Disclosure: I received ICBINB coupons, a Flip cam, and a gift card to create this video and pay for groceries.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter contacted me recently to ask if I’d like to visit a local farmers market to gather items for a lunch party with friends afterwards—created with recipes using ICBINB, or course. I turn down a lot of PR offers, but this sounded like fun, and I had a tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in my fridge already, so I do actually use their product. I also tend to be a recluse, so I thought this would be a good way to force myself outside and see what Chapel Hill has to offer.

There are several farmers markets near me. The Carrboro Farmers Market seemed to be the most popular one, but I heard parking was a mess. So I decided to go to the South Estes Market instead since it’s held in a mall parking lot with plenty of spaces. It was also on the way between my place and my brother and sister-in-law’s house, who I invited to come with me.

You can follow my adventures in the video above, which I probably spent far more time editing than was really required. (At least that Digital Video 101 class I took in college finally paid off.) I did have lots of fun at the market, even though I was a little anxious about having to film people and ask them questions. (See above, recluse.) Strangely enough, I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot of things I would never have discovered otherwise. I guess it’s good to move out of your comfort zone once in a while (says the girl who just moved away from half her friends and family).

As for the ICBINB, it tasted good on bread and corn on the cob. (And damn, that was some good bread by The Farm Fairy.) Their pitch is that it has less saturated fat than butter, no hydrogenated oils (those dreaded TRANS FATS!), and no cholesterol. I’d never used it in the spray pump bottles before, but it made it a lot easier to butter my corn than it was with a knife. I tried it on some popcorn later, and it added flavor without making the popcorn too soggy. So, I feel fine recommending their product, and hopefully you found the video to be entertaining enough. You can learn more at the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter web site, including a contest to win a grill basket and a recipe library. There’s also an ICBINB YouTube Channel.

In case you’re interested, here is a list of vendors I spoke to. BTW, if someone was kind enough to talk to me and/or let me record them, I bought something at their stall or threw money in their banjo case. I had to pitch my book at book fairs, so I know what it’s like sitting behind that table.

• Bread and honey from The Farm Fairy
• Corn from Roberson Creek Farm
• Veggies from Timberwood Organics (certified organics!)
• Peaches from Kalawi Farm (the peach people!)
• Music by…some banjo-playing dude.
• Stock music called “Rampaging Bulldozer” was downloaded from FreeSoundtrackMusic.com.

Warning: Tech-girl ramblings ahead
The software that comes with the FlipCam wasn’t advanced enough for the editing I wanted to do, so to edit this video I used a trial version of Videopad Video Editor. I’d give it a C+ (and no, that’s not a computer science joke). It was able to open the MP4 files that the FlipCam exported, and I was able to split the audio tracks away from the video. However, if I tried replacing a video clip or inserting one into the middle of the timeline, all my placed audio effects would because misaligned. Also, when I exported, several of the title frames went missing, so I had to encode it and then edit that and encode it again, which is why the video is a little lower quality than what I’d prefer. Anyone got recommendations for a better, free video editing application for Windows? I considered Microsoft Movie Maker first, but it wouldn’t open the MP4 files.

All right, y’all, the Farm Fresh Delivery peeps sent me some rainbow chard and dill fenouil this week. I only know that they sent me rainbow chard and dill fenouil because that’s what the labels say on these odd, green, leafy plants. If someone had asked me to name 100 vegetables last week, I would not have listed either rainbow chard or dill fenouil because I had never heard of them before. Any suggestions on how to prepare these veggies are welcome. I would especially appreciate any warnings, like if the fuzzy ends of the dill fenouil are poisonous or if the rainbow chard only turns rainbow colored when it’s gone rancid. Thanks!

Disclosure: I was sent these products for free to review.

It is not immediately obvious what a tomato saver, green produce bags, a button extender and a wrist wallet have in common. It seems like a pattern-identification question one would be asked on a Mensa test. The answer is that all of these products are sold at the Home Trends store which their public relations rep and blog reader, Kyra, sent me because she thought you guys might like them. And then I wrote about them because they’re sort of offbeat. Of course, she sent them last January, and in further proof of my twit-i-ness, it has taken me three months to write about them. Someday I swear I’ll live my life in the present and not a quarter year in the past.

First up are a set of Debbie Meyer Green Bags, which use SCIENCE ! to make your fruits and veggies last longer. As I discovered two years ago, some produce release a gas called ethylene as they ripen. This causes other veggies near the ripening fruit to deteriorate quickly. These plastic bags aren’t just a stylish green color, they also absorb ethylene gas, so you’re more likely to eat your salad instead of eating some cash by throwing out a rotten head of lettuce.

Kyra also sent me the Tomato Saver, which is a red, tomato-shaped container to store your half-used tomatoes in. It functions as well as any similar Tupperware container does, but it’s a bit cuter to have the tomato sitting in your fridge. Hypothetically, you could store anything in here, like spare change. Or, if you’re feeling wicked this Easter, you could make your kids go on a tomato hunt instead of an Easter Egg hunt.

I shall warn you that the Button Extender is not something you should buy for your husband or spouse. Similar to a bra strap extender, this product hooks onto the button of your jeans, giving you an extra inch or so. At first, I thought this was just a silly gag gift, but I have to admit it wasn’t half-bad to wear. My figure is such that when jeans fit me in the waist, they are loose in the thighs. Typically I end up wearing pants that are a little tighter in the waist than I’d prefer because they fit everywhere else better. The button extender helped a bit in this department, but it’s not something I’d wear without a shirt to cover it up.

And finally, Kyra also sent me a Wrist Wallet, which as you can guess, is a wallet you wear on your wrist. It’s reversible, so you can wear it as red or black. It seems “handy” for storing your keys at the gym or if you’re at an amusement park. I might consider using one when I travel to Europe so I don’t end up pick-pocketed and stuck in a foreign country with no money.

Giveaway

If you would like the chance to win a Tomato Saver and a pack of 2 Button Extenders, comment on this entry by 11:59pm on Monday, April 6th with an idea for another product the Home Trends store should sell on their web site. A winner will be drawn randomly. Good luck!

First up was the brown Asian pear. A protective white, netted, foam, covered its bottom half, which made it look like it was wearing pants. This made it irresistible to me. Maybe if they started dressing the apples and bananas in miniature dresses, produce sales would boom. Watch out Bratz dolls!

The interesting thing about eating a new fruit was that I had no expectation of what it should taste like. I love D’Anjou pears because they are juicy and sound vaguely French, but I didn’t know how much the brown pear would taste like them. I read in the book Mindless Eating that our expectations of how a food should taste actually shape how we perceive it to taste. For example, a chef on a navy ship during a war accidentally ordered too much lemon Jell-O and too little of the soldiers’ favorite flavor cherry. After the cherry Jell-O ran out, the crew started to complain, so the chef just took the lemon Jell-O, colored it red and served it. The crew was convinced they were eating cherry Jell-O again, even though it was actually lemon.

It was interesting going into an eating experience blind, though my impressions of what a pear should taste like probably left some chalky residue on an otherwise blank slate. The brown pear was crunchier than a D’Anjou pear, though not as hard as a Bartlett pear. It also had faint taste of bread to it. It was a satisfactory eating experience, but considering the price of the Asian pear, I doubt I’ll buy one again, even if calling it Asian makes it sound very exotic despite the fact it was probably grown in this country. It’s just as well because if I were ever to anthropomorphize this fruit for a blog entry and make it have a fake conversation with other fruit in the produce section, I’d have to make it speak Chinese or Korean or something, which is well out of my linguistic bullshitting abilities.

My next new fruit experience was the plum. I can’t ever recall eating a plum, which seems very odd because a plum is nowhere near as exotic as a starfruit. It’d be like saying I’d never had coffee at a Starbucks. I liked plums so much that I’ve taken to buying 5 or 6 of them at a time. They’re firm but juicy, sweet but somewhat tart, and come in a small serving size which is good for snacking. As long as I don’t bite in too fast and chip my teeth on the pit, they’re a great addition to PastaQueen’s approved fruit list.

Last night I finally cooked the sweet potato I bought about two weeks ago. This is another fairly common vegetable that I have avoided eating all my life for no real reason. I don’t have any psychological hang-ups against sweet potatoes. I never had a horrible sweet potato eating incident in my youth. I was never hit by a sweet potato delivery truck and buried in a pile of tubers, their eyes coldly staring at me as I was mashed by potatoes. It took me about 3 trips to the grocery store before I could even find the sweet potatoes. I never did find them at Kroger, which doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not there, just that I couldn’t locate them among the bags of regular potatoes and red potatoes. Eventually I picked one up at Meijer when I was stocking up on pistachios since they have a larger produce section.

The biggest obstacle in eating the sweet potato was figuring out how to cook it. I was disappointed they didn’t print instructions on it in ink made out of food coloring. All the recipes I searched for turned up complex sweet potato concoctions like salads and pies. I thought it best to try the sweet potato basically on its own for my first sampling so I didn’t become biased against it if other ingredients made it taste nasty. I settled on a quick and easy sweet potato fries recipe which involved slicing the sweet potato up and tossing it with 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, ¼ tsp of salt, and ½ tsp of paprika. Then I baked the slices for 15 minutes at 425 degrees F, turned them and baked for another 10 minutes.

This was a recipe I might need to destroy every copy of for the safety of mankind. The knowledge, it is dangerous. The fries were delicious. I ate the whole batch, which was bad because I used a sweet potato the size of a mutant guinea pig. I attempted to put half of the batch in a Tupperware bowl to stick in the fridge, but I kept picking out just one more fry before putting it inside. Eventually all I was left with was an extra Tupperware container to clean. If I make this again, I will have to be sure to buy a very small sweet potato since I obviously have no self-control.