Life with Costco

You know, I never went to a Costco or Sam's Club for the first 20 or so years of my life. I don't even know if they were around before then, actually. And here I am, a certified Costco addict. Yesterday I took the girls to Costco because Sophie wanted to eat lunch there and I wanted to fill up my storage room a little more with canned goods. This was my second Costco trip in less than a week, and I managed to spend nearly $300, even though I spent just shy of $200 on Monday!

Since it was Saturday, the taster tables were out in full force, and we discovered something wonderful--rice crackers that are certified gluten-free. And because there was a taster table for them, I already know Sophie likes them and will eat them! We are all so excited to add Crunchmaster Rice Crackers (http://www.crunchmaster.com/) to our tiny list of pre-made foods for Sophie. This almost makes up for last week's let down when a safe cookie I purchased made Sophie's tongue itch. The ingredient list was safe, but it did have an equipment warning. Sophie and I talked it over and decided to try them despite the warning on the label. Risky, I know, but the possible gain seems worth it--this was a relatively inexpensive cookie and could go with her to school for eating when her classmates bring in birthday treats and things like that.

A few years ago, when Costco started to carry soy milk, and more recently when they added Rice Dream to their product list, I moved from being a less-than-once-a-month shopper to a Costco diehard. But now, I've taken the Executive membership plunge. Hmmm...what's 2% back on a box of Crunchmaster Rice Crackers?

Books, Books, Books

I've had an exciting couple of weeks--my books are now being carried in several local bookstores. On Wednesday of last week, I delivered books to the Borders at Flatirons in Broomfield, CO. Today I received an email from the Tattered Cover, and they ordered books for each of their 3 locations in metro Denver. AND, Borders has scheduled me to do a book signing on May 2 from 1 to 3!

In other news, I discovered a program that has the capability to calculate nutritional information for recipes. I spent several weeks entering all of my recipes into the program, and have now added a nutritional information page to my website, with the information from all of the recipes in Sophie-Safe Cooking.