Well, it's been awhile. Seems like a lot has happened in the world in the past couple of weeks, between the Guantanamo Bay ruling, North Korea setting of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and now Ken Lay's death. But as always, food is still the center of my existance, so I thought it was time for a little update.

First of all, I've been absentee because I had the delightful task of writing an article for Living Without in which I created a whole batch of new allergen-free, gluten-free recipes including Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips. It's an homage to chocolate, and will be in their fall issue, so look for it soon. I had to save my Chicken Mole recipe for that, so forgive me for not posting it here right now. My second task has been testing GF pastas for my upcoming column on Lime.com, so look for that towards the end of the month. Essentially, I've reviewed all the gf pastas I can find on the market, and then created a couple of tasty new allergen-free, GF-free pasta recipes. I'll let you all know when that's up.

I hope everyone had a festive 4th of July. I actually cooked a few things from my cookbook for a little BBQ we had yesterday. I made the corn salad, and the american picnic potato salad. They were both delicious, if I do say so myself. But the big news of the week is that GOOD KARMA Organic RiceCream is in stores. I've been waiting for this since March when I first tasted it at Expo West (natural products expo). The Carrot Cake RiceCream is the best thing I've ever tasted (it does NOT contain nuts, like carrot cake does). I LOVE it. In fact, I'm dangerously in love with it. I bought 3 containers yesterday, just in case they run out at Whole Foods. I never do things like that. But Good Karma has got me hooked. Now, for the record, it is allergen-free except for soy lecithin, which most people with soy allergies can still eat, but check with your allergist if you or your child have a soy allergy before going for the gold. It is not maufactured in a dedicated plant, so if you have severe/life threatening food allergies, you may want to call to find out what their procedure is for cleaning the line, etc. FYI, the Vanilla is also wonderful, with a true vanilla bean flavor. This is without a doubt, the best non-dairy ice cream on the market. I'd love to hear what others think after they've tasted it.

All the best, and happy summer!

Cybele