyone who played - I got hungry every time I read another entry!

And without further ado - I used the Random Integer Generator to pick the winner - it would have taken ages to have my kids write out little slips of paper for each and every entrant.

Anyway, I asked for a random number between 1 and 227, and the winning number chosen was the following:

True Random Number Service

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

130

Timestamp: 2010-11-01 23:58:29 UTC

 And then I went scrolling down through all the comments to find number 130...and that comment was:

I like thick crust pizza with pepperoni, banana peppers and black olives.

Posted by: 216amyc | 09/30/2010 at 11:28 AM

And so the winner is

216amyc!

CONGRATULATIONS, 216amyc!!

Please email me with your shipping information so I can forward that info to the lovely folk at Blogher who co-sponsored this giveaway, and they can ship your Newman's Own gift basket out to you asap.  My email address is jayne (at) barefootkitchenwitch (dot) com.

Again - to all of you - thanks so much for playing!!!

And the Cookie Cutter Winner Is

Oh, but you don't really think I'm just going to announce the winner without some sort of little story, do you?

I didn't think so.

Well, after a morning of driving all over the state, it seemed, including gathering "ingredients" for Alex's Halloween costume this year - oh, wait til you see it!! - and then a quick stop at home to drop off bags and eat a sandwich and then go get the kids at school, bring them home, do the usual after school stuff, get dinner going...after ALLLLL that, I finally got a chance to go through all the entries and pick the winner.

Actually, I didn't pick the winner, Julia did.

First, I tore up paper into lots of little pieces of paper.  Then I went through all the comments and wrote down each qualified entrant's name, the date and time they commented, and whether it was for a comment here, or to let me know they'd passed the word on Facebook or Twitter. 

Then I turned the bits of paper over to Julia, who folded them in half and then in half again and put them in a basket.

 
Then I had her shake them up really well.

 
Really, REALLY well.

 
And then Julia closed her eyes tightly and reached in to pick the winning slip of paper.

 
And...

 
...the winner is...

 
I know - it's a bit hard to see.  Let's take a better look, shall we?

 
Congratulations, Jane M!

And now, Jane M, here's what you have to do:

First, head over to the Traditional Cookie Cutters section of the Ann Clark Ltd. website, and select the four cookie cutters you would like.

Next, email me - jayne (at) barefootkitchenwitch (dot) com - with a list of the cookie cutters and the SKU for each (it's that 01-XXX number), AND provide me with your shipping address.

Then, I will forward that info to the fabulous people at Ann Clark Ltd and they, in turn, will get those cookie cutters sent out to you post haste.

Sound good?

I hope so!

Again, Congratulations to you, Jane M!  Thanks, also, to all of you who entered!  Better luck next time! 

And a very big thank you to Elizabeth Clark Craib, for making this giveaway possible!

Ann Clark Ltd. – Cookie Cutters from Vermont Giveaway! (Closed)

*** This contest is closed as of midnight October 24th!  I will be announcing the lucky winner later today! ***

 

I already have too many cookie cutters.  Or, rather, I have a lot of them.  But when Elizabeth Clark Craib, daughter of Ann Clark, of Ann Clark Ltd. in Vermont, contacted me to see if I’d like to review their products, I thought, you can never have enough cookie cutters!  So I said yes.

I received four cutters from their Traditional Tin Cookie Cutter line.  Here they are:  L-R I’ve got a Snowflake, a Moose, an Angel (or a fairy, if you ask Julia) and a Christmas Ornament. 

The Ann Clark Ltd. story is very inspiring.  From their website:

Back in 1989, Ann Clark started out with little more than a pig-shaped Christmas ornament and a dream. After years of painting and creating small gifts for her children to give away, she set up shop in her garage and turned a hobby into a business. In 1991, armed with a small amount of start-up cash and unbridled enthusiasm, Ann tackled her first trade show, setting up a booth at the Philadelphia Gift Show with six cookie cutter designs and several other hand-made crafts. She came home with $3,500 in orders, and Ann Clark, the person, became Ann Clark, Ltd., the company.

You can read the rest of it here.

The cutters themselves are big (very important to cookie-eaters) and sturdy.  You know how some metal cookie cutters are on the thin side, and if you’re not careful you can bend them and ruin the shape?  These don’t.  Sure, if you were determined to bend the tin, you probably could, but why go to all that effort?  With normal use, these cutters are tough enough to hold their shape, batch after batch after batch.  I also like the old-fashioned curved tin handles on them – much nicer to press against that curve than the thinner edges of the cutters.  I know, it’s a little thing.  But little things mean a lot.

Another good thing?  These are made in Vermont.  Yes.  Right here in the U.S.  And I’m hugely in favor of buying locally made products whenever I can. 

The overall favorite in our house was the Moose, which, I guess, is not surprising – the Moose has been Ann Clark Ltd.’s best seller since it debuted in the 1990s!  He’s really very cute.

Each cookie cutter comes with a cookie recipe and a frosting recipe tied to the cutter with twine.  See? 

I decided to double the recipe and to make a couple of changes, just because…well, the moose made me do it.  I wanted brown cookies, so I used brown sugar.  And I’ve been on a cinnamon kick lately, so I added a teaspoon of cinnamon. 

I whisked the dry ingredients together, creamed the butter and sugar, added the egg and the vanilla, and then added the dry until everything was just blended. 

Then I scraped the dough onto some plastic wrap, pressed it into a disk, and wrapped it tightly and refrigerated it for several hours.

Fast forward to later that day…after dinner, actually.  Here’s the chilled dough.

I let the dough sit out for about ten minutes before rolling so it could soften, and I called for my able assistant to help with the cutting.

We cut out four Moose, four Angels (or fairies, since Julia was doing the cutting), four Christmas Ornaments and three Snowflakes.  Oh, and eight bats.  Halloween’s coming.  I baked the cookies that night and after school the next day (yesterday) I mixed up some frosting, colored it, and handed it all over to The Decorators, also known as Alex and Julia (my kids) and their friend from across the street.  We’ll call him Mr. E.  They divided up the cookies and shared the frosting and set to work.

A little bit later, they were done.  I think a few cookies may have gone missing in the process.  Hmmm…I wonder where they went…..

These are Alex’s:

These were done by Mr. E.:

And…well, Julia took her time.

You can’t rush an artist.  Here are hers:

And that’s the cookie story.

Now, what does that mean to you?  Especially since I don’t think the kids plan to share the cookies with any of you…

Well, instead of giving you my kids’ cookies, the kind folk at Ann Clark Ltd. have offered to send four – any four – of their Traditional Tin cookie cutters to one of my fabulous readers!

Pretty nice, huh?

So here’s what you need to do:

1.  Let me know, in the comments section, if you’ve ever seen a live moose.  I know, it’s a crazy question, but I’m still a bit stuck on that moose cutter.  So – have you ever seen a moose in the wild?  I haven’t.  Neither have my kids.  Yet.  I think my husband has, but it was before I met him.  So that’s the first thing.  Have you ever seen a moose?

2.  Link to this contest on your blog, your Facebook page, on Twitter – and then let me know.  Each link gets you an extra entry.

That’s it!

The contest will run from today (Wednesday, 10/20/2010) until Sunday (10/24/2010) at midnight. 

I will choose the winner by random draw (or I’ll have my husband or kids or cats somehow pick the winner, that’s always fun.) and make the announcement on Monday. 

Then all the winner will need to do is email me with a shipping address and a list of which cookie cutters you’d like, and I’ll have the lovely people at Ann Clark Ltd. send out your cutters right away.

All set?  Then let the cookie cutter contest begin! 

Oh, and as they like to say, at Ann Clark Ltd.,

Make more cookies!

Tortilla Land Uncooked Tortillas

 
Shortly after this article appeared in the New York Times a couple weeks ago, I received an email from Tania Haladner at Circle Foods asking if I would be interested in reviewing their Tortilla Land Uncooked Tortillas. 

Being part of a family of four devoted taco-eaters, I said sure!

Now, apart from how very nice Tania is to work with, the first thing I was really impressed by is the packaging and shipping.  I know, what's that got to do with food?  How are the tortillas?  Are they yummy?  Did you fill them with spaghetti?  Hang on a minute and I'll get to that.

First of all, I was just expecting maybe a small package of each type of tortilla (Tortilla Land serves up three - corn, flour, and multi-grain), which I figured would only weigh a few pounds.  So when I saw, on the Fed Ex Express confirmation email, that the package weighed eleven pounds (!!!) I started thinking maybe I should throw a make-your-own taco party or something.  But I didn't.  Not enough time!  The tortillas arrived within a day or so of shipping, and inside the huge box was an equally huge molded styrofoam box that we will probably keep and use as a cooler - it's really well designed and smoothed off so that you don't have little bits of styrofoam breaking off and looking like cottage cheese on the floor. 

What can I say, I'm a sucker for well-packaged, carefully shipped food.

Inside the styrofoam box was roughly a ton of bubble wrap, about four ice packs, and a package of 12 flour uncooked tortillas and a package of 48 - yes, you read that correctly - FORTY EIGHT uncooked corn tortillas.  Wow.  That helps to explain the eleven pounds, doesn't it!  AND, just to get my creative juices flowing, they sent along several yummy-sounding recipes as well! 

 
The package arrived, as promised by the Fed Ex people, by ten in the morning, and I just kept the tortillas nice and coldly cozy in their box because frankly my fridge was overcrowded enough. 

And I planned dinner around the tacos.

I cooked up some chicken, and some shrimp, and a bit of sirloin left over from the pho my husband had made a few days before.  I made a yummy cole slaw with purple cabbage and carrots from the garden. 

And I made a sort of grilled guacamole using sauteed poblanos, onion, and eggplant (our last two tiny ones from the garden) and grilled, sliced avocado. 

We also had salsa and a jalapeno hot sauce I'd made, and shredded cheese (mostly for the kids).

We were ready to go - all I needed to do was heat up the tortillas.

The big selling point with Tortilla Land Uncooked Tortillas is the freshness.  These tortillas are as fresh as if you'd just made the dough and flattened them yourself in a tortilla press.  That fresh.  And all you have to do is heat up a dry griddle or pan until it's, well, hot, place the tortilla on the surface, let it cook a bit, then flip it over and cook on the other side.  What could be easier?  And once you're done, you've got a nice warm stack of fresh, yummy tortillas.

So that's what I did.

 
I cooked about a dozen corn tortillas first.  The instructions for these suggest starting with 10 seconds on one side, then 20 on the other, and then 30, or something like that (no more than 60 seconds total) but once the griddle was hot enough, I just did about 30 and 30.

Much easier for my little brain to handle.  At one point the griddle was so hot the tortillas started puffing up.  Fresh, natural ingredients, AND entertainment!

 

I cooked the flour tortillas next - only 6 of them - and it was time to eat.

It was a bit of a change for my kids, in particular, to have soft corn tortillas.  Usually I'll serve up soft flour tortillas and the hard corn tortillas so they've got contrasting textures to play around with.  And I was thinking that some time I could fry up the corn tortillas and drape them over...something when they come out of the oil so they'd cool in that "V" shape you find packaged in the store.

But that's for another time.

 
This time around, this meal - it didn't matter that there weren't hard, crunchy tacos.  Didn't miss them at all.  We really, really liked the Tortilla Land Uncooked Tortillas (once they were cooked).  They were really flavorful, particularly the corn, and my daughter ate more than she usually does, which is telling.

My son and husband were so impressed that they just...well, embarrassing as it is to share with you, they were competing to see who could eat more, and the only reason they stopped was because they ran out of the cooked tortillas (and I refused to cook more at that point).  Both husband and son weren't feeling too great later that evening or the following morning, and yes, I should blame my spouse and my son for being competetive gluttons, but I have to place some of the blame at the feet of Tortilla Land.  If the tortillas weren't yummy, there would have been leftovers.

Now, that's my review, and just in case I haven't been clear, I really, really enjoyed the Tortilla Land Uncooked Tacos, as did the rest of my little family.  The only problem I have is that the closest store that carries them is a Costco in Connecticut.  I'm in RI, and as far as I can tell, no one here is carrying them.  Yet.  There's always hope.  And for now, there's my stash of the remaining uncooked corn tortillas that I'll dole out carefully and slowly.

Tortilla Land also has a page on Facebook, and they're currently running a fun contest there that you might want to check out.  The winner will receive a year's supply of tortillas.  A year's supply!  Of course, in my house a year's supply would be gone in a month.  But anyway, go check out the contest, and go look in your local stores to see if Tortilla Land Uncooked Tortillas are sold there.  Remember to check in the refrigerator section!  Fresh is so much better than artificially preserved!

USA Rice Federation's BOWL US OVER Contest!

So what's your favorite rice dish?

The USA Rice Federation wants to know.

They’ve got a great contest running now, it's their Bowl Us Over contest.

They’re looking for rice bowl recipes – you know, you put rice in a bowl, add some vegetables and protein, and ta-da!  An easy, yummy, nutritious meal.

First place winner will receive a $500.00 grocery gift card .

Second place winner will receive a $250.00 grocery gift card.

Third place winner will receive a $150.00 grocery gift card.

And 7 runners-up will receive an Aroma ®Rice Cooker. 

So if you’ve got a rice recipe you love, and you think everyone else might love, too, why not enter?

I’m going to.

The contest runs through September 30th, 2010.

Official contest entry details can be found HERE.

GOOD LUCK!

Newman's Own Thin and Crispy Pizza (Closed)

 

Nov 1, 2010 - Time's Up!  I will be drawing the winner later today!

 

This is a sponsored review by BlogHer and Newman's Own.

 Pizza.

My daughter likes mushroom on hers.  My son, pepperoni.  Both kids like to make their own, when we have time to do that. 

But despite my best intentions, we just simply don't always have time to make pizza.  The dough from scratch, the sauce from scratch, the toppings freshly plucked from our garden or cheese that I made that morning.  We will buy other pizza, but usually reluctantly.

When Blogher indicated they were looking for people to sample Newman's Own Thin and Crispy Pizza, I pretty much begged to be included.

Paul Newman, or, more correctly, Newman's Own, was different. 

I'd been a fan of Paul Newman, the actor, since I saw The Sting on tv one Sunday afternoon.  Sure, Robert Redford was the younger guy, but Paul Newman, with that grin, and those eyes - he was cool.

I graduated from the University of Connecticut a whole bunch of years ago, and I remember that it was right around that time period that the first Whole in the Wall Gang Camp was created in nearby Ashford.  I remember thinking how generous Mr. Newman was, and what a marvelous place this camp, for kids with serious illnesses, would be. 

Years later, when Mr. Newman branched out into the world of salad dressings and pasta sauces, I was right there with him.  Still am.  Especially now, when fresh, natural ingredients are hugely important to me, both as a home cook and a mother. 

I selected the Thin & Crispy White and the Thin & Crispy Supreme for my family to sample.

 
You'll notice I didn't take the kids' preferences into account at all.  I had faith, you see, that they'd like the pizzas regardless. 

I preheated the oven and took the plastic-wrapped pizzas out of the box.

 

I have a confession to make.

I don't usually buy frozen pizza.  I just...don't.  I know.  I order it, I make it, but I typically don't buy it frozen.  Why not, when it would be so convenient to just open the freezer and pop one or two in the oven?

Well, because usually frozen pizza just tastes like...like frozen pizza. 

When I unwrapped those two pizzas, they looked...well, kind of like frozen pizzas.  Which, I suppose, is fair.  They were frozen pizzas.  But, they had the Newman's Own label, and the image of their grinning, blue-eyed founder on the box, so I remained confident.

The White pizza features spinach, feta, mozzarella, and a white sauce.

The Supreme pizza includes pepperoni, sausage, and roasted red, yellow and green peppers. 

I put them in the oven - directly on the racks, as advised by the instructions on the back of the box - and set the timer for ten minutes.  I took out plates and napkins and set the table while I waited.

Within five minutes, we could smell the pizzas cooking.  And they smelled good.

 
I baked mine for a total of 12 minutes, took them out and sliced them into 8 wedges per pizza.  (The box says each pizza provides 3 servings, but we had 4 mouths to feed, so I ignored that part.)  I brought the pizzas to the table and served one slice of each to my husband, my kids, and myself.

And then I waited for the feedback.

First, the White Pizza.

Bill gave this one a thumbs-up immediately.  He really liked the garlic flavor in the white sauce, and the crisp crust.  Julia, my 6-year-old, said, "It's yummy.  It tastes better than it looks."  She was right.

Now, I sort of didn't expect Alex to like this one at all.  He doesn't really like spinach or white pizzas, but I asked him, in the interest of this review, to try one bite.  He did.  And then another.  "Mmmm...this is good.  It's a good thing I decided to try it!  The cheese is very good, so is the spinach and I love the crust.  Love it." 

And I agreed with them all.  I really liked the roasted garlic flavor in the white sauce, and the spinach, though it had been frozen, looked like someone had chopped it up not too long ago.  I liked the crust, too.  It was crispy and flaky - it kind of reminded me of pie dough. 

Next up, the Supreme.

I think Bill and I were both pleasantly surprised at how flavorful this was.  The sauce had a pleasant bit of heat, and the sausage was yummy.  And the peppers!  I hadn't read everything on the box before we ate dinner, so I hadn't known that the peppers were roasted.  And so while I was eating, I was thinking, "Hm...these peppers taste good...like they've been roasted...."  Surprise, surprise!

Both kids liked the Supreme, too.  Julia used words like "great" and "awesome," and Alex particularly liked the sausage - even better than pepperoni, surprisingly.

Once we'd polished off the two pizzas (I interrupt myself here and have to say that this is my only complaint - the pizzas were too small.  I think we could each have eaten one.  Or two.  Okay, I'm exaggerating.  Sort of.) I asked everyone to let me know, just for fun, which pizza they preferred.

Alex liked both equally, while Bill, Julia and I preferred the White, but only by a slim margin.

Finally, I asked them all if they would like me to buy Newman's Own Thin & Crispy Pizzas again.

Alex - yes, and he wanted to try some of the other varieties as well.

Julia - a resounding yes.

 
Bill and I were of the same opinion - frozen is not the same as fresh, but as far as frozen pizzas go, these were much better than anything we've ever had before.  The flavors were real, you know?  They spinach tasted fresh, the peppers tasted roasted.  The sauces were yummy, and we really liked the crust. 

And even though I had coupons for the pizzas, I was pleased to find that they were pretty inexpensive as well.  How can you beat that?  Newman’s Own Thin and Crispy pizzas deliver delicious, high-quality, all-natural ingredients to the table with the added benefit of convenience, healthier option and popularity.  It takes only 10-12 minutes for a Newman’s Own Thin and Crispy frozen pizza to bake to perfection and at about half the cost of take-out pizza.

Now, what does all this mean for you?

Well, first of all, Blogher and Newman's Own are allowing me to offer up a Newman's Own Gift Basket, valued at $75.00.  How's that sound to you?

So, what do you have to do to enter?

Just let me know what you like on your pizza.  I'm nosy.

Right here, in the comments section of this post.  That's it.  That's all you have to do.  Well, that and take a look at the Official Rules Page.  The contest runs from now (September 1, 2010) through September 30, 2010 October 31, 2010!  So go ahead and enter!

Oh, and second?  Check your local grocery store to see if they're carrying Newman's Own Thin & Crispy Pizzas.  And if they are - buy a couple.  They're yummy.

Four out of four members of my household agree.

And third?  Because this is on every Newman's Own Label:

“All profits to charity. Newman’s Own Foundation continues Paul Newman’s commitment to donate all profits to charity. Over $300 million has been given to thousands of charities since 1982.”

And for me, that's reason enough.

Congratulations to Our Winner!

I was going to wait and ask my husband to randomly pick the winner this time around, since I've had my two kids and at least one of our cats pick winners in the past.  But everyone was sleeping late this morning (well, late in comparison to me,) so I had my sister pick. 

She and I were IMing this morning, and so we had a little conversation:

(For the purpose of privacy, I have changed our IM addresses to "me" (me) and "her" (my sister.) 

me (7:20:36 AM): hey, want to pick the winner of the seed contest?
her (7:20:42 AM): ok
me (7:20:48 AM):okay, hang on a sec

(I checked the number of comments to that post.  There were 27, but #2 was not a real entry.)

me (7:21:49 AM): pick a number between one and 26
her (7:21:52 AM): 8
me (7:21:56 AM): yay!
me (7:22:38 AM): you picked Angie!
her (7:22:43 AM): yay!
me (7:22:45 AM): thanks, mere!
her (7:22:47 AM): ok
me (7:22:49 AM): hahaha
her (7:22:52 AM): i don't know who she is
me (7:22:59 AM): that's okay
her (7:23:02 AM): but i like number 8
me (7:23:06 AM): hahaha
me (7:23:07 AM): well okay!
me (7:23:30 AM): she was actually the 9th entrant, but i had to skip over ray because he wasn't really entering when he commented.
her (7:23:37 AM): oh
her (7:24:01 AM): i made 8 jars of pickles and 2 jars of hot peppers yesterday
me (7:24:01 AM): i was going to wait and have bill or a kid pick, but it's nearly 7:30 already...i can't wait all day!
her (7:24:06 AM): right

(You'll notice I completely missed the fact that she made 8 jars of pickles and 2 jars of hot peppers yesterday...I only saw that when I went back to copy and past our conversation to this post.  sorry, mere!)

But anyway,               

                                  CONGRATULATIONS, ANGIE!!

When you get a moment, please email me -- jayne (at) barefootkitchenwitch (dot) com -- with your mailing address, and I'll forward that to the wonderful people at Hometown Seeds, and they'll send you your Variety Pack!

And here, from the comments section, was Angie's entry, for those of you interested:

I have a few small gardens everywhere. I'm growing tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, basil, mustard greens, swiss chard, Rutabaga, Peas, beans, carrots, lettuce, spinach, kohlrabi, turnips and many more herbs and berries.

Posted by: Angie | 07/28/2010 at 07:30 AM

Go take a look at her blog, too, adventures of a frugal treehugger, if you have a moment.  Her gardens look like mine at this time of year!

Thanks, everyone, for entering this contest, and huge thanks to Hometown Seeds for sponsoring this wonderful giveaway!

Win a Variety Seed Pack from Hometown Seeds! (Closed)

 

Yesterday I got an email that made my day.

A woman named Linda, who is part of the Hometown Seeds online  company, offered to host a giveaway on my website.  The prize?  A Variety Seed Pack.  It's valued at 19.80 (not counting shipping), but really, isn't it worth way more, if you take into account the quantity and variety of flowers and vegetables and fruit you'll end up with?

Here's a look at what you'd get:

 
Nice, huh?  

It's funny, Bill and I were both thinking it would be nice to have cilantro that wouldn't go to seed so quickly.  I mean, we're happy to have the coriander seeds, but we'd like the cilantro leaves to stick around a bit further into the season.

And look at the carrots!  Purple Haze?  I have a daughter who would be eating these all summer long. 

Anyway, first thing I did after receiving the email was to check out their website. 

What I liked the best is that they do not use (knowingly) any genetically engineered seeds.  You can read their GMO statement to that effect right here.  That alone was enough to make me want to start ordering new seeds from them for next year immediately. 

Anyway, go check out their colorful website.  And just try to resist....

But wait - before you go there, enter the giveaway.  Get a jump on next year's gardens!

Here's what you do.  

In the comments section of this post, just let me know if you have a garden (a pot of basil on the kitchen window counts, in my book), and what you grow. 

If you want to enter more than once, link to this post on your own blog, or on facebook, or on twitter, and then come back here for each link and let me know about it.  Include the link to your link in your comment.  (If that's confusing, I apologize - I'm wiped out today.)

I'll let the contest run through the weekend, ending at midnight, eastern standard time, on Sunday night.  I'll pick the winner on Monday and announce that person in a separate post here, so don't forget to check back!  If you are the winner, email me - jayne (at) barefootkitchenwitch (dot) com - as soon as possible with your address and I'll forward that to Hometown Seeds right away.

*** Due to shipping restrictions, Hometown Seeds is only able to ship to the US, Canada, and Mexico. ***

Good luck!

KIND Winner!

Okay, time to announce the winner!

But before I do that, I have to say I've had such a wonderful time reading all your comments.  If you haven't read through all of them, take a few minutes to do so. 

Now, the second thing is, I noticed that the last entry was posted 21 minutes after midnight (my time), BUT - I re-read my own rules for the contest and I never specified the time zone, so I've kept that one in the mix.

Just moments ago, I plugged the numbers into RandomInteger.org's website (didn't use my kids or any of the cats this morning - Julia's asleep, Alex is working on a dinosaur book he's writing and illustrating (yes!) and the cats are...somewhere.) and came up with the winning number.

There were 30 entries...

and the winner is...

 

True Random Number Service

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

16

Timestamp: 2010-01-29 11:19:16 UTC

© 1998-2010 Mads Haahr
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Valid CSS
Web Design by TSDA

 

And....number 16 is...........RUTH ANN RYAN!!

 

Congratulations, Ruth Ann!!

 

Now, all you have to do is email me your shipping address and I'll send out that box of KIND treats to you!

 

And to everyone, thank you SO much for playing!

 

 

KIND Giveaway (Closed)

Back at the beginning of December (2009), I received an email from one of the folks at the PR firm for KIND Healthy Snacks.  To be honest, I'd never heard of them.  I mean, of KIND Healthy Snacks.  So I put it aside and went on with procrastinating about all the holiday baking and holiday shopping.  You know, the usual stuff.

Two days later, I read it again, and paid a bit more attention.  Here's part of the email:

The holidays are the perfect time to spread good will and good nutrition! KIND Healthy Snacks, the unique, great tasting snack made with whole nuts and fruit, are not only delicious, they’re the only bar that can boast a mission to promote random acts of kindness this holiday season.  How KIND Bars are good for your taste buds, your body and the world:

· Enjoy the fun and festivities of the holiday without overeating.  Even one KIND Bar each day can make you feel satisfied and, hopefully, keep you from overindulging in too many holiday sweets. KIND Bars have a unique combination of healthy fats, protein and whole nuts and fruit, ingredients you can see and pronounce.  They are made with almonds, cashews, mango, cranberry and other wonderful flavors that will help you enjoy the holidays without the guilt.

· Daniel Lubetzky, founder of PeaceWorks, Inc., and KIND Healthy Snacks, is a globally recognized social entrepreneur driven to develop innovative ways to bring people in conflict regions together through food. He is now making his mark with the KINDED campaign,  a goodwill movement across the nation to inspire random acts of kindness.  Lubetsky was named one of the world’s 25 “Responsibility Pioneers” in September 2009 by TIME, and KINDED was featured in the same issue as a “New Way to Make a Difference.” 

Well that sounded cool.  So I replied to the email and asked if I could try some of these snacks so I could write about them honestly in my site.  Within the week, I received a strange package.

It was THIS big:

Hmmm...what could it be?

So I opened it, and out came this long tube...with words on it...

...and colorful little packages inside...

Yippee!  It's the KIND stuff!  I opened one end of the tube and dumped everything out. 

 
And I have to say, these are THE yummiest Healthy snack bar things I've EVER had.  They taste like...like what they say they'll taste like.  Really!  If they say, for example, "Sesame and Peanuts" on the wrapper, they taste like sesame seeds and peanuts. 

 

And you can see the sesame seeds and peanuts, RIGHT THERE. 

 

If they say "Almond and Cashew" then that's what you'll be crunching on.  They don't taste like...weird ingredients.  Ingredients that are trying to stand in for something else, like...oh, flavor.  These KIND bars are incredibly yummy, and the 8 or more that came in that tube?  They were gone in two days.  And that's only because I stashed some out of sight when I saw the way things were going that first day.

Anyway, I emailed back that I would LOVE to be able to give some away, and was told that they'd get some out to me in the next shipment.

And then - it turns out the demand was way greater than expected, and they didn't have enough of the gift tubes to send out.  I said not to worry - whenever they had some, that would be fine.  Besides, I was buried in cookies at that point anyway.

So, time passed and 2009 was heading toward 2010 when I got an email letting me know that the KIND samples would be shipping out that day!  I'd have them soon!

And I did.

And I didn't do anything.  I had them, sitting there.  Not tubes this time, but nice little boxes.

One for me, and one to give away.

I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to get this giveaway set up. 

I had the best of intentions, and I dropped the ball.

But.

I've picked the ball up now, and I'm throwing it out there to you.  (Who writes this stuff?)

Here's the deal:

In the comments section, tell me about something kind and unexpected someone has done for you OR tell me about something kind and unexpected you've done for someone else.

For example, I used to like to pay the tolls for the person behind me, back when I used to drive through states with toll booths on their highways.  It was fun.  And it felt good.  And it didn't cost much - a few quarters at a time. 

So,  it's your turn.

Oh, and WHY would I ask about good deeds and kindness?  Because that's the program KIND is promoting with these gift boxes.  In addition to the yummy snacks, you also receive a KINDED card.  It's a little plastic card that reads "You've been KINDED.  Pass it on."  Your job, if you are the winner, is to keep this card with you and, when the opportunity presents itself, do something kind for someone and give them this card.  They can go to the KINDED website, enter your kind gesture (using the code word on the card) and then they can go out into the world and do something kind and unexpected for someone else.  As these KINDED stories are entered online, you can track the card as it travels through the country or around the world. 

So let's get to it.

The contest begins NOW, and will end...tomorrow night - Thursday, January 28th, at midnight.  I'll announce the winner on Friday, so come back and see if it's you.  If it IS you, please send your mailing address to my email address - jayne (at) barefootkitchenwitch (dot) com and I'll ship the KIND samples out to you as soon as possible.

Ready?  GO!