Have you tried...

—by Katharine Holden

Hampden Park Co-op is stuffed to the brim with good things. Let me tell you about a few products you and your family might enjoy.

Bhutanese Red Rice Bread

This Food For Life gluten-free, wheatfree product is sweetened with fruit juice. It's the second year of my quest to find good-tasting, good texture gluten-free bread. I wish I could tell you that Bhutanese Red Rice Bread completes my quest. I can say that it’s better tasting than all of the other commercial gluten-free breads that I’ve tried so far. However, that’s not saying much because all the other gluten-free breads I’ve tried have tasted like compressed pocket lint, except when I toasted them and then they tasted like toasted compressed pocket lint. If you’re on the same quest, give Bhutanese Red Rice Bread a try; it’s in the freezer case.

Kimono Microthin Latex Condoms

For those people who think of the co-op as a good place to buy vegetables, fruits, and bulk rice, but don’t think the co-op carries the other items they need, I will point out that we have tall shelves full of “health and beauty” basics, including a brand of condoms. I prefer to try products before I mention them to you, but I haven’t tried these. They’re distributed by a U.S company, but made in Japan.

Three Crabs Brand Fish Sauce

Serious fish sauce users (it’s a 24-ounce bottle) rate this fish sauce highly. Made by the Viet Huong Fish Sauce Company in Thailand, its ingredients are anchovy extract, water, salt, fructose, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein. The empty bottle, with its calligraphy and pretty design, makes an interesting bud vase.

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Covered Cacao Nibs

When you’re putting out your pickle dishes at your next party, fill one with these little semisweet cuties. Or sprinkle them on top of cakes, custards, puddings or coffee drinks. A bonus: they come in tiny plastic canisters just right for hiding among the spices—put them in between the onion flakes and the cream of tartar and no one but you will snack on them.

Le Chevre Noir Vieilli

My three favorite cheeses are Dubliner cheddar, Brillat Savarin, and Le Chevre Noir goat cheese. There’s no wrong way to serve this aged cheese from Québec. The simplest is my favorite: Le Chevre Noir on a fresh baguette accompanied by a glass of red wine.

Marich Espresso Caramels

I gifted a friend last year with a bag of these delights. When I met up with her later, she said, “You know, those chocolate things you gave me?” I said, “Yes.” And then she made a sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh. You’ll find them in the small bulk bins, currently located near the chips and pretzels in the “new” half of the co-op.

Bob’s Red Mill Stoneground Cornbread Mix

I love cornbread and cornmeal muffins, especially when they accompany a big bowl of my friend Galynn Nordstrom’s secret-recipe chili. Bob’s Red Mill is not one of your dry-as-the-box-it-comes-in bread mixes. Like all their mix products, Bob’s Red Mill Cornbread Mix contains the same high-quality dry ingredients you would choose to use if you were going to make cornbread from scratch. They’re just pre-mixed for you.

Purple Chopsticks

New items in the ticky-tacky knicky-knacky category have arrived in the Co-op. Candles, incense, jewelry, etc. Large bangles are everywhere. There’s an upsurge in kitchen linens and potholders. A great many wooden fork and spoon sets. An army of new teapots. I was stopped in my tracks when the sunlight streamed through the little window on the far side of the Co-op and highlighted a pair of bright purple chopsticks. How I’ve lived this long on planet earth without a pair of bright purple chopsticks, I’ll never understand.

[Katharine Holden might be the HPC member who shopped at the Co-op with an 8–pound Shih Tzu named Lily in the crook of her arm. It could be that she’s taken up dog sitting because there are NO marketing communications jobs in the Twin Cities. Katharine can be reached at holdenltd@msn.com]