This month, I participated in the
Foodie Penpals program. This is a program started by Lindsay at
The Lean Green Bean. Basically what happens is when you sign up, you are assigned a person to send a food package to. This may be another food blogger, or just your garden variety foodie. You send them a package, and someone else sends you a package, so it's this great big circle of foodie love! For more information, or to sign up, visit Lindsay's site. I'm already registered for June. ^_^
This month, my foodie penpal was Danielle from
100 Percent List. When Danielle asked if I had any requests, I asked her for some local specialties. In New Jersey, we have the best tomatoes and corn you ever did taste, but nothing really unique to the region. I'm always fascinated by regional specialties and cuisines. Boy, did Danielle deliver. Everything she sent me was grown or made just a few miles from her house!
The first thing that rolled out of the package were these, and I got pretty excited. I believe my exact words were, "Dude, she sent me
legit produce!" The mandarins came from a town a few miles away from her, but the lemons came
from her backyard! And they were the biggest, most fragrant lemons I've ever seen in my
mind life (mind was a typo, but a pretty funny one). I was walking around the house holding one and just sniffing at it.
Yeah, I know I'm weird.
 |
| *NOMZ* |
I tried to hold the lemon up to Jake's head to show you that it was
bigger than his head, but Jake decided the lemon smelled so good that he was going to nibble at it. I also realize that Jake's head isn't really a fair comparison, since you don't know that he's actually a very large cat.
Next were strawberry champagne sauce (!!) and olive oil that apparently came from olives that used to grow on her property. Now, an Italian girl can always find use for olive oil and I love the pretty bottle and label! Actually, I love the bottle and label on the both of them, and I'm totes planning a super classy dessert using that strawberry sauce. If I don't drink it straight from the bottle.
Unfortunately, we did have one casualty. Someone sat on the box or something and the honey got smushed. The jar was all shattered, and I couldn't save it. Since I'm not the hugest honey fan, if I had to lose something, I would have chosen the honey. Still, habanero honey sounded pretty darn good, and my brother is mourning its loss fiercely. So thanks again to Danielle for this wonderful package! And make sure to check her out at
100 Percent List. Also, blame her for the fact that I walk around sniffing lemons.
I sent my package to a fellow Jersey foodie named Meagan. She doesn't write a blog, and declined to do a guest post, but she wrote me a very sweet thank you note saying that she was enjoying everything I sent. If you want to see more foodie penpal reveals, check out the
link-up party.
In other news: tomorrow is June first, and you know what that means...
It's time for Camp! (Don't you just love the book tent? *squee*) So anything you say to me in the month of June should include something along the lines of "Just keep writing."
Also,
this Sunday, June 3rd, will be my first Sunday S'mores post. It'll be a s'mores treat I made up when I was a kid, and there'll be a link-up party. I'll be really sad if no one comes to the party. :'(
Don't forget,
my giveaway is only open until 10:00pm EST on June 4th, so get those entries in now!
And lastly, if there's anyone willing to do a guest post during June, I'd be enternally grateful. My baking times are going to be more limited than I had anticipated. Send me an
e-mail if you are.
