Celestial Seasonings

Some of my daily rituals revolve around tea. When I come to work in the morning, I make myself a cup of green tea. When I get home at night I have a sweet snack and a cup of tea.

I like Celestial Seasonings for several reasons, the biggest of which is probably sentimental, since my mother always kept their teas, and Sleepytime in particular, in our pantry. The artwork on the old boxes was really exceptional, like opening the cupboard to find an art gallery.

As I was making my tea and idly examining the box I noticed, in tiny print at the bottom of the box, under the nutrition, these words: Gluten Free. I had thought that gluten free tea was a no-brainer, but it’s still nice to see that label popping up on more and more places.
And somehow, every night since then, I’ve slept a little better. Maybe it’s the tea, maybe it’s the words on the box that remind me, my favorite tea cares about me too.

Warm fuzzies all around

Garrett Popcorn Shops

One Friday my boss ran to Staples to get some mailing labels and returned with a giant bag of Garrett Popcorn Shops' CaramelCrisp popcorn (and the mailing labels). She felt that we all needed a treat, and hoped that the popcorn was something that I could share too, since I never join them when they order food out. While this popcorn is so amazingly, decadently, addictingly delicious that it can’t possibly be good for you it is a treat that everyone in the office can share, even me!

I must admit that I have thrown caution to the wind and sampled their products before, but after a bit of hunting on their website I discovered the well-hidden nutrition page. In the allergy information for each flavor of popcorn it clearly states that none of their products use products that contain gluten. The actual nutrition was not as bad as I expected, either.

So, back to the popcorn; it’s just about all that I ate all day. It’s so sweet and buttery and crunchy and good. I couldn’t stay out of the kitchen; every time I passed by I had to make a detour to grab another handful. When it comes to treats that I can actually eat I tend to lose my self-control. Which is probably a good thing to be able to indulge in something that I can share with my coworkers once in a while.

Garrett Popcorn Shops have locations in New York and Chicago as well as offering their popcorns online. As I understand it, their popcorns have been endorsed by Oprah and Halle Berry among others. I first got to try it when the shop on the corner of 46th and 5th Ave opened and I became addicted to their abundant samples. For a while I stopped eating them, afraid that I might be getting contaminated, but now that I know it’s gluten free it’s going to be a lot harder to control my sweet tooth; hopefully my wallet will be able to help with that.

It must be noted that most of Garrett’s various flavors contain milk, coconut, soy products, and nuts.