Oh dear – it’s been a really busy few weeks and I am so behind with my foodie penpals posts. Apologies for that. I will be catching up this weekend and promise to try harder next time.
I was very excited in August to be paired up with Kate, who had previously sent me an amazing box of goodies for foodie penpals, and Julia from Germany. I was quite nervous to be paired up with Kate as she had sent me such a great box, but she said she was happy with everything she received, so phew!
One of the main reasons I was late with the August edition of foodie penpals was because Julia had loads of problems with sending her parcel to me. Firstly she was on holiday anyway, so warned me she would be a bit pushed for time, but then had her parcel returned to her and so had to organise re-sending it, despite being in hospital for a period time as well.
Poor Julia! I hope she’s feeling better now and got a lovely parcel from her penpal (unfortunately she’d been a bit unlucky with her matches and hadn’t been sent anything – that also happened to me on my first month of foodie penpals, and it’s so disappointing).
So, here are all the goodies sent to me by Julia:
- Tinned mussels, from her holiday to Spain
- Cheaters chopsticks to eat the Asian recipes she shared with me
- Peanut butter to make satay sauce
- A bag of herbs
- Rice paper to make summer rolls
- Wasabi peas
- Soy sauce
- Marzipan
It was a really thoughtful parcel from Julia. She mis-read my statement in my email about hating marzipan and thought I had said I loved it, so put some marzipan chocolates (which are so popular in Germany) in the parcel as well. Unfortunately because I can’t stand marzipan I couldn’t eat them, but my colleagues were delighted with their little treat.
I love Asian food so I’ll definitely be using up all of Julia’s treats.
And for Kate, I sent the following Welsh treats, as we’d just come back from South Wales to visit Andrew’s family:
- Colliers cheddar, which is my favourite cheese – you can buy it in UK supermarkets as well
- Welsh cakes – if you want to make your own, here’s a recipe
- Bara brith – the famous Welsh tea bread
- Halen mon sea salt from Angelsey
- Laverbread – traditionally used for Welsh breakfasts: mixed with oatmeal and fried in bacon fat
If you’d like to take part in foodie penpals – take a look over at This is Rock Salt for more information.