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December 1, 2012
The Great Rancho Vignola Giveaway!
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This past week has been pretty nuts at my house. And I mean that literally. On Friday, I received a delivery 475 pounds of nuts and dried fruit, which some friends and I spent the evening sorting out and sharing amongst ourselves.
It sounds pretty nutty (read: mentally unhinged), doesn’t it? Well, once you have tasted a “new crop” nut delivered from Rancho Vignola, you will understand that the only intelligent thing to do is to order a direct shipment to your house so that you never have to eat another flavourless or rancid supermarket nut, ever.
I now have squirreled away enough freshly-harvested and delicious almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, etc etc, to last our family the whole year. And, believe me, even after a year of storage, these nuts are still way fresher than most of what you can buy in the store. I have been using Rancho Vignola nuts and dried fruit exclusively for the last 6 years and I have loved every minute of it!
So, being such a huge fan and supporter of Rancho Vignola (and for more than just the freshness of their nuts), I am thrilled to announce my first blog giveaway! Rancho Vignola is offering a basket of mixed dried fruits and nuts valued at $150 to one of my blog readers!!!
To qualify for delivery, you must have a Canadian shipping address. Enter the draw in one of three ways:
(1) comment on this post
(2) post to my facebook fanpage
(3) tweet with the hashtag #chefheidisnuttygiveaway to @chefheidifink
Giveaway ends by midnight, Saturday, December 7th, and a winner will be announced Sunday, December 8th. That’s one week, folks!
(Non-winners will be very happy to note that this giveaway is running simultaneously with Rancho’s December online Harvest Event. No minimum order required! So, if this has piqued your interest, you can order some to try.)
In the meantime, keep checking the blog this coming month for recipes and ideas for some the amazing products I get every year from RV. It may be the baby pecan butter cookies, or the sour cherry chocolate pound cake, or the hazelnut flour torte, or….
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These sound like amazing nuts, I’d love to win some. I hate the grocery store ones and have had a hard time finding good fresh tasting ones.
Hmmmm… I’m intrigued and would love to do a taste test. Good luck to me!
Woohoo! I’m throwing my name in too! I love making honey & spice candied nuts during the holidays.
This could be the incentive I need to join the nut collective!
Nothing says Christmas like fresh nuts and dried fruits! Fingers crossed that I’m the lucky recipient!
We love everything we have tried from Rancho Vignola. The fresh quality is amazing. Any of it makes awesome gifts too (as ingredients in things, or just by themselves).
You got me at rancid. I’m so tired of the supermarket nut lotto that I’m off to make my own order right now. I would still love to win more nuts though….home made fruit cake, icebox cookies, cashew green beans with Chinese 5 spice….! Thanks Chef!
Ooooh, sounds good to me!
I’ve been ordering from Rancho Vignola for 3 years now, and their products have totally spoiled me and my family. The organic dried mango from Mexico — delicious! The walnuts…the almonds…the chocolate…the dates…I could go on forever. First time at your blog — like it, too!
I first tried the Rancho nuts on a ski trip–a friend brought a mixed bag for the event and showed us all how fresh the nuts were by lightly shaving the surface, revealing a light glaze of oil. The taste was amazing and I was stunned that I had been eating old nuts my whole life. I’m now a lifer!!
Thank you for sharing this little gem! I am always looking for food products that are as local as possible and I love the idea of being able to get nuts from BC! My next challenge is heirloom beans…any ideas??
Do you happen to know if it is only the hazelnuts that are from BC or have you ever had any other nuts from BC??
Hi April, generally, only the hazelnuts are from BC. I know that Rancho Vignola actively sources local nuts, but so far the processing in BC is too limited for their needs. I had a long talk about it with one of their reps, who said they are hoping to have processing for BC nuts and dried fruit in the future.
One thing I really like about the company, though, is that they work directly with farmers. The owners visit farms around the world to see how the land is tended, the workers are treated, and the nuts are processed. They buy organic and fair-trade as much as possible. So, despite the limited availability of BC nuts, I still find them the best of the best as far as quality assurance and business ethics.