"Paul M. Cook" > wrote in message
news:z3Cxj.37257$T8.30516@trnddc03...

>
> I've ordered all kinds of things mail order and they usually make it to me
> in one piece. The cost of shipping sure adds to the cost though but what
> can you do? Some things you just can't get any other way. I'm into
> Indian food again and I've been ordering jars of all kinds of cool stuff
> from as far away as India and GB, so far no broken ones.
>
I order a lot of things online. Because of daughter's food allergies, I do
get a lot of food that way. Not always cheaper but sometimes more
convenient. I can get a case of something as opposed to a lone package or
two that I might find in the store that could be dusty and close to
expiring. I did order some candy coated fennel seeds online. They seemed
to help my digestion and I could only find them at one store that was not
close to me. They weren't always fresh though and I seemed to have odd,
rancid seeds mixed in. Of course you can't tell by looking. The seeds I
got are not the same and have more of a minty/chalky taste to them so I am
not eating them as often. Which is a good thing because as a diabetic, I
shouldn't be eating candy coated seeds to beging with. Ha!

The main spills/accidents I've had are with laundry soap and cleaning
supplies. Once the lid to the laundry soap got broken. I usually use
Method or Mrs. Meyers Clean Day and I couldn't find those in the store until
fairly recently. Now I usually just get them from the store but sometimes
it is cheaper to order them online. Soap is particularly bad because you
have to rinse off everything it touches and it can take a very long time.
And if it's a cardboard box, the box doesn't necessarily survice!

Then there was the bouillon incident. Luckily I won't have to order that
any more because my lovely Central Market now has soy free boullion
concentrate in little tubes. It's expensive but so is the "Better Than
Bouillion" that I had mail ordered. I can find that in the stores here, but
not the soy free version. So I had ordered 6 jars of it at once. I must
say they did pack it well. Each jar was wrapped in cardboard and then
enclosed in bubble wrap. But one jar broke. I knew I was in trouble when I
was met with a beefy smell when I opened the box. Somehow the jar had
become completely crushed and oh what a mess. Some of the thick concentrate
had managed to soak through the cardboard and leak from the bubble wrap.

I didn't even try to get a refund that time, although I may have been able
to. I was very busy at the time it happened and just had enough else to
deal with so I just threw it away and didn't bother with it.
>>
>> I've never cooked with it either. Just put it in mashed potatoes. Was
>> hesitant to do that because I hate the taste of avocados but this didn't
>> taste like that at all. It was really buttery.
>
> Some people say they taste like soap. The best avocados come from
> California and are of the Haas variety and are tree ripened. The store
> bought never develop the best flavor because they are almost always picked
> when immature. We have trees that grow on public land here in SoCal and
> the locals have been known to wage wars to pick them. We had a huge tree
> at a local college that put out an incredible harvest but they finally cut
> it down because people were falling out of it at 3:00am trying to pick the
> topmost ones which are always the best.

I don't find that they taste like soap although I have had some cilantro
that does. I don't know what causes that. I had never had the problem
until the second year that I grew it and the stuff that I grew tasted soapy
to me. Have never had that problem since. There is just something about
the texture of an avocado that makes me spit it right back out again. Gah!