Fentimans Tonic Water

Charlie and I have been on a quest to completely knock high fructose corn syrup out of our diets. Sometimes this is easy: don't buy Gatorade, drink water; always read labels; eat whole foods.
We cook a lot of our food from scratch and enjoy the process so that helps tremendously. However, there has been one product we haven't been able to find without high fructose corn syrup. Tonic. I love a super-cold vodka tonic with a slice of lime. There really is no equal (or substitute) for that particular drink. Charlie and I tried to fake our way past the HFCS problem by creating a new drink, but club soda and extra lime just really don't cut it.
SO, when we found Fentimans Tonic Water this weekend we were overjoyed. The ingredient list includes actual sugar. Wonder of wonders! We stumbled upon Fentimans while perusing Belly General Store, a wonderful gourmet food and coffee shop in our neighborhood. They had the tiny bottles of chilled tonic snuggled in with other gourmet sodas. We snatched two bottles, purchased them, and took them home to try.
Boy was I impressed! The flavor does not even compare to other tonic I've tried. It's so crisp, clean, and natural. Even with Smirnoff vodka (reputable but not top shelf) it was easily the best vodka tonic I've ever had. So, problem solved, right? Wrong. The adorable bottles contain 125 ml of tonic -- enough for one drink. At $2.76 a pop they're just too expensive for casual use. I checked online to see if I could order a case at a discount rate, but it seems that this option is currently only available in the UK. Too bad! For now it will have to be a special occassion drink, and I'll continue searching for another brand that uses sugar.
Belly is the only place I know of in Atlanta that carries Fentimans. If you live in town and enjoy tonic you should really do yourself a favor and pick up a few bottles. They are expensive but also delicious!

Could you please pass the....lamb butter?

Has anyone else seen the lamb-shaped butter for sale at the grocery store?  It kind of creeps me out.  

I looked it up, and it turns out that lamb-shaped butter is sold by a company named Keller during March and April, turkey-shaped butter is sold in October and November, and Christmas tree-shaped butter is sold in December.  I also found out that this making lamb-shaped butter is a tradition for many people celebrating Easter.  I have never heard of this!  Am I alone in thinking this is odd?  Have I somehow just missed the boat on this one?

Check it out for yourselves, and let me know what you think!  

Searching for wheat bran

Two of the bread recipes I plan on trying out today call for wheat bran which sounds like a simple enough thing to find.  I usually make the hike to the Dekalb Farmers Market on Saturdays,  but today it's rainy and I don't really feel like getting out and doing much so I decided to just go across the street to Publix instead.  It turns out that it is super difficult, if not impossible, to find wheat bran at Publix.  I'm not sure if they carry it, but I was unable to find it if they do.  However, I did find the following similar-sounding things:

• Oat bran
• Raisin bran
• All-Bran cereal
• Wheat germ
• Cream of wheat
  

I really debated over just scratching the recipes I'd chosen.  Ordinarily I would just throw up my hands and go to either Whole Foods, The Fresh Market, or the farmers market, but I just didn't feel like it today!  Instead, I decided to choose one of the other things I found and make a substitution.  I have no idea if this will work, as I haven't even started baking yet, but I'm going to give it a go.

I first looked at the oat bran.  It's a hot cereal made by Quaker, and the only thing listed in the ingredient list is oat bran.  This pleases me because it suggests that it is a whole food with no additives.

Next I checked out the raisin bran.  I knew I wouldn't go this route, but I wanted to read the ingredient list and hopefully learn a little something.  Well, raisin bran contains all sorts of things I try to avoid, including high-fructose corn syrup, niacinamide, and a collection of vitamins.  I know it sounds great that Kellogg's adds vitamins, but I prefer to get them naturally through fruits and vegetables.  

All-bran cereal sounded promising so I checked the label.  The first ingredient listed was wheat bran (!).  So far, so good!  Unfortunately, seventeen other ingredients followed.  Again, a highly processed food containing high-fructose corn syrup.  

Wheat germ is all wrong, so I quickly marked it off my list along with cream of wheat.  I was left with nothing else to examine so I decided to go with the oat bran.  I know this will change the texture and taste of my bread, but I'm going to give it a shot!  With the oat bran I know what I'm substituting is a whole food with no preservatives or other additives.  

Since I had so much trouble finding wheat bran I decided to do a tiny bit of research and find out just what I was looking for.  I learned that a bran (such as wheat bran or oat bran) is the hard outer layer of a grain that becomes a byproduct when the grain is processed.  Good to know!  I'll keep looking for it when I'm out and about, but for now I'm going with the oat bran!