1. 21st Amendment Brewery’s Hell or High Watermelon Beer: I’m really not much of a beer drinker—I prefer wine—but I do enjoy a nice, light fruity beer on occasion. When I saw six-packs of this beer on display at Whole Foods, one of them went straight into my cart. They’ve done a great job of infusing this brew with true watermelon flavor…none of that fake flavor crap here.WatermelonBeer

2. Fresh figs: apparently I’m on a fruit kick these days. Or at least, I was last week when I bought most of the items you’ll see in this post. Again, when I saw these figs on display at WF, they ended up in my cart and then in my mouth. Oh, so good. Edit: now that I think about it, this pic makes the fig look like a sarlacc. Yikes.

Fig

3. Sriracha Mango Slices: you got it—more fruit! I imagine this is Whole Foods’ take on the mangoes dusted with cayenne that you sometimes see being sold on the street here in NYC. This is DELICIOUS. It’s literally sliced mango mixed with sriracha sauce. Unreal. Mango sometimes makes my mouth itch—it’s a mild allergy and it happens with some other fruit too—but something about the hot sauce seems to kill whatever causes the itch. Sriracha mango forever! (Side note: I had a hard time getting a photo of the mango that didn’t look like a neon orange pile of crap, so what you see here is enhanced, edited, and enhanced again in iPhoto, which is why the clear container looks purple.)

Mango (1)

4. Broccoli Rabe Peanut Soba Noodles: a friend posted this Cookie + Kate recipe on Facebook and I pinned it immediately. A week later I decided to make it for dinner…and it is most definitely going into my rotation. Very easy and SO tasty. I’m a real sucker for peanut sauce on noodles. I added raw slices of orange bell pepper to this dish for color and crunch, and it was amazing. As I was working on this blog post my husband walked by, saw the photo, and said, “I miss that pasta already.” So do I, dude. Also, two happy thumbs up to Cookie + Kate. I made a second recipe of hers this week—Colorful Beet Salad with Carrot, Quinoa, and Spinach—and it also turned out really well.

Noodles

5. Bin-It: as you know, we’re moving at the end of this month. We decided to use a moving bin rental service instead of hoarding and buying boxes, and two of our friends recommended Bin-It. You select a package (we got the 3-bedroom package because we have A LOT of stuff) and a delivery window, and they deliver the bins (which are sanitized—sweet!) to your current apartment. Then you pack everything, move, and Bin-It comes to pick the bins up at your new place. Sounds awesome, right? This way you don’t have to worry about assembling boxes and then breaking them all down and recycling them. Our 55 bins just arrived and they are formidable:

Bins

Onward!