The Joy of Baking lovingly depicts Panforte as a chewy bread made from fruit, nuts, spices, and flour mixed together with a boiled sugar and honey.  Let’s hope Clif Bar comes reasonably close to the original!

Gary’s Panforte, as it will be called, should reach your local retailer in early June.

Sunrise Energy Bars are a cost effective, compact energy source that should work well for all palates and digestive tracts. The dried oat-based bars have quite a drool-worthy ingredient list. When I first chomp down on one I taste oats and apricots… then I get coconut, cashew, and cranberry. Quite honestly, these bars quench hunger just as well any another other bar on the shelf – at a wholesale club value.

Some other folks have dug a little deeper into the Sustagrain© ingredient and found its manufacturer’s actions offending.  I include the link for your consideration.  Enjoy!

The Otter Run & Ramble presented by Hi-Tec has been dubbed “the Grail of Trails”.  At 42km it is a full trail marathon that traverses South Africa’s most iconic hiking trail; the Otter Trail, arguably one of the most beautiful trails on the planet. The Otter Run & Ramble are the only times when trail running is permitted on the Otter Trail.

Custom made by the good hands of Irvin Alhadeff in Athens, Georgia, I nearly passed this belt by. On a business trip earlier this month, I was browsing downtown Athens and stumbled upon Masada Leather and Outdoor.

Irvin, the proprietor, was being entertained by a hat seller who had brought in several shipping cases full of product to share with him. As I listened to the two exchange opinions on a light blue fedora, I saw a pile leather and reasoned that something cool was being crafted from it.

Sure enough there was a rack of leather belts near the center of the store. I inquired about how he makes them and soon found myself being measured for my own customized belt. I walked out of there with a thick strip of buffalo hide perfectly fitted to me.

Before I left, I suggested Irvin take his craft on the road and set up shop outside the 6th street gymnasium in Leadville, CO. I mentioned there’s one particular Sunday in August every year when over a thousand people walk out of that gym carrying a shiny belt buckle but nothing to tie it on to.