Foodie penpals – June 2014

Wow – I have now been participating in Foodie Penpals for a whole year. It’s been a great year of receiving lovely parcels (except for my very first month when my penpal decided not to send me anything – boo!), and I recommend you give it a go by visiting This is Rock Salt to find out more.

So this month I was partnered with Sam who was taking part in Foodie Penpals for the first time. She sent me a huge box of homemade chocolate chip cookies – she said they were from a Martha Stewart recipe she had come across.

Being the generous girl that I am, I decided to share them with my colleagues at the office (it was a big box) and frankly none of them could believe that they weren’t M&S cookies – they were so good! That’s a real compliment to Sam as all of my colleagues are addicted to M&S cookies. I think Sam was more generous with the chocolate chips than M&S would have been though.

I was also matched up with Joan in Glasgow, and decided to send her a selection of National Trust shop goodies, as Andrew and I managed a few day trips over my birthday weekend and I was tempted by all the lovely treats available in their shops.

I bought her:

• Gingerbread from Isaac Newton’s house (where the famous apple tree still exists!)
• Salted caramel and chocolate chip cookies from Burghley House
• Traditional Norfolk plum cake (although bought in Wimpole Estate which is in Cambridgeshire rather than Norfolk!)
• Chocolate honeycomb homemade fudge from Wimpole Estate too.

It slightly pained me to send Joan the salted caramel and chocolate chip cookies, as I didn’t buy any for myself and I wanted to eat them so badly! To rub salt in the wound, Joan said they were completely delicious and I should go back and buy some for myself. I now have total food envy.

The National Trust shops are definitely worth stopping at if you get the chance – each one sells the usual branded goods as well as locally sourced produced (we also bought some sausages from Wimpole Estate which were made on the farm). Nothing in the stores is cheap (which is why I could only buy four items for Joan to keep to the £10 budget) but the quality is excellent … now I just need to go on the hunt for some more of those cookies!