When it comes to eating healthier, creating flavor and delicious food is the key to success. While it’s easy to fall back on your tried-and-true recipes, exploring spices and sauces from around the world can lead to tantalizing tastes of fabulous flavors created from years of love, family and culinary tradition.

One such flavorful taste can be found right here in the U.S.—Villa Jerada. Based in the Seattle area, Villa Jerada is the creation of Mehdi Boujrada, who drew upon his Moroccan heritage to develop an award-winning line of artisanal pantry items, like spices, condiments, spreads, and oils. Classics of the Moroccan and Levantine repertoire are well represented and offer up the warm, bright, and complex flavors of the Middle East.

When it comes to deliciousness, Italy has cornered the market. One of the most popular cuisines in the world, an Italian menu is always a safe bet if you’re looking for a meal sure to please almost everyone. There are so many different delectable dishes, styles, and regions of Italian cuisine from which to choose, the hardest part is often deciding what to cook!

What is it about Italian food that gives it such widespread appeal? Well, it’s fresh, delicious, and easy! Italian food is chock-full of fresh, readily-available ingredients easily found at grocery stores and gourmet Italian specialty markets. These simple, everyday ingredients, like sweet onions, fresh garlic, tomatoes, basil, oregano olive oil, cheeses, and pastas are accessible year round. Now let’s talk easy: Italian cuisine is typically simpler to cook than other cuisines, which means less time in the kitchen and more time enjoying the food and company.

“Life is better with sprinkles!” Who says that? I say that. If you’re looking for a smattering of happiness when you dive into dessert, just add sprinkles. Trying to dress up your next confection for a party? Just add sprinkles—colorful, fun-filled, happy sprinkles! This all coming from the adult(ish) who still makes her own birthday cheesecake dyed with a big colorful swirl! It’s a proven theory that food tastes better when it looks delicious, and making food awe-inspiring is the name of the game at one of the best-known decorating and bakeware companies in the U.S.—Wilton.

Their mission: “Inspiring the joy of baking and decorating in everyone, everywhere, every day!” Their incredible variety of decorating and baking supplies opens up a colorful world of imagination when it comes to the kitchen. The Wilton team of bakers has been empowering creativity since 1929, nearly 100 years. From milestone celebrations to Saturday morning baking with mom, the Wilton team strives to be your trusted guide, your secret ingredient, your Johnny-on-the-spot for tips, tricks and solutions to ignite your most creative self and help your baking shine.

The manner in which food is served often is just as important as taste when it comes to the overall enjoyment of a dish, particularly when it comes to special dishes served for special occasions. And perhaps no occasion lends itself to the potential for unique food presentation than Valentine’s Day.

Whether you are planning a romantic dinner for two, hosting a couples dinner party, or throwing a festive “Galentine’s” Day party to celebrate the amazing women in your life, Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to go all out when it comes to festive food and decorations. Serving food in a unique way can add to the fun and festivity of the evening, piquing the interests of guests while creating exciting enticement. For example, any food looks more festive and sophisticated when served in a martini or shot glass.

Healthy eating habits are first and foremost in nearly everyone’s mind right now. Whether you are at the perfect weight, or looking to lose some extra pounds, a healthier lifestyle is beneficial to everyone. With this in mind, Pink decided to team up with California Walnuts for some hearty, walnut-inspired and flavor-filled recipes with healthy benefits.

Packed with nutrients and a delicate nutty taste, walnuts offer unlimited versatility for everything from baked goods to toppings, spreads and sauces. A whole food, rich in Omega-3s, naturally gluten free, sodium free and cholesterol free, walnuts are a tasty powerhouse. In fact, they are a certified heart-healthy food by the American Heart Association, and emerging research demonstrates benefits for gut health and decreasing cancer risk.

After all the festive foods and decadent indulgences of the holidays, January is a natural time to embark on a plan for healthy eating. If your New Year’s resolutions include eating healthier, there are more ways than you think to enjoy some of your favorite foods and some really delicious and easy recipes that are not only good for gut health, but can also improve your overall health, too.

If you’re ready to detox from the holidays, one of the best places to start is by incorporating foods and recipes to improve your gut health. Since diet and gut health are very closely linked, there are several things experts point out that can help improve both gut and overall health, including avoiding processed foods, high fat foods and foods high in refined sugars. (These can contribute to promoting the growth of bacteria.) In addition, ex-perts point to foods that actively promote the growth of beneficial bacteria. These include high fiber foods, such as legumes, whole grains, vegetables, nuts and fruits, fermented foods (including kimchi, sauerkraut, yogurt and kefir) and collagen-boosting foods, such as bone broth and salmon skin. You can also boost your body’s collagen production by eating citrus fruits, broccoli, meat, eggs and nuts.

Tangy and tart, there’s one fruit that is synonymous with Christmas—cranberries! From festive decor to holiday dessert, cranberries are a fresh and colorful addition to holiday entertaining. Brightly hued, these tiny fruits pack-a-punch—they are considered “America’s Original Superfruit®”

This month, we teamed up with US Cranberries and The Cranberry Marketing Committee to learn more about these dynamic delights and bring you festive cranberry favorites—both food and decor—to brighten your season this year. They are a versatile, nutrient-dense fruit that can be easily incorporated into sweet and savory dishes—and floral arrangements and wreaths, too!

The holidays are known for their abundance of festive foods—from cookies and pies baking in the oven, to perfectly prepared honey glazed ham and roasted turkey, to a variety of classic vegetable and potato side dishes. And while holiday dinners are always special and meaningful no matter what is on the table, an Italian Christmas—whether celebrated in Italy or right here in the Lowcountry—is truly something spectacular in every way.

Italians are known for their love of delicious food and festive meals with family and friends, and the Christmas holidays truly bring this to life. Most Italian families gather on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas, which is a national holiday in Italy, known as Saint Stephen’s Day. Celebrated as Natale, the three-day feast begins with the Christmas Eve tradition known as the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Friends and family will gather enjoy seven different seafood dishes, or one or two types of fish prepared seven different ways. This tradition’s roots can be traced back to Italy and has long been a part of many holiday culinary celebrations.

The holiday season is upon us. (Are you asking, “How did that happen?”) It’s the busiest time of year, jam-packed with family get togethers, holiday parties, cozy fires with friends, and best of all, BAKING. There’s something about the spirit of the season that begs us to preheat the oven, jump into the kitchen, get creative and fill our homes with the most delectable aromas of the year. While we enjoy many of the seasonal classics, it’s a great time to look for inspiration and try out new recipes.

There’s a lot more to pumpkin these days than the oh-so-popular pumpkin spice latte.  A longtime staple in a number of fall’s favorite breakfast foods, snacks and desserts, the distinctive taste of pumpkin (and the even more distinctive aroma and flavor of pumpkin spice) has expanded to now include delicious pumpkin-based appetizers, soups, salads and savory entrees. In fact, as you stroll down any grocery store aisle this month, you will be astounded at the incredible number of pumpkin-based and/or pumpkin-flavored foods lining the shelves, including pumpkin-flavored yogurts, cream cheese, hummus, English muffins, pretzels—and this year’s return of the limited-edition Pumpkin-Spiced Oreos (back this year after a four-year hiatus)!

Avocados are fickle. Sometimes they seem to be ready for consumption but then hard as a rock when cut into. Other times avocados look like they’ll be rotten before you get them home. This unpredictability isn’t just expensive ($1.25 each for medium, $2.50 each for large at my local supermarket, as I write); it also contributes to wasted food.

There’s no magic gadget that will tell you when an avocado has ripened fully, but there are ways to help your avocados last longer so they’re ready for guacamole or toast toppings. Depending on several factors, including how ripe your avocado is and what you plan to use it for, there are different ways to store avocados.

Fall, especially October, is filled with the sights, smells and tastes of pumpkin everything, from the iconic Pumpkin Spice Latte to fluffy pumpkin pancakes to hearty pumpkin soups and just about every pumpkin-infused food and beverage in between. Although pumpkin has become the signature fall favorite for many, there are many other great fall flavors to try, allowing you to not only enjoy the changing season and changing leaves this month, but to also change up your menus to celebrate all that October brings.

Fall is known for its harvest of healthy and delicious fruits and vegetables, and there are a lot of benefits for eating them when they are in season. Fruits and vegetables consumed during proper seasons are known for being more nutrient-dense than out-of-season produce. Plus, just-picked, ripe seasonal produce is known for having richer flavors, too.

Bold and deliciously spicy, America’s No. 1 hot sauce is a staple for fall, football and flavorful fare. Whether you’re a tried-and-true Buffalo fan, savor sweet-and-spicy, or take things mild—Frank’s RedHot has a hot sauce for you.

Frank’s RedHot is particularly popular among millennials, who are drawn to bold flavors. As you look by age group, younger consumers have an increased desire for spicy, flavorful tastes.

In 1918, Frank’s RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce was created in Louisiana when Adam Estilette and Jacob Frank blended the perfectly spiced hot sauce with a rich blend of cayenne peppers. It was bottled two years later, launching the brand. And today, it is still based on the original recipe of aged cayenne red peppers, distilled vinegar, salt and garlic powder. Bless their spicy hearts.

Ah, fall. The kids are back in school, the scorching hot days of summer have turned into picture-perfect weather here in the Lowcountry, football is back … and fresh, seasonal fall produce is everywhere. After a summer filled with backyard barbecues and quick dinners on the beach or patio, fall is the perfect time to head back to the kitchen to cook up some old, and new, family favorites, as well as take advantage of the abundance of fresh seasonal produce that can take the comfort foods of fall to a whole new level.

August is prime pear picking time for the sweetest, juiciest, freshest pears of the year. When you taste a perfectly ripe pear and smell its aroma it’s easy to see why this fruit has been prized for thousands of years. As summer begins to ripen into fall the Northwest United States bursts with this flavorful fruit and harvest begins in full force.

Washington and Oregon comprise the nation’s largest pear-producing region, and they produce approximately 88-percent of all fresh pears grown in the United States. The Pear Bureau Northwest is an organization that represents nearly 900 grower families and 50 packers and shippers, all who take pride in their ability to provide top-quality fresh USA Pears for the world market. In order to educate consumers, the organization created www.usapears.org—an online world of pear perfection, which features everything you would ever want to know about pears, including nutrition facts, recipes, tips, harvest, varieties and even takes you behind the scenes with growers.