Buying Gourmet

This weekend, I was making a vinaigrette for a salad and as I was doing so, it dawned on me......"Hey, the ingredients I'm using are authentic - the "real deal" - from the places that made them known.

My ingredient list consisted of Dijon mustard that I actually just purchased a week ago in Dijon. Olive oil that I picked up from a small Tuscan town by the name of Scarlino. Lemon juice that was extracted from the lemons I picked on the tree behind my little Italian villa and herbs grown in the backyard.

As I pondered how awesome this predicament I found myself so gloriously in was, I thought about my blog and how this would be a perfect way to share with you a great website I found - igourmet.com. It's a wonderful site to buy gourmet food from around the world (i.e. Dijon mustard from Dijon, olive oil from Italy, etc). I found igourmet about 5 years ago. I was living in Kansas and absolutely "Jonesing" for a tasty cheese I had at a bed & breakfast in Kinsale, Ireland several years ago. My biggest obstacle was that I knew the cheese was from only one area of Ireland and nowhere else. I started searching the internet and reigned victorious when my search led me to igourmet.com. I purchased the cheese and was estactic when it arrived and tasted as good as I remembered.

Another time, I spotted a way cool salt cellar in a pricey mail order magazine. I really wanted it, but just couldn't justify the cost - a whopping $89 for the cellar with some fancy, grey salt. By chance, I was shopping through the internet pages of igourmet looking for something else when I stumbled on the exact same salt cellar I was envying from that other place. The great news, this one didn't come with the fancy salt, but it was only $10! I've been enjoying my $10 salt cellar ever since. :)

So, as you can see, this is a great site full of the ordinary and extra-ordinary! I highly encourage you to scour the internet pages of igourmet.com. If you'd like, you can click on the banner on the right side of my blog and receive a 5% discount. By the way, most of the items I mention on my blog are available on igourmet.com so keep this in mind if you're "Jonesing" for something gourmet. Have fun!

In case you're interested, here's the recipe for the vinaigrette:

Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette
Juice of 1 lemon
1 TB basil
1 TB parsley
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
Whisk together lemon juice, herbs, garlic, mustard, salt and pepper. Gradually add the olive oil until combined.