Foodie Pen Pal Goodies

After taking a few months off, I joined the Foodie Pen Pal exchange again in July.  This exchange is hosted by Lindsay over at the The Lean Green Bean.  It is awesome to be part of, and makes it seem like Christmas is every month!  For those of you that have not heard of Food Pen Pal, here are details straight from Lindsay’s blog:

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!

If you would like further info, check out Lindsay’s blog here.

On to the fun stuff:  what I received from my pen pal, Sydney.  Sydney is the writer at Syd theWyd, but she has not posted since February.  Hopefully she starts posting again because her blog is quite interesting!

 I was on vacation over the week that the Foodie packages were sent out, so I had Sydney send mine to work so it did not sit out on our front step the entire week.  This was great because I had actually forgotten about it while on vacation so I had a nice little gift waiting for me when I got back to the office on Monday.  

The first picture is of homemade S'more bars Syd made for me.  I was thankful I received the goodie package at work because these babies were so delicious that I would have eaten them ALL by myself.  Since I was at work, I shared with my co-workers so I would not be tempted to eat every single piece.

Besides the bars, I got black lava sea salt, black cherry balsamic vinegar, Kokomo Verjus wine, Gatorade energy chews, and a lovely hand written note explaining each item.  The sea salt is good to use as a rub on meats, or to add a little salty crunch to bland foods.  I need to strain the cherry out of the vinegar today, and then the vinegar can be used in as a dressing, or reduced and eaten over ice cream.  Kokomo Verjus is a wine that is more often used in cooking or salad dressings, but it can be drunk chilled.  Syd says it is also delightful if mixed with something carbonated to give it some bubbles.  She added the Gatorade chews because I told her I am training for a marathon.

Other than devouring the S'more bars, I actually have not opened any of my other items yet.  I am saving the wine to have with my bestie who will be visiting this weekend so I will have to report next week how it is.  I think I am most excited to try the vinegar so I am very happy that it is finally the 31st and I can now strain it and use it.  I love cherries and I love balsamic vinegar so this sounds like a match made in heaven!!!

Overall, I am super impressed with Syd's goodie selection.  She chose really unique items, and she put a lot of time and care into hand writing the adorable labels, and my card.  It was also very thoughtful of her to remember my marathon training and add the energy chews.  I am going to be jealous of the person that gets matched up with her next month!

I sent goodies over to Dawn at Spatulas On Parade.  Make sure to check out her fabulous cooking blog for some recipe ideas!  Dawn loves chocolate and lemon, so I themed her items around those two flavors.  You can check out what I sent her by reading her post here. 

If you love food, and receiving packages, I definitely recommend joining Foodie Pen Pal!!