Get to the Hi Mountain for party to field dressing flavors

Hi Mountain’s for home cooks/field dressers Riverton, Wyoming is a far piece from the Gulf Coast of Texas. While I’m surveying the pantry for the never-ending hurricane/rare snow/whatever’s next season, I’m grateful for some shelf-stable dip mixes on the shelf. Hi Mountain Seasonings caters to the briners, smokers and field dressers who go for beef, venison and fish. A lightweight like me can go to town with Cucumber Dip Mix and Sun Dried Tomato Dip Mix. These powders mix into cream cheese and sour cream, but I’ve found that a sprinkle into Greek yogurt gets you flavor with fewer calories. Don’t be afraid to blend up the richer version for celebrations. Ready for that? I especially enjoyed the cucumber taste so late into the season and dipped with colorful bell pepper slices. Buffalo Wings Burger Seasoning – I worked at Bennigan’s in the ‘80s when this area got a buffalo wings introduction. Now the flavor is known to all and Hi Mountain’s blend lets you shake it on any sort of meat, so some flank steak got the treatment. I’m dreaming of tinting a giant, steaming baked potato with Greek yogurt and a shake of the orange seasoning. Satisfying for cooler weather meals, this can also go onto the cauliflower version popular for air frying. * Half my last turkey got Emeril’s seasoning found in my late mom’s stash. Hi Mountain Garlic Pepper Rub got patted onto the other side with great results. This is the kind of spice you may walk by in your pantry and just open the bottle to get a rich whiff. When I told friends about my Garlic Pepper turkey, one said she hoped I had enough left to try this spice on potatoes. A big old “yes” to that idea. Note to Southeast Texas has anglers and hunters enjoying the bounty of Sabine Lake, The Big Thicket and other points of our great outdoor: If you’re the kind to make your own sausages, visit www.himtnjerky.com for ideas on how to care for your catch.

Coffee in bourbon, woke style Coffee with a cause is kind of a new thing. Coffee with flavor has always been a thing. Serve yourself up some of these blends to make mornings meaningful: Don Pablo Coffee Growers & Roasters began as a love story. Darron and Eliana fell in love and traveled around Columbia and Latin America to learn the trade. How romantic. And that’s just from the single-serving cup version of Bourbon-Infused Coffee. Wait until you see the old barrel-style packaging on the whole beans. You’ll be grinding that aroma all over your house. My first cup did, as promised, knock my socks off. This is presented as an after-dinner, special occasion flavor. Don’t be afraid to wake up to it. www.donpablocoffee.com Caribbrew is Haitian direct trade coffee and hot chocolate and even coffee scrub. Aside from fulfilling aroma and flavor, it’s hard to pick my favorite thing about these products, but I’ll begin with colorful artwork on the bags, from a woman brewing a rustic coffee outside her yellow home to a couple gazing out on the fertile mountains of their homeland. See for yourself at caribbrew.com and find out why their whole beans are not shiny. It’s so much fun to read about your product. The Arabica coffees are intense and the drinking hot chocolate is a thick powder that makes a memorable sweet tonic for these winter months. What comfort. If you love to smell coffee, consider taking it to another room with coconut rum moisturizing body butter and coffee scrub. You can get “coffeed up” inside and outside. What is no-mess scrub? You’ve got to feel it to experience it. When these coffees are over (booo!), I’ll console myself over their loss by making something crafty from the bags, until more arrive. www.carribrew.com. This one is def coffee for a cause.

The Sweet Life

Ever hear someone declare to be a sweet or a salty person? Wonder how they’ve taken to the salted caramel trend. Hopefully Culinary Thrill Seekers are still reveling in improved health from recent New Year resolutions, but you’ve got to get some sweet stuff now and then. Try these options:

Sweet Chaos Movie theatre butter popcorn was once the epitome of aromatic heaven and it’s still a classic crave. At what year in American history do you think jalapeno blue cheese popcorn stopped sounding “out there” and became a must have? Sweet Chaos offers both of those to suit your mood and I’m a very huge fan. This is not to snub honey chipotle, sea salt or the other sweet kettle guys. No way. I’m giving love to all these flavors, some of which got me through the first area hurricane of 2020. These flavors have come with me into 2021 with benefits of non-GMO kernels popped in coconut oil for a memorable snack that is “delightfully disruptive.” Pop over to www.sweetchaos.com to rank your choices. Hungry Buddha Nutrient- and flavor-dense, Hungry Buddha is “Keto Done Clean” as a trade-marked thing. Espresso Brownie and Triple Chocolate really tastes gooey and good is “enlightening.” I had to go there. Chocolate Chip and Coconut Cocoa are also little bars of plant-based healthy fats that can go everywhere you are. Long, distanced lines? You have Hungry Buddha to look forward to. Sunflower seed butter and coconut oil contributes to 11 grams of healthy fats for a lasting boost of energy. They’re also dessert-worthy. There are other fun lifestyle examples and products at www.buddhabrands.page.link/barsUSA This Saves Lives Hey honey? Would you like a Madagascar Vanilla Almond & Honey bar? It saves lives… This Saves Lives is actually a line of healthy – and very good – snack bars and crispy treats flavored for adults and packaged for kids as well. Each purchase helps gets food to hungry people and you’ll feel good about what you are serving to your family. Talk about diverse. There are 10 classic snack bar flavors alone including Dark Chocolate Caramel (a personal fave), Almond Mocha and Dark Chocolate Sea Salt. I love the kid stuff with fun characters and flavors with a full serving of fruits and veggies. Now here’s another fun fact. Actress Kristen Bell is a cofounder, along with Ryan Devlin, Todd Grinnell and Ravi Patel. Let’s go snack and know you are helping promote RUTF (ready-to-use therapeutic food). We eat together with these purchases. www.thissaveslives.com Rancho La Gloria Rancho La Gloria hotel in Tijuana is still giving us the Margarita. What began in 1938 is still popular and is now extremely convenient. Experience 100 percent Blue Weber Agave in every little plastic bottle of Rancho LaGloria ready-to-drink margarita in original (as we are most used to it), peach or strawberry. Real lime juice keeps it bright. On the rocks or blended, this is the pick-me-up many of us are seeking as the weather warms for the season. This offering keeps Margarita both classic and evolving. Easy and delicious and just right for social distancing. www.ranchogloria.com Take Five Are you a full spectrum chocolate lover? Five is named for the commitment to offer a 5:1 ratio of CBD to minor hemp compounds. Made in the U.S.A., this line offers a range of products in bottles and gummies and some delicious Original Milk Chocolate Squares and Sea Salt Dark Chocolate. As if adults don’t already lock up their favorite goodies from little ones, this alluring pouch of squares is designed to keep away from minors. I think even the individual serving is intentionally challenging to open. It’s worth the wait. This full-spectrum CBD chocolate square is scored into four smaller squares so you can pace yourself and maybe save some for later. Read up on this product. I can say I love the flavor the first time I tried it. Another evening I finally sat down to a hot tea, movie and a square and 30 minutes later I was nudged awake. I’d relaxed that much. “We do it differently and you’re going to feel the difference,” is the message on their website at www.fivecbd.com Killer Creamery When did ice cream get so funny? Now we can “shop guilt-free pints of keto ice cream” in flavors of Peanut Blubber, which was my family’s pick of a sampling weekend. We tried fun flavors in very creative titles such as Jam Session, a raspberry flavor with dark chocolate chips. Other creative monikers: Chilla in Vanilla; Caramel Back, Salted Caramel flavor; Lemon Squeeze, lemon poppyseed flavor; and Got Buns, cinnamon bun flavor with dough pieces. Can you eat all you want? Never. But you can dish a smaller portion of guilt when you want some cool rewards. The folks at www.killercreamery.com can tell you all about the keto part. Darragh Doiron is a Port Arthur area foodie living the sweet life. Reach her at darraghcastillo@icloud.com

Get set phoTet with cultural flavors

Dried baby sardines make Taiwanese bar snacks and ramen stacks make burger buns. If you like a little rap with your marbled eggs, Canadian Trevor Lui will set you up. He’s so fusion his Chinese history has gotten Nashville hot. “The Double Happiness Cookbook offers “88 Feel-Good Recipes and Food Stories” that can help flavor your lunar new year season. Stories and flavors sound so good you’ll want to hang out with this tattooed globe trotter who seems to have a different sassy T-shirt for every global market he shops. I’m so endeared to his “food saved my life” concepts that I’ll forgive him the one think in this book I could pass on: NOLA-Style Vegan Gumbo. In Texas, we’re too close to NOLA. It’s too soon, Mr. Lui. But I still want to hang with you.

TET Time Friday, Feb. 12 is the new year with Port Arthur’s Vietnamese shops prepping for the year of the ox/buffalo, said to bring prosperity and wellness. Bring it. Here are some other flavors the spark your senses: Noods A couple of self-proclaimed dorks and their friends are inviting you to shop their noods at viteramen.com They’re a mix of chefs, gamers and fun folk who think paying a fare wage and producing good ramen noodles is a good thing, because sometimes “everything you eat can have everything you need.” The future of food is nutritionally complete, says their entertaining site offering mixtures such as Vegan White Miso and Garlic Pork Tonkotsu. This means quick noodles in a packet that takes just as long as those famously cheap and highly processed versions. But these taste fresh and do have some essential vitamins, minerals and protein without artificial preservatives or frying. In a few minutes you can be slurping your noodles, just as these dorks invite you to. A friend of mine cooked some up and his guest proclaimed, “It’s like eating health.” Ricante Everything Sauce Is noting three times over the course of a meal now good the pineapple sauce is normal? For me, yes, but my husband also could not stop saying it. Ricante’s new line of Everything Sauce got him going in the Tropical Pineapple Habanero-Infused version. The thick sauce from a bottle dressed up some leftover turkey like you wouldn’t believe. It's actually from Costa Rica but the sweet and spicy of it all fits in with this Culinary Thrill Seeking theme. In addition to the flavor, I loved the yellow colors with colorful red and green specs that celebrate Costa Rican paradise. New flavor profiles let you “come to the rescue in a variety of culinary situations.” Yes! Tropical Guanabana ChimiChurri will likely be my favorite. I feel like I’m on the beach. Everything means dipping, marinating, salad dressing, reducing, etc. How freeing that word can be. I’m using the “approachable spice” and it does leave you wanting more. While New Year’s cabbage was priced right, I used the Mango Cocoa version in a slaw. Tamarindo went on eggs. Guanabana Chimi Churri went on “everything” like the makers suggest. Look for ricante.com products at Whole Foods. They are Keto-friendy and Whole30 approved. It’s like Tex-Joy with the local steak seasoning. We do use it on “everything.” Darragh Doiron is a Port Arthur area foodie who loves to experience other cultures. Tell her about yours at darraghcastillo@icloud.com