Black Truffle & White Cheddar Popcorn

As we walked through rows and rows of gourmet products at the Fancy Food Show, tasting all the way, something stopped me in my tracks.  

The popcorn sample I had popped in my mouth as I walked by the vendor’s table was so good and so unique, I doubled back to ask what it was and beg for more. Turns out it was from a company called 479 Popcorn and the flavor I fell for is Black Truffle and White Cheddar Popcorn.  

There are a lot of sweet popcorn treats available, chocolate popcorn, caramel popcorn, and many more.  This is the best savory popcorn snack that I have ever tasted.  The popcorn is organic. It is air-popped, and flavored with aged white cheddar cheese, aromatic black truffle oil and black truffle sea salt. I am munching on some right now!  Really Delish!

The decadent & delicious Ch'up Cake

Cup cakes have been extremely popular the last couple of years. We have seen cup cake stands opening in malls and cupcake shops popping up all over town. I love cupcakes when the cake is moist and the frosting is delicious.  However, I have to tell you, I discovered a new type of cupcake at the Fancy Food Show last week that stole my heart! It is called a Ch’up Cake.

It actually is not cake at all. It is made from Belgian chocolate and other delicious ingredients (depending on the flavor). It looks like a cup cake, is about the same size as a cupcake, and in my opinion, is more delicious and decadent than a cupcake. They come in a cup cake liner and each one is gift boxed. My favorite flavors were S’Mores and Cookies & Creme.

At The Best To You, we pride ourselves in providing gifts and gourmet delights that are anything but ordinary! The Ch’up Cake meets our criteria and is unique and absolutely delicious!

We will be sharing lots more Fancy Food Findings and also information on trends and unique gifts that we found at California Gift Show.

We begin the new year  with exciting new gift basket themes, new containers, delicious new, award winning gourmet items, new chocolates & confections, and unique new gifts. We will be attending industry gift shows and the Fancy Food Show in the next couple of weeks. In our next blogs we will tell you what the new trends are for 2012, what colors will be popular, what new containers we are bringing in and which new chocolates, confections and gourmet items were introduced this year that knocked our socks off when we tasted them. We’ll tell you which products got the gold medals and were voted Best Of The Best out of hundreds of other products in their category.

Wishing you, our valued clients and friends, a very healthy and prosperous 2012. Stay tuned for exciting new info in our upcoming blogs.

A Celebration To Remember

We are often asked  “How can I thank my client’s entire team?” The best way is to create an impromptu party that they will remember long after the goodies are devoured. Our festive gift basket called A Celebration To Remember always gets rave reviews.

This huge and impressive gift includes a large assortment of fine hand made chocolates, award winning confections and gourmet items, nuts, and snacks perfect for sharing. You can add a free personalized ribbon banner. It can be decorated for New Years with festive jewel tone colors combined with glitzy gold or silver and 2012 decorations.

A smaller version of this gift is also available in an elegant black leatherette container that makes a great magazine basket for the office.

The Tall Party Tower is another brand new gift that is perfect for 10 people or more. Another less expensive choice is a cookie and chocolate bouquet.

Whether you need a small individual gift or a large corporate gift for the whole team, give us a call! We are at your service!

Shopping at Shinoda Design Center

When making a gift basket or centerpiece for any holiday, theme, or special occasion, decorative enhancements play an important roll in pulling the look together and giving it that extra touch of sparkle, elegance and festivity.

Shinoda Design Center is one of my favorite places to shop in San Diego. It is only for wholesale accounts like gift basket companies, florists, centerpiece designers, etc. The displays at the end of each isle, that go from floor to ceiling, are each different themes and color schemes, and each is a masterpiece and absolutely breathtaking! I feel like I could spend days inside and not see everything.

Pine cones, pine sprigs, elegant gold reindeer, nutcracker soldiers and jewel toned ornaments are just a few things that can be used for Holiday & Christmas gift baskets. Beautiful red, burgundy, gold and hunter green ribbons ribbons with holiday designs are my favorites, along with less traditional color combinations like red and lime green. I like mixing different textures and styles of ribbon, like printed ribbon, solid color ribbon, gold ribbon and mesh ribbon to get that knock-your-socks-off bow!

Sometimes a gift looks better with a non-bow enhancement. That could be a beautiful floral or fruit pick, a reindeer coming up out of the top, or a jewel toned mask with feathers for a Mardi Gras theme.

Well, these are just a few tips on decorative enhancements. Hope you find them helpful.  Have a sparkly and spectacular holiday season!

I just watched a great little inspirational movie from Simple Truths. It’s about a special employee who came up with a simple and unique idea to create a memorable experience for every customer he had. I’ll include the link to this movie in the last paragraph. The movie made me think of all the special client appreciation gift ideas that we have helped companies create for their own customers. Many have become traditions that their clients now look forward to. All are strategic programs to build relationships with clients, stimulate referrals and stay above the competition using unique gifts, promotional products or custom gift baskets.

Many companies have set themselves apart from their competition by creating little traditions that make a big difference.  Sometimes it’s the little things that create a memorable experience for the customers and keep them coming back.

A Fresh Warm Welcome

At the Doubletree Hotel in Mission Valley, they bake their famous chocolate chip oatmeal nut cookies every two hours. They use top quality ingredients and the cookies are always warm from the oven and delicious. The guests get some of these fresh baked cookies when they check in  and when the beds are turned down. If you arrive at the hotel weary from your travels and hungry, and you are handed some satisfying and delicious, warm from the oven cookies, this nice little gesture can mean a lot.

A Celebration Experience To Remember

When you make a reservation at Azul Steak House in La Jolla, they always ask what the occasion is or if there is anything you are celebrating. When you arrive at your table you will find a custom made greeting card congratulating the birthday person, the anniversary couple,  or the whole gang having a dinner celebration. Whatever the occasion, the restaurant manager personally stops by the table sometime during dinner, and a surprise, complimentary desert is served at the end of the meal. Azul management and staff make each occasion celebrated at their restaurant a really big deal throughout the evening. It has become THE place to go to celebrate a special occasion!

Turning A Lemon into Lemonade

When you have a fender bender or worse and need body work done on your car, that can be such a pain! Hawley Auto Body in Point Loma, not only does the best body work in town (and wins awards for it) they also go the extra mile to please their clients. They will even drop you off at the airport, fix your car while you are out of town, and then pick you up at the airport when you return.

Creating A Memorable Experience

At The Best To You, our goal with each gift, is to deliver a memorable experience. It is the little things we do that set us apart. The elegant presentation with our signature look.  The fancy hand made bows. The clever and fun themes. The carefully chosen selection for each custom designed gift. The unique gift items and delicious confections. It is especially the way we take the information you give us and work it into a masterpiece perfect for each of your recipients. The comment we frequently hear is “It’s too gorgeous to open, too decadent not to! With twenty five years experience in corporate gift giving, we can help you come up with some new ideas to WOW your clients and set yourself apart from the competition. Give us a call at 858-578-2740. Consider us a member of your marketing team!

 A Little Inspirational Movie To Share With Your Employees: Click here or copy and paste in your browser:  http://tinyurl.com/y6rbzww

Yummy cookies!

Yummmmm! Who doesn’t love freshly baked cookies? Besides being delicious, I think they remind us of childhood, when Mom or grandma had fresh cookies baking for us and we felt warm and secure.  

Many companies have an automated program in place to make sure every new client they obtain is immediately celebrated and thanked. There is usually an assistant who is in charge of collecting the information from the salespeople on a weekly basis, and making sure  welcome gifts are sent out with a note of appreciation and the salesperson’s business card in each one.

BEGIN THE RELATIONSHIP 

The welcome gift starts a relationship with your client, and can take you from being just a forgotton name on a list, to being considered a member of the team. It is said that when you have a strong relationship with your client, you have no competition! 

MATCH THEIR PERSONALITY

For a sophisticated company, you could do an elegant gift baskets with an upscale gourmet assortment such as fine hand made chocolates, salmon fillet, cookies, cheese crackers, pretzels and more for  the entire company to share. . An over sized Latte mug with your logo, that is filled with coffee and desserts is a nice gift for the owner of a smaller business. For a client in the Health and Wellness industry, a nice basket of fresh fruit, nuts and healthy snacks would be a great choice. A gift basket with freshly baked cookies and a few mugs (with your logo on them) along with coffee and tea is a popular welcome gift.

If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call at 858-578-2740 or visit our website at www.thebesttoyou.com.

Send Delicious St. Patrick's Day Wishes!

St. Patrick’s Day is Wednesday, March 17, 2010.

This has become a holiday that people of all backgrounds enjoy celebrating.  There are big parades and Irish Festivals all over the country, starting the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day.

This is makes a fun excuse to send a little thank you gift to a special friend or client. Make the theme of the gift “I’m LUCKY to know you”. Of course it should be decorated for St. Patrick’s Day. Since you are sending the “Luck Of The Irish” in a basket, you might want to have a Lotto ticket included. Other popular items are Irish Coffee with cookies and chocolates in an Irish coffee mug, or just a festive St. Patrick’s Day cookie bouquet. Give us a call at 858-578-2740 or visit our Holiday page at http://www.thebesttoyou.com/page/tbty_main/CTGY/Holiday. No request is too big or too small.

A very special touch to add to the gift is a list of festivities that the recipient can enjoy in their area on St. Patrick’s Day, or an invitation to join you for some of the St. Patrick’s Day events.

For instance, in San Diego, there will be a huge parade (largest west of the Mississippi, on Saturday, March 13th at 11:00 a.m. starting on fifth and Laurel. Get more details at http://www.saintpatricksdayparade.com/san_deigo/index.htm

There is an Irish Festival in Balboa park from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on March 13th also, and over 20,000 people are expected.

On Wednesday, March 17th, there are lots of St. Patrick’s Day festivities planned in the Gaslamp, where they will be rolling out 60,000 square feet of astroturf and building three stages for bands (fee $20 – $25) For more information go to http://www.sandiego.org/event/Visitors/1135

For my clients and friends (old and new) who are taking the time to read my blog, this is Linda O’Gorin saying I do feel, on St. Patrick’s Day and every day, so LUCKY to know you!

Gardener's Seat & Organizer

• Detachable organizer bag with storage compartment.
• Folding polyester seat with steel frame.
• Five gardening tools with hardwood frames. Includes a spade, trowel, weeder, hand held rake and garden fork.

The gift is   top quality and comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Feel free to give us a call at 858-578-2740 if you would like more information.