Consume: Our favorite food stuff this week

Unwrap

▪ Kind bars

The New York Times ran an interesting article on Kind, calling them “the Ryan Gosling of energy bars” and stating that the “company sells more than 20 million bars a month at 80,000 locations nationwide.” After purchasing several flavors, we decided to give them a try on a recent hike to Mount Tamalpais. Made from fruit, nuts, spices and sometimes chocolate, Kind bars taste more like candy bars than healthful energy bars. We favored them in this order: dark chocolate-cinnamon-pecan, maple-glazed pecan and sea salt, dark chocolate-chile-almond, cashew-ginger-spices and Madagascar vanilla-almond.

Snack

▪ Lundberg Family Farms multigrain rice chips

Feast readers know we’re fans of the snacks from Lundberg Family Farms, located in Richvale, north of Yuba City. The company specializes in white- and brown-rice products, some of them blended with corn, millet, quinoa, amaranth, chia, flax seeds and other grains and flours. New to its lineup of flavored chips are vegan brown-rice smoky maple and Sriracha. Giving the Sriracha flavor its heat are paprika, red pepper “flavoring” and cayenne pepper. The smoky maple is mildly sweet with organic cane and maple syrups. A pair of winners.

Scoop

▪ Talenti gelato

The Minneapolis-based Talenti company recently introduced seven new gelato flavors, bringing the total number to 30. The flavors are chocolate chip cookie dough, coffee toffee, hazelnut chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin cookie, raspberry cheesecake, salted peanut caramel and tiramisu. We got our hands on pints of all seven and readied our spoons, judging flavor/taste and texture. When the last bowl had been scraped, the clear winner was hazelnut chocolate chip. Second place went to salted peanut caramel.

Spread

▪ Tutto Calabria Hot Spread Sauce

The word “addictive” is overused in food journalism, but it’s apt for Tutto Calabria Hot Spread Sauce. This medium-spicy blend of Calabrian peppers and olive- and sunflower- oils gains a savory depth from finely diced carrot, mushroom, dried tomatoes and artichoke. Mix it with mayo for a burger topping, spread it on toast with a fried egg on top for an open-faced breakfast sandwich or toss it with some good pasta – no other sauce needed.

Try

▪ Khadrawy dates from Oasis Date Garden

Dates have been cultivated in the Middle East for thousands of years and are a staple of the diet there, but they’ve never gained the same popularity in the U.S. Packed with fiber and potassium, they’re a satisfyingly sweet snack. The large, tender Mejool and Deglet Noor varieties are best known stateside, but the Oasis Date Garden booth at the midtown farmers market offers lesser known varieties. The Khadrawy is smaller and chewier than the well-known types. It’s known as the “chocolate date,” and a subtle hint of cocoa can be detected by “those with a keen sense of taste,” as the vendor’s sign says.

Bee staff

This story was originally published April 4, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Consume: Our favorite food stuff this week."