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8 Seasonings and Garden Kits for Enjoying the Outdoors BY LORRIE BAUMANN Retirement was getting old for husband and wife Clyde and Sherri Hutchison in 2010, so the couple decided that, recession or no, it was time to start a new company. " There's never a good time to start a company – you just have to do it," Clyde said. They called it Backyard Safari Company, and its initial mission was to make and sell grilling rubs that reflected Clyde's love of entertaining around his backyard grill. "I've always had an interest in grilling and flavors for meat and such," he said. "The Backyard Safari is adventure and fun in your back yard." Since then, they've expanded their product range to reflect Sherri's love of gardening and their shared love of hanging out with family and friends around the dining table. The Grill. spice rubs f rom Backyard Safari Company are offered in four flavors packed in tin metal tins. Grill. Grilled Corn Rub is a sweet chipotle spice blend; Grill. Steak & Burger is a peppered garlic rub; Grill. Chicken & Veggies is made with lemon zest and garlic; and the fourth is Grill. Seafood, a blend of rosemar y, lemon and dill that can be added to melted butter to make a dipping sauce for shrimp, crab or lobster in addition to its use as a grilling rub. All four spice blends are all natural and gluten f ree. In addition, Backyard Safari Company offers a Dinner Tonight! line of meal starters, three seasoning mixes for nuts, and two lines of garden starter kits. "We're in a variety of stores – we are in meat counters, but we have gift shops, any kind of tourist attraction – a lot of gift shops around the country," said Clyde, who is the company's Vice President. "We're in quite a few upscale grocer y stores and corner markets as well." Small-batch blended, all natural and gluten f ree, Backyard Safari's Dinner Tonight! meal starters allow the home cook to turn out a family meal for up to eight people in about 30 minutes. Two of the varieties have won gold sofi Awards f rom the Specialty Food Association. W hite Bean Chili Seasoning won a gold sofi Award in 2014, while Black Bean Tortilla Chili won the gold sofi Award in 2016. Other varieties include Southwestern Chipotle & Lime Fajita Seasoning, Salmon with Angel Hair Pasta Seasoning and Burger Seasoning. Packaging includes the whole shopping list for the meal on the back, so that a shopper can pick up the meal starter package and then collect everything else that's needed for the recipe on the same shopping trip. For the ingredients to make the chili f rom the sofi Award-winning Dinner Tonight! Black Bean Tortilla Chili seasoning mix, for instance, the package lists a pound of chopped, cooked chicken breast and suggests a rotisserie chicken as an option; butter or oil; an onion; a quart of chicken broth or stock; a can of whole kernel corn; a can of black beans; salsa and heavy cream along with the seasoning mix and optional toppings that might include sour cream, shredded cheese and cilantro. Each of the meal starters retails for $3.95 to $4.95. The company's gardening kits are adorably packaged in egg cartons that contain seeds and planting medium as well as instructions. "It's got everything that you need – you only have to add water and love," Clyde said. They retail for $11.99. The gardens are offered as two product lines: Sunny Side UP Gardens, which are intended for children, and GROW. Gardens, which offer the opportunity to "grow happiness in small spaces" and include a Tranquility Garden, Chili Pepper Garden, Cocktail Garden; Colors Flower Garden, Herb Garden, Honey Bee Habitat, Pizza Garden, Salsa Garden and Sunflower Garden. The Pizza Garden, for instance, includes six packages of heirloom seeds for sweet basil, Heirloom Rutgers Tomatoes, green bell peppers, Greek Oregano, parsley and scallions along with everything else needed to start the garden plus growing instructions and even the recipes to make the pizza. The Tranquility kit comes with seeds for chamomile, holy basil, lavender, peppermint, wild bergamot and sage and includes recipes to make oil infusions, teas and a smudge stick. The egg carton planters are made f rom 100 percent recycled fiber, and the seed envelopes are made f rom FCS certified paper that contains 30 percent post consumer waste and was produced in a plant powered by wind. The Sunny Side UP garden kits for children come in a range of seven products: Kaleidoscope Flower Garden, Little Bunny Garden, Little Fresh Veggie Garden, Little Good Night Garden, Little Pizza Garden, Little Summer Fun Garden and Little North Pole Garden, which includes six packages of non-GMO heirloom seeds for a spruce Christmas tree and five cool weather blooming flowers along with the planting medium, wooden plant identification stakes, growing instructions, growing journal, pencil and 100 percent recycled fiber egg carton planter. For more information, visit Backyard Safari Company at www.backyardsafarico.com. KN KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • NOVEMBER 2019 • www.kitchenwarenews.com