Foodie Penpals: from Louise to Emma

Well, this is the first post in a while! I’ve been a bit too busy with work recently to do any bread baking at home but I’ve been getting involved in a few food-related... well, I suppose “communities” is probably a good way of phrasing it. A few week ago, it was Clandestine Cake Club. This time round, it’s Foodie Penpals.

So, how does Foodie Penpals work? You sign up and, on the 5^th of the month, you receive an email telling you who you are sending a package to. You get in touch with your receiver and sender, exchange foodie preferences and a postal address and then gather together stuff for a parcel of food to send to your receiver penpal, which you then post by the 20^th of the month. Shortly after sending a package on yourself, you get one from sender penpal. Cue excitement when a massive parcel of random goodies appears at your house.

I sent a package to Pia; she doesn’t currently have a blog of her own but she’s guesting on mine this time round, so please check her post out!: http://doughdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/foodie-penpals-package-for-pia.html

I received a package from Louise. Of course, I missed it when the postman tried to deliver it and it required a visit to the post office depot to retrieve it. No real surprise that it didn’t fit through the letter box... it was huge! And heavy. Didn’t even have to open it to know that Louise had gone to town with this one.

It became pretty obvious why it was heavy when I opened it and clearly I’m going to have to get back to making bread at home, because the parcel included spelt flour, rye flour and yeast. There was time for a bit of speculation after that, because it looks like Louise may have popped into a South East Asian supermarket; goodies along this line included palm sugar, creamed coconut, Hello Kitty chocolate-covered breadsticks and fortune cookies (which were the first things to be cracked open as we were having a Chinese takeaway that night). There was a bit more unwrapping to do because there were some heavy, jar-shaped items in bubble wrap. Looks like Louise has been busy because the jars were lime pickle and pear and vanilla jam.

This is the first time I’ve been involved in Foodie Penpals but sending and receiving the packages has been great fun and a bit of a challenge to. Can’t wait to crack into some of the ingredients that Louise has sent me, especially the palm sugar... I’m wondering if I can incorporate it in some dessert or bit of chocolate work. And I know what’ll be cracked out next time we’ve got poppadoms in. Thanks Louise!