World Market

Today I ventured to Cost Plus World Market. I have found that traditions and food availabilities in other countries often lend towards more corn free and soy free items. I wasn't sure I'd find much but was delighted with their selection of foods and SPICES!! I have been saving to purchase two vanilla beans to make my own vanilla extract. Thus far the best price that I have found was $17/per bean. YIKES!!! I need two pods. I couldn't justify $34 for vanilla extract given the explosion in our food budget. Imagine my surprise and joy when I found TWO vanilla beans for $2.99!!! In fact all of their spices were $2.99. I have never purchased spices, have never even looked at their spice selection. It's wonderful. All kinds of "exotic" spices for a fraction of the cost of grocery stores. They also had a large selection of organic foods. I had purchased a can of organic soup to keep on hand for when we don't have leftovers for David's lunch. The can in a grocery store was nearly $5. WM had the same product for 1/2 as much! They had organic pastas, raw sugars, chocolate bars and more on sale and at great prices. As a result of David's allergies we are eating more and more organic foods. Organic food labels are easier to read and have each ingredient labeled clearly rather than ominous words such as "spices" or "food thickeners" which could mean corn.... Many pre-mixed spices and seasoning salts have dextrose (corn) in them so unless spices are clearly listed we don't purchase the product. We had a food drive at church yesterday so we cleaned out just about everything left in our pantry that David couldn't eat. There are just a few items left that were opened like peanut butter. I love my peanut butter so I'm OK with that. I made David almond butter which was pretty delicious and plan on trying some cashew butter next.