Tahiti or Bust

One of my favorite sites to visit daily is the kitchn at Apartment Therapy. It's a cooperative blog that has people who posted on living and cooking in small places. My kitchen definitely fits the bill with eight square ft of counterspace!

Last week, I was curious about this post, Buying Food On eBay. I've brought many things on Ebay but never food. I've been reading this blog for many months now, so over time I've grown to trust time. Isn't it crazy that you can develop affinities for people in cyberspace you've never met and will likely never meet. Anyway, I discovered that the company, The Organic Vanilla Bean Company, also has their own website. That's what I used instead of Ebay's site.


I paid 10 dollars for 20 pods. It was an unbelievable deal. They shipped that same day and I got them US Post within another couple of days. Great service, great price, and great beans. Now, I just have to figure out how to properly convert all my recipes that require vanilla extract to use vanilla bean instead. I've got some work cut out for me.

Blend Baby Blend

Yesterday, I had a half hour of time to burn, so I decided to go to one of my favorite stores to buy a few things from our registry. Armed with a gift card, I made a list of what we really needed and set off. Some things alas, this location didn't have, but typical of me I found others that I decided I just couldn't do without. Once such thing was two Quick Blend Shakers. I was unbelievably excited to discover these.



For quite some time, I've been wanting a magic bullet. How wonderful they've seemed. My heart aches a little every time said infomercial comes on. They just call after my heart... Twyla buy me, buy me. don't you want the ability to blend small portion sizes? wouldn't you like to make individual portion size smoothies right in your glass without dirtying a whole blender? wouldn't you like the flexibility of multiple cups to easily switch out and blend different things. "YES!", I say "YES!"

So, when I discovered a cup that you could pop the lid off of and screw onto your blender, I could barely contain my excitement. I'm sure a store employee had to show up after to me to clean up my drool. I picked my husband up from school gushing about my newfound treasured discovery. He laugh and laughed at my delight and said that I just had to blog about this thing.

We arrive home and I got to. I grab my blender and find that I am unable to unscrew its base from the jar. Seeking my husbands help, he manages to get it off. I'm a bit puzzled, b/c my wonderful blender base doesn't look quite like the picture. In fact, it's quite unlike the picture. Unfazed, I take the blade assembly and slip it onto the quick shaker bottle. Sighh... It doesn't work. I have an extra capacity blender with larger than normal blades. My new bottles are now quite an impossibility. How tragic! At least I have a receipt. They're going back this weekend, and maybe just maybe I can find something else to console my broken heart.