By Katy Killilea

Caffeine-addicted parents cherish that first hot sip from the morning cup. We need it more than food. More than companionship. It’s painful to converse before the hot morning beverage. Children warn each other, “Leave her alone. She didn’t have her drink yet.” While I’d never try to convert a coffee user, there are two local companies offering alternatives worth your consideration.

Runa is a local (headquartered right on Power Street on the East Side) company offering guayusa (pronounced why YOU suh). To make the drink, you steep dried leaves, just as you would for tea. Guayusa promises all the caffeine of coffee, but with no jitters and no mid-morning crash. It’s not the same as South America’s yerba mate, but may be its more potent Central American cousin. It’s promise is very appealing: drink it and you’ll be alert, yet relaxed. The PR materials make guayusa sound almost illegal: “as you take your first sip, you may feel a slight tingle down your spine, or a smile creeping over your face. These are the rejuvenating effects of this enchanting leaf.” It brews up dark like black tea, but tastes fresh and herby. As promised, it got my brain humming, jitterlessly. Guayusa is grown sustainably in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and Runa’s mission is to improve the  lives of Ecuadorian farmers economically, environmentally, and socially. At $14 for 100 grams, it’s not Tetley. But it’s a small price to pay for a rainforest adventure in a cup, the potential for mind-altering benefits, and for all of the goodwill this small, local company is bundling up in each package.

At our house, when we’re not deep in a pot of guyusa, we drink black tea. Strong black tea. PG Tips, served with a glug of milk. I love my morning drink, and wasn’t looking for a replacement. But recently at The Duck and Bunny I had the nicest pot of tea (organic Ceylon, to be exact). It came from Tea Guys in Hatfield, Massachusetts. Tea Guys offers a dazzling menu of loose teas, some with very silly sounding flavors (Carrot Cake, Green Walnut), with a range of caffeine levels. For serious caffeine, try Morning Americano (170 grams, $10) which combines a little bit of ground cocoa bean with black tea. Not sure what varieties to try? Order samples (for $2.25 Tea Guys will send enough leaves for about 4 cups.)

What do you like best in your morning cup? Share your favorites with us.

Editors note: Runa and Tea Guys provided samples for review.

Poksak is a Rhode Island-based social venture that sells pouchable, reusable tote bags in an effort to fund college scholarships for foster children and raise environmental awareness. This week running Monday, March 15 through Sunday March 21, 2010 Poksak has teamed up with Mothers Acting Up (MAU) and Kidoinfo to bring concerned mothers the Power of the Reusable Bag Action Week.

Wanting to find a way to help underprivileged youth gain access to better education, Karen de Bruin a French Professor at the University of Rhode Island and family members Andre and Estelle de Bruin co-founded the social venture, Poksak. By making an environmental friendly, versatile, reusable tote bag the company gives back to the community—helping the environment while supporting the Orphan Foundation of America and local business. The company hopes to enlarge its community through selling its products in small to large academic settings, as well as, co-branding with large companies or organizations that love the poksak and fully support the cause of sending orphans to college.

Poksak’s greatest fans have been schools, mothers, and children. By selling poksaks, schools can contribute to higher education. For each bag sold at $3.99, Poksak donates 25 cents to a scholarship fund that allots scholarships of up to $6000 to qualified orphans. The first scholarship is being awarded in June 2010. Fun for kids, they can stuff the bags back into the cute pouches and then trade them with their friends. Mothers can use them for every day errands; easily store in a briefcase, pocket and purse, and are thus less likely to be forgotten when an extra bag is needed.

Poksaks dream is to come full-circle, meaning that it would eventually like to become an international company, have all of its products made from recycled materials and it would like to not only help orphans go to college, but to hire orphans for jobs and internships.

Buy poksaks locally in Rhode Island at the following locations purchase online at www.poksak.com

• South County Montessori School in Wickford
• Goddard School in South Kingstown
• Bliss Cafe in Newport
• The Secret Garden in Jamestown
• The Narragansett Bike Shop in Narragansett
• Newport Athletic Club
• Jamestown Designs, Jamestown
• Le Petit Gourmet, Newport
• Little Friends Farm, Middletown
• LoveBugs, Providence
• KinderArt, Newport

By Katy Killilea

Managing children’s lunchboxes is an interesting chore: What will they eat? Will it get smushed? And why do bananas get disgusting so quickly when traveling by backpack? Over the years, Kidoinfo has tested and reviewed many lunchboxes and reusable containers. Many are beautiful to behold and all cut down on waste and the cost of baggies.

Two new dazzlers have moved into our backpacks this fall. Both utilize the ever-popular Laptop Lunch or bento box format—packing lots of little containers into a tidy package. Lunchopolis is a soft, insulated shell with color coordinated BPA-free plastic containers—big enough for an adult’s lunch—and with a few studied unsnappings, Lunchsense’s case morphs into a placemat. High-quality containers—including a tiny one for dip or a few jelly beans—and a perfectly-sized ice pack are nestled inside. Both of these sets have been spotted locally at Whole Foods stores. And if you’re satisfied with the state of your container collection, and need only a new holder, check out the graphic punch on these washable bags from Dabba Walla. They’re amply sized, comfy to hold,  keep foods cool, and are machine washable.

When you’re forking over the initial dollars for lunch accessories, an additional purchase to consider is strong waterproof labels. Many companies offer customized labels that advertise an allergy and/or a love of mermaids, and they’re tough enough to withstand the dishwasher. You can find them in all kinds of kicky designs, even Pucci-inspired prints. Labeling your child’s containers—masking tape and a Sharpie can be just as handy here—will help them make all 180 return trips. Hang tags or dog tags are perfect for looping through the handle of a lunchbox, and will work better than a sticker if said lunchbox is not hard plastic or metal.

Meanwhile, eating lunch in a school cafeteria has its own challenges. The classmate who chews her tuna salad sandwich with her mouth open. A long wait in the milk line. And lunch envy: Did you know there’s someone who gets a mini bag of Doritos and an entire box of lemon-lime TicTacs in his lunch every day? Kidoinfo polled some experienced parents, and here’s a list of some of the things their children are happily eating—remember that these are packed in hard containers (not plastic bags) to prevent smushing, crushing, and other deal-breakers:

Cheesey:

• Cream cheese and black olives sandwiched between Seven Stars Bakery’s pain de mie
• Triscuits with whipped cream cheese
• Mini Baybel cheeses (red wax-coated circles)
• Cold pizza, cut into bite-sized pieces, accompanied by a toothpick

Nutty:

• Almond butter and jam sandwiches
• Pita pocket with peanut butter and shredded carrot
• Graham crackers with peanut butter
• Peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches
• Nut butter sandwiched between rice cakes (the parent noted rice cakes are very sturdy)
• Salty cashews

Meaty:

• Deli turkey and cheese slices rolled together and sliced to make spirals
• Corn muffins baked with chunks of ham and sharp cheddar mixed into the batter
• A tortilla or lavash, spread with cream cheese (which acts as glue) and covered with a thin layer of roast beef, rolled tightly and sliced into spirals

Veggie:

• Mini bagel with hummus and shredded carrot
• Frozen petite peas or shelled, cooked edamame
• Carrot sticks or other dip-able veggies with a side container of Annie’s Green Goddess dressing
• Customized “Lunchables” with lots of little containers of ingredients that can be combined: crackers, cucumber slices, hummus, veggie pepperoni, cheese…
• Vegetarian chicken nuggets, baked on Sunday, stored in the fridge and doled out throughout the school week with a side of ketchup or honey mustard
• Sliced Tofu Pups with a side of ketchup for dipping
• A tortilla with hummus or any kind of mashed beans and any veggies, rolled up and sliced in half–on the diagonal, to make it look more professional
• Cucumber maki with a side of soy sauce and training chopsticks

Hot (toted in a pre-heated, squat thermos):

• Soup: favorites mentioned were miso, tomato, and chicken noodle. The importance of packing a soup spoon was noted–some schools only offer dinky sporks
• Baked beans (with or without hot dog or veggie dog slices)
• Black beans and rice
• Leftover sauced spaghetti

Sweets:

• Frozen cups or tubes of yogurt
• Frozen mango or pineapple hunks
• Frozen berries
• Frozen juice box (any frozen items can act as ice packs in the lunchbox and will have thawed enough by lunch time to eat)
• Blueberries, grapes, strawberries, clementines, and diced kiwi were all mentioned as good travelers
• Black bean brownies (Several parents mentioned these, and many versions were suggested. These are especially tasty if the eater is not also a witness to the creation)
• Trader Joe’s blueberry bars
• TLC oat and honey crunchy granola bars
• Craisins
• Mini marshmallows
• If you have a dedicated banana lover, you may wish to look into the Banana Guard (also available in  quasi-spherical shapes, so you can sheath an apple, peach, or plum in perforated armor as well)

Snacky:

• Cheetos, Smartfood “or some other processed thing” (one parent mentioned that these are an occasional MUST for children who would otherwise fixate and obsess)
• Oyster crackers
• Goldfish crackers
• Popcorn
• Puffins cereal
• Wasabi peas

We also love  My Lunch Box, Hilary Shevlin Karmilowicz’s chunky box set of recipe cards. (2009, Chronicle Books, $16.95) More user-friendly than a cookbook, it’s an old fashioned recipe file with mains, sides, and treats, all with kids in mind and perfect for mixing and matching.

Share your child’s favorite packed lunches with Kidoinfo. We need all the ideas we can get!

Banana Guard, Chronicle Books, and several lunchbox and label companies provided samples for this article. No company nor Kidoinfo has received any monetary compensation for this and we have no undisclosed relationship with the companies who provided review samples.

By Katy Killilea

Quick: what’s just like getting a surprise care package, but way more mundane? A rumbling truck pulls up to your house and a uniformed person approaches you, arms laden with goods. But it’s not new sheets from Garnet Hill, or books from Amazon, nor a birthday gift from your Grandpa. It is: toilet paper, an avocado, and Cinnamon Life.

Delivery services can make grocery shopping less stressful, even if you enjoy buying food. Imagine if you never had to go in the laundry soap section again, and could just concentrate on the cherries and cheeses. Many of us hit a number of  purveyors in a week–farmer’s market for produce, Shaw’s for Wheat Thins, Whole Foods for agave nectar, Target for toilet paper. Delivery services allow you to cut out the parts of shopping that wear away at your soul.

But what about the cost? Well, you could pay as much as $10 in delivery fees for deliveries from Peapod, but most customers pay less than that, thanks to various discounts. And if you factor in the value of your time and the money you’ll avoid spending on impulse purchases and the psychic cost of the dinks that will mar your sanity if you have to strap three children into the car to fetch some freaking lasagna noodles…(and the cost of the Harry Potter pencils they’ll convince you to buy), it can be a bargain. Here’s information on some of Rhode Island’s grocery delivery services.

MUNROE DAIRY

The cow trucks bring glass bottles of local milk, sure. But a slew of other stuff, including: Venda ravioli, Stonyfield Farm yogurt, local eggs, and driveway salt for snowstorms. You do not need to be home to meet the driver–if no one’s in at the time of delivery, your provisions will be packed in ice and remain cold, even if you don’t get to them for hours, even on a summer day. Munroe Dairy covers all of Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts. The cows live in Connecticut, but in the section of Connecticut that is connected to Rhode Island and cut off from Yale and Ikea.

Cost: $1.50 delivery fee. Gently suggested minimum order of $10. Deliveries made weekly.

Price examples: Half gallon of hormone/antibiotic-free milk: $3. One dozen local eggs: $3.

Placing an order: the deadline is midnight the night before your delivery. Orders are accepted online, on paper left in milk box, or by phone.

Good for a family that: drinks a lot of cow milk.

Special offer: Contact Munroe Dairy for a special offer for new customers and up to $25 in free products!

In the Providence area, for milk delivery there’s also CHRISTIANSEN’S DAIRY.

PEAPOD

Peapod has thousands of products and could spare you from having to visit a Stop & Shop or Shaw’s ever again. If you have enough of a food strategy to place an order a little bit in advance, Peapod can save you a trip. This service partners with Stop & Shop, and if you have one of that store’s cards, you can enter the barcode numbers into Peapod’s site to access a list of the things you buy most often. This makes finding your precise size, color, and brand of raisins much faster. Peapod delivers to almost every nook of Rhode Island.

Cost: $7 delivery fee for orders over $100. $10 delivery fee for orders under $100. (Delivery fee is even less expensive if you request delivery at an off-peak time or you’re fine with a longer delivery time block.)  Minimum order: $60.

Price examples: $3.50 half-gallon of organic milk. $3 pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. (Prices and specials are nearly identical to those in Stop &Shop stores.)

Placing an order: order online by midnight for delivery the next day.

Good for a family that: doesn’t cherish trips to a mainstream grocery store.

Special offer: Enter coupon code “FREEDELIVERY” when you check out. This will give you free delivery on orders of over $100 for your first 60 days using the service.

WHOLE FOODS

Customers can telephone the University Heights Whole Foods to place orders for same-day delivery. And if you like to be served but don’t want to give up the fun of food shopping, try this: you can go into the store to shop, and then have your purchases delivered later in the day. No limit on staircase ascensions is indicated.

Cost: FREE delivery to those within a tight radius of the University Heights store. For those who live two miles or more away, charges from $5 and up (way up) apply. $50 minimum order.

Placing an order: place your order by calling 401-621-5990. Timing varies.

Prices: prices are the same as in the store.

Good for a family that: can neither leave home nor bear another day without fresh sardines and GT’s kombucha.

EASTSIDE MARKETPLACE

Not to be outdone, Eastside Marketplace also offers delivery. Call 401-831-7771 with your order and for information on the market’s fees, timing, and restrictions.

Have you tried a delivery service? Share your tips, caveats, and thoughts with us by posting comments.

Peapod provided a sample for consideration in this article. Neither the author nor Kidoinfo has received any monetary compensation for this review and we have no undisclosed relationship with Peapod.

By Katy Killilea

Popcorn’s been getting some well-deserved attention! It’s a whole grain. It’s easy to make. It makes your house smell good. It’s inexpensive. Pretty much everyone loves it. And according to my ancestors, it is one of the few things a family can munch with impunity while reading a magazine. Can’t say that about Fritos.

I don’t have a microwave, but even if I did, I’d pop my corn in a pot on the stove. Microwave popcorn smells like office cubicles or hospital waiting rooms. Corn popped on the stove smells toasty and relaxing. And what about all of that recent attention about the toxicity of microwave popcorn? It’s simple enough to sidestep that issue if you have heat, a pot, and a lid.

Normally I purchase the excellent popcorn kernels in the bulk food bin at Whole Foods. They are both economical and organic. About one-half cup of kernels pops up to fill a big bowl—enough for two hungry school boys and an occasional parent to munch after school,  right up until dinner time.

Since we’ve been popping so frequently, new popcorn varieties have captured my attention. Riehle’s Select Popping Corn for one. Riehle’s offers over a dozen varieties–they are blue, red, or yellow; some pop up to just pee-wee sized (adorable) while others look larger than you’d expect. Each has a slightly different taste (they vary in terms of sweetness, nuttiness . . . a better food writer might switch on her wine-tasting adjectives here) and appearance, and they also vary in tenderness. Some are even hull-less–that means no little toenails stuck between your teeth. The taste is addictive and so are the names: Shaman Blue, Rainbow Delight, Sunburst. We especially love the tender and tiny-size Baby Yellow. Yum.

My favorite way to make popcorn:

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by Katy Killilea

If you prefer to get your fresh produce, flowers, meats, and cheeses directly from a farmer, you will love this map. With it you will find a market near you, a market every day of the week, all over the state and seeping  into Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Each market has its own style. If you’re accustomed to buying your cheeses and pea shoots from artfully laid tables staffed by Anthropologie models at the Providence-area markets, cruise the decidedly unglamorous scene in Haines State Park on the E. Providence/Barrington line. (Wednesdays, 2-6PM through October.) There you’ll meet old school farmers with (sanitized) Snapple bottles and mayonnaise jars of maple syrup, local eggs and some chickens who came along for the ride, and terrycloth dishtowels with crocheted loops, the better to hang from your cabinet knobs, my dear. This is all in addition to the usual suspects: produce, seedlings, plants, and jams. It’s not at all hip, it abuts a pretty marina and there’s room for kids to monkey around.

What’s your favorite farmer’s market, and which farmer has the best stuff? Share your tips with us by posting comments.

By Katy Killilea

Well, I’ve crossed the line: the one between thrifty and cheap. It was an ugly scene that involved two young boys, too few pears, and too many overripe avocados. Sorry, kids. What’s a parent with Boomster scallop dreams and a tilapia budget to do? Shopping at Price Rite, Job Lot, or Building 19 has its place, but only helps so much. For many of us, forgoing the pleasures of buying food in a beautiful setting is far too bleak. And unnecessary. To wit:

1. Buy whatever produce is gorgeous, organic, and on sale. (Caveat emptor re: vast quantities of avocados which are sure to ripen simultaneously.)
2. Buy in bulk: If you use a lot of a particular pantry item, you may be able to get a discount on a whole case.
3. Shop at the Farmer’s Market. Avert your gaze from the pricey jams and focus on the apples and kale, and surely you’ll have $1.50 left for an exquisite cup of New Harvest coffee. Sip slowly, and bask in a sense of luxury on your way out.
4. Give fancy jam as a gift. This allows you the pleasure of selecting and purchasing a small, deluxe object and might ultimately make people love you more. (Everyone likes jam. Raspberry jam.)
5. Make your own sophisticated cleaning products. Leslie Reichert, aka The Cleaning Coach, has written a book that threatens to put Mrs. Meyer’s right out of business. And once you see how well Tang drink mix works in your dishwasher, you’ll be extra glad it has ceased to be a required beverage for children.
6. Think like a Mennonite and stop wasting food. Mennonite cooking emphasizes wasting fewer of the earth’s (obviously limited) resources in order to create a fairer, more humane world. In the cookbook More-With-Less, wholesome, nutritious ingredients (always fun to buy) are used wisely and creatively. These recipes are thrifty in a way that, in some circles, passes as stylish. (Custom-blending your own granola because of your fine palate or frugality? Who can say?)
7. If you have a pricey latte or kombucha habit, learn to make your own, and then open up your living room as a neighborhood speakeasy. You’ll be able to maintain a sense of community while sipping deluxe beverages at a fraction of the retail price.

Have you devised a way to save money on food? Share your ideas, pointers, and favorite resources with us.

By Katy Killilea

Either of these beautiful lunch sets is sure to cause trouble at home. I never looked longingly at my son’s Batman lunch box, but these are another story. Testers, ages three to forty, tried these kits, and two important facts were gleaned: people of many ages and both genders like using them, and one set per family will not be enough because lunch is simply more fun to eat when it looks this neat. One of the sets featured here is hard, and the other’s soft. Both are excellent choices for trash-free lunch packing.

Lunch Box made by OOTS

This set is the size of a traditional hard lunch box, but it’s so much more functional, and is as worthy of admiration as a great new pair of shoes. This gorgeous design features a stretchy, Velcro-closure belt to hold everything in place, a trough in the lid to cradle a water bottle, and containers for a complete meal that stack ever-so-neatly within the lovely exterior case. Every part is dishwasher-safe and made from BPA-free and phthalate-free polypropylene, for those who are keeping tabs on that kind of thing.

$45 with 1 large and 4 small containers
$35 for the exterior case only
Available at madebyoots.com

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By Katy Killilea

Crunching on popcorn, crunching on a carrot, crunching on an after-school snack can be good: for your body, for your jaw muscles, for your mood. Crunching can also be not so good: if what you’re crunching is an entire bag of pork rinds, for example. Some very tasty new options that keep a person’s health in mind have hit the shelves, and our school-age testers are clamoring for more.

Food Should Taste Good Chips
It should, shouldn’t it? We have been eating these multigrain chips with gusto since I was first seduced by a sample at the grocery store a few years ago. Never mind that they contain flax seeds and such—these are more addictive than any Cool Ranch Dorito ever was. The company has recently expanded its line of chips to include flavors like chocolate, olive, and jalapeno. I’m sure that eating sweet potato chips is not as good for a growing child as eating a sweet potato, but as far as a salty, crunchy snack goes, these are winners. Favorite flavor: sweet potato.
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By Katy Killilea

The Wintertime Farmer’s Market (organized by Farm Fresh Rhode Island) in Pawtucket is so over-the-top wonderful that we can forgive the Hope Artiste Village its extra little “e.” With activities for kids and fun little shops, in addition to locally grown produce and local cheeses, meats, shellfish, baked goods, and more local stuff we all want, this market is a winner. Providence (thanks to Pawtucket) just took another huge step toward Portland/Seattle legendary cool-city status.

As for food shopping with kids, I like it better without them—it’s crowded. But my kids had fun too: students from Johnson and Wales were running a “Vegetable Bingo” game for kids as parents watched other JW chefs demonstrate the making of local apple crisp. They loved sampling handmade chocolates, visiting the Game Shop (which was full of unusual European board games of great appeal to kids), and selecting trading cards from a huge box of free ones—utterly devalued currency to serious players but rare treasures to certain little boys—at Die Hard Games. And Die Hard Games will be hosting free Pokemon tournaments for kids every Saturday at 1:00—guaranteed to attract additional small shoppers to the market.

I left with groceries for the week: local eggs, dried beans, oats, vegetables, and meat for not much more than I would have spent at the grocery store. The quality, of course, is far better. And the shopping experience, of course, is so much more fun. Highlights from my bag: blueberry chocolate jam ($6), two dozen free-range eggs ($6), Romanesco cauliflower ($3/lb.), and grass-fed Angus beef ($5.50/lb.).

Most vendors accept cash, checks, and “Fresh Bucks, which are golden coins imprinted with a tomato. Fresh Bucks are adorable, available in $1 and $5 increments, and can be purchased with a credit card. So a stop for cash at an ATM needn’t slow you down on your way to the market.

The details:
Hope Artiste Village – 1005 Main Street, Pawtucket
Every Saturday until May
11a.m.-2 p.m.
For more info, visit: www.farmfreshri.org