A well travelled parcel

It might be a terribly gloomy, rain swept Autumnal day but it has been brightened considerably by the postman delivering a box full of goodies from the extraordinarily well travelled E in Belgium. Though her actual location has little bearing on the contents of my blogging by mail parcel as the contents origins are wonderfully eclectic and cover a wide range of exotic countries.
So where do I start? Well I think at the first thing I tasted – the Petits Trésors, dark chocolate biscuits with lemon and ginger from France. And they are incredibly moreish, I adore dark chocolate and ginger already but the lemon gives it an extra zing. A firm favourite already!
The next thing I tried was a square of Chocolat Noir au Thym – more dark chocolate but this time with thyme. It’s fabulously aromatic and definitely different – and from Belgium. What E has done that I am so grateful for is included thoughtful notes for those with woeful language skills (me for instance) and identified the intriguing extra to the chocolate and thyme which I could translate as linseed (which I most certainly couldn’t translate).
Staying on the chocolate theme are chocolate hagelsag or sprinkles from Holland. The seem to be for scattering on bread or toast but as E says they are much better dusted over ice cream and I think I would have to agree.
From E’s native Sweden there are Djungelvrål (which she helpfully translates as ‘cries from the jungle’) which is salty liquorice. E says they ‘are not for the faint hearted’ and they are madly salty I must concede. Though being a fan of liquorice I like the taste after the salty wave has passed. Coincidentally my last blogging by mail parcel courtesy of Anna from Sweden acquainted me with such delights.
There’s a little blue tin of Galangal from Thailand, smoked white peppercorns from Cameroon and an intriguing test tube of wild black peppercorns from Madagascar. I do like a good grind of peppercorns and so many dishes so am looking forward to trying something a little more interesting.
From a little closer to home is a jar of dried mushroom and parsley from Italy. E always stocks up when she’s in Italy and this will absolutely be featured next time I whip up some pasta.
I’ve also got some tea made from grape pits from South Korea and mulberry tea from Laos which E became addicted to whilst travelling there. E’s most recent trip took her to the Dominican Republic and she picked up a macadamia nut wafer and a dinky little pink pestle and mortar.
Thank you again E for my wonderful little parcel, I have many more exciting foodstuffs to explore. And thanks to Stephanie’s latest Blogging by Mail event, now I really must finish off my parcel to another food blogger and find a post office to send it from – my local one sadly being no more.

A sweet parcel

Well I hope it was a sweet parcel anyway! When Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness matched me with Beth of Our Sweet Life, in the food bloggers’ equivalent to a Secret Santa I immediately set to work. The theme was “the littlest things” on account of a last attempts being so incredibly expensive to post and I needed some small ideas for inspiration so I started off by consulting Beth’s blog. One of her posts mentioned a desire for a sausage dog biscuit cutter (aka wiener cookie cutter!) and I set to work. A little browse through one of my new favourite shopping emporiums - eBay and I had the desired item. Whilst I was there I also procured some bone-shaped cutters, as I thought Leela might appreciate these and to continue the theme a proper gingerbread man cutter. And was I started I was on a roll, I procured a copy of Nigel Slater’s first book – the classic Real Fast Food, a set of my beloved Alessi heart-shaped espresso spoons, some retro looking blue foodie fridge magnets, little ladybird pegs and a cup cake charm which now adorns Leela’s collar. As I’ve been rather obsessed collecting cocktail sticks, I also found these vintage glass cockerel examples which definitely fitted the small theme. From my old favourite shopping emporium – Harvey Nix, I bought the dinkiest gingerbread men floating candles. So small that you could stage your own drowning in a teacup, I am sure Beth has more tasteful ideas for their use as long as Nate doesn’t eat them! There wasn’t much room for food after this little stash but I just managed to shoehorn a package of Mini Cheddars (though frankly, not as good as they used to be before they started improving the formula) and five tubes of Smarties.

And that’s another item that has changed radically from those highly coveted little chocolate buttons of my childhood. I used to sort the colours into separate piles, the orange ones (the ones containing an oil of orange) I would save for last, the black and brown ones that M convinced me were coffee flavoured I would set aside for her (coffee always being a particular bête noir) and the remaining slightly darker than pastel coloured I line up in single file and would eat. M will utterly deny this imposed Smarties tax, but it took me many years to tentatively taste a brown or a black Smartie for fear of that coffee hit. Now of course I know it’s only the orange ones that have any flavour but perhaps M didn’t make the whole story up as I believe the brown Smarties of her childhood were coffee but that was adjusted before I joined their ranks as a believer. And lots of other alterations have occurred, they introduced blue Smarties to much acclaim in 1988, but there is probably a reason we don’t have so many blue foods. I don’t recall the exact problem but I think the food colouring provoked a rather adverse reaction in their little consumers and turned them into hyperactive time bombs. So Smarties were reinvented again, this time with no blue and the colours were concocted from vegetable dyes, they seem darker and more homespun now. But deep down I guess they’re still the little oblate spheroids (how they’re described on wikipedia) that I loved even if they have changed colour. And the orange ones are still the best!

Beth seems delighted with her dinky parcel and I am so very pleased it arrived in one piece, I found it quite difficult to curtail my parcel stuffing so there was a danger of it getting to be another epic again as when I sent my previous one last year to the wonderful Bread Chick. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of my parcel before I high tailed it to the post office myself so have borrowed a few of Beth’s, she has more on her lovely blog.

The littlest parcel!

Oh my, it’s so very nearly two years since I started Have Fork Will Travel and I seem to be currently lingering in the category of “blog-dodger”. It’s all the usual excuses, work commitments, not feeling at my best regularly and then when I do get the chance seemingly hit by “toiling over a hot keyboard” fatigue as frankly that's how I spend much of my working day.

But I’m still eating, watching good and frankly culinary car-crash cookery shows, visiting fabulous eateries, whipping up some fine home epicurean delights and soaking up great cookbooks so enough with the excuses and on with the blogging!

I’ve have received a little parcel that has woken me out of my blogging reverie in the ever wonderful Blogging by Mail event run by the ever patient Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness. The theme this time was the littlest things as I guess all of us have been burnt by the ever increasing shipping charges to send our packages to our grateful fellow bloggers.

But Anne from Sweden of Anne’s Food sent me the dinkiest package crammed full of tiny little treats. I got some leopard print truffle cases which are fabulous and very diva-ish and I look forward to filling them with some gorgeous chocolate-y joy! A little black bird notebook flew out next and then I could start tucking into some wonderful miniature liquorice goodies – Kick – sweet liquorice, Salta Katten (Salty Cat, salty liquorice) and Lemon Lakritski which you may have guessed is lemon liquorice (Anne points out the rather politically incorrect packaging which looked like an alarmed golliwog!). There are some tasty biscuits called Ballerina which Anne says are a Swedish version of Oreos, though I haven’t had Oreos for a long time I think these were crumblier and shortbread-y. There were tiny boxes of Violet gums (Viol), Tutti Frutti orange gums and Zoo gums adorned with a rather guilty looking chimpanzee. It is a cornucopia of diminutive Swedish delights and I love that Anne’s delicious looking blog banner depicting chocolate adorned raspberries is also on her notepaper.

Thank you so much Anne, these were lovely, I've enjoyed reading another passionate foodie blog and how did you know how much I like liquorice! Thank you also to Stephanie who organises all of this and when my last blogging by mail parcel unfortunately never made it from Hong Kong, she ever so kindly sent me a surprise package herself - which will get full justice here one day! That special day when all I get to do is blog!

Culinary twins separated at birth

Blogging by mail - This week I have been eagerly awaiting my parcel from the latest edition of this event. An event organised by the wonderful Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness as she pairs food bloggers from around the world and you have to send a mystery parcel to your hand-picked fellow food blogger according to a chosen theme. And this time the theme was "some of my favourite things". I was matched with the fabulous Breadchick of Sour Dough as my receiver and as yet I don't know who my sender is. It is ever so exciting!
I really enjoyed reading Breadchick's blog, learning about her, her life, her tastes and her cat and deciding what would be appropriate. And it seems that after braving the post office (known as not being one of my favourite places!) my parcel flew over the pond to turn up at Breadchick's office whilst I was on holiday. And it seems she really likes the gifts I'd chosen, and I may have found my culinary twin. And I am so very pleased as they are some of my favourite things so I wanted her to be as happy with them as I was. And I am also delighted that she took photos as I didn't have time amongst all that packing and wrapping extensively with lashings of brown tape to take any photographs myself. And I am extra pleased as the last two times I've sent my blogging by mail parcels the last recipients haven't been so enthusiastic. Though fair play, Kate of Veggie Friendly fame had massive computer issues around the time my parcel arrived so that had to be sorted out first, but at least she expressed her delight about it later when the annoying laptop issues were resolved. Flavor Junkie never posted anything about my surprise parcel which was a shame as I was pleased with my choices and I'd sneakily taken these treats over to the US when I was last there on business (and of course a quick pop to Gordon Ramsay at London) and N's lovely husband A kindly braved a US post office on my behalf to ensure it got to her without unnecessary custom's intervention. And no, there were no banned substances in there, it was just much easier to do it that way!
However my parcel to Breadchick was substantially larger that Flavor Junkie's so carrying it on a hand luggage wouldn't have worked this time! And who knows the cheese knife may have been considered an offensive weapon, though what injury one could inflict with a Stilton scoop is anyone's guess! Hmmm, I think that sounds like an old Monty Python routine!

So I have a new culinary twin and a fabulous new blog to peruse. And I guess that's what the entire event is about. Now come on postman, I am waiting!

It arrived!

I was so delighted to read that my, probably not very well packed, parcel has managed to wing its way to sunny Sydney and to the grateful hands of Kate of veggie friendly fame. I’d had a real challenge with the parcel and not because Kate is vegetarian but the Australian department of agriculture are very thorough and so many of the things I’d originally earmarked for my first attempt at blogging by mail were on the prohibited list. I ended up with a spare Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and a special blend of Christmas tea which contained the dreaded fruit peel much despised the border guards. And I'd intended to include a few home-made foodie treats, but I could see that causing extra delay if they suspected any banned substances trying to sneak through.
I swiftly substituted the contains a tiny bit of peel tea for Earl Grey but the Christmas pudding plate was left bereft of pudding as I couldn’t get a guarantee that my choice of replacement - "House of Chocolat’s chocolate pudding" wasn’t going to distress a vegetarian. I decided that it may be safer to concentrate less on food and more on the table so there were scatter snowflakes, a snowflaked table runner and some festive shapes with which to adorn napkins. I also got a few extra goodies from Harvey Nicholls, my favourite ‘Baci di Dama’ embellished hot pot stand, a charming little Miss Christmas ornament and a little silver snowflake necklace. When I decide upon a theme, I like to run with it! I hadn't intended to include anything bedecked with pine cones but if I did, this would allow have been dangerous goods smuggling, so my parcel remained pine cone and seed free.
I’ve been checking veggie friendly very regularly as I had fears that the goodies had been confiscated by vigilant “Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry” inspectors and quarantined... perhaps for ever.
But phew, it has arrived… and I’m very happy! I hope you enjoyed it, Kate?

Chock and Awe!

Stephanie over at dispensing happiness has been truly dispensing happiness by busily organising a festive blogging by mail foodie event.

And an unbelievable happy Christmas to me as I received a fabulous parcel from my blogging by mail pal today. It was just chock full of a cornucopia of foodie delights from her 'homeland' New England and her home for the last ten years - wonderful NYC. I am just so blown away by the abundance and Josie's excellent festive wrapping made me wonder if my woeful wrapping of my BBM parcel has survived its transcontinental travels! I guess I'll find out soon!

So what did I get in my magnificent parcel? Firstly and very importantly there's chocolate. Josie mentions that when her brother moved to San Francisco in the 80's he introduced her to the joys of Ghiradelli's. It was probably around this time I also visited San Francisco and I do recall a real Charlie and the Chocolate factory moment when I saw their 'river' of pale chocolate. There's a ‘citrus sunset’ and ‘toffee interlude’ dark chocolate bar – mmmm. But Josie adds that even better than Ghiradelli's is the 'Scharffen Berger', which is definitely a new one on me. Fortunately to help my curious nature, Josie has kindly printed off informative fact sheets about my package contents. The lowdown on Scharffen Berger is that two friends Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger decided to venture forth into artisan chocolate in 1996 armed with nothing more than a coffee grinder, mortar and pestle, electric mixer and a hair dryer. I love chocolate and it should be fascinating to compare these bars to my more familiar brands.

Next I have a Skybar made by Necco (New England Confectionary Company), which has caramel, vanilla, peanut, and fudge sections and Josie has researched my likes and dislikes as she knows that I find peanut butter quite challenging. Actually reading Josie's accompanying note has really astonished me as she's really done her homework and read my blog, she knows exactly how I feel about tomatoes and mash potatoes! (evil and ambrosia in that order if you're not sure!)

Next is another new chocolate delight, the 100 GRAND bar. According to the blurb on Nestlé's website: "100 GRAND provides a richer, more rewarding snack experience because of its crunchy chocolate, abundance of soft, chewy caramel and inherent association with money". The latter statement is just classic marketing speak but it does seem that said bar has been used in radio pranks promoting the giving away of ‘100 grand’ and instead of the expected $100,000 the lucky winner gets a chocolate bar!

Then there’s a box of Josie’s favourite Jujyfruits. And these are indeed tasty and I can vouch for this as I checked them out first! What intrigued me most that the little sweets are either pineapple, raspberry, grapes, asparagus, banana, pea pod or TOMATO shaped. “What the?” as DD would say. What sort of crazy mind makes a sweet that looks like a tomato but is raspberry, liquorice, lime, orange or lemon flavoured? How very surreal. We have fruit gums which are similar-ish but harder, fruit pastilles that are similar flavour but covered in sugar, midget gems which are the same size but different flavour. After due consideration I think an English wine gum would be considered a giant version of a jujyfruit. Apparently it is very popular for jujyfruit eaters in a cinema to hold up each sweet in front of them so the light form the film illuminates what they are about to eat thus pre-determining the flavour and Josie corroborates that and she does this also.

I was also lucky enough to receive some Reisen – soft chewy chocolate covered caramel – very good and Jolly Ranchers (with a leaning to towards the water melon flavour), Smarties which are not remotely like our Smarties but like some other sweet that we had in pale pastel colours in tiny clear cellophane rolls. Someone help me out here, what were they called? And lastly in the confectionary line I have some day-glo candy buttons, which come attached to paper, and you bite each one off to eat.

And no I haven’t finished yet! There is some Buffalo Wing sauce so I can recreate a slice of stick-fingered American heaven – fabulous! There’s two kinds of Inglehoffer mustard, one with extra hot horseradish! There’s two festive coloured dried pastas from Piemonte Foods in Little Italy and Josie assures me I won’t be able to taste the tomato! I also have some fabulous Zhena’s red lavender gypsy tea, which encourages me on the box to ‘awaken the gypsy within’. I’ve only really started to drink tea with any regularity this year and this just sounds perfect!

And from Trader Joe’s in Union Square (a special place for me), Josie has sent me Parmesan Cheese sticks (some say Cheese straws), savoury thin crackers, dried cranberries (with a nod to her New England roots) and their advent calendar. I haven’t had an advent calendar for so many years so it’s going to be great to open the window each day. And I get a chocolate bonus as well!

And last but definitely not least Josie has sent some of her homemade goodies. I can see from her blog flavorjunkie that she is a consummate baker and there are many tasty recipes to try. I was lucky enough to receive her double chocolate walnut biscotti, cranberry cornmeal cookies and my favourite so far (but my research isn’t finished yet!) spicy nits – oooh I’m transported back to Union Square Café again – these are seriously good and spicy! They blow your head off, but in a good way! Josie has included the recipes as well so I can recreate them once they’ve all gone, which may just happen soon! And if all this bounty wasn’t enough Josie has also included some treats made by her sister ‘The Suz’ – Cranberry Apple Relish and Strawberry Rhubarb Jam and some festive wooden pins.

The final flourish was to include the food section of the New York Times. What more could a foodie desire?

I am so overwhelmed by my ever so generous parcel; these goodies will certainly come in use in the next couple of weeks. Along with Josie's really lovely letter, I also have a new very interesting and funny food blog to check out – flavorjunkie - okay maybe Josie likes tomatoes rather too much but many of my best friends favour the evil seeded thing (I did smile at her abhorrence of squeezing them and how they spread their fleshy innards all over the place! See, bad tomatoes!)

This is my first time having a go at one of these blogging by mail events and it really is great fun; the postage can be a bit of a shocker by hey, it's Christmas! I would definitely do it again, I wonder what my reciprient will think of their parcel?

Thank you again Josie and I hope your secret BBM parcel is as thoughtful, rich and fabulous as mine!