A couple months ago, I was spending an afternoon enjoying hummus and pitas and dolmas galore at a Greek cafe near my apartment, with my friend Raina*. Raina is a fabulous person who sews her own clothes, works as an event planner for a historic mansion, and leads Hebrew readings for my church's seder meal during Holy Week. So, when Raina told me about a program called Foodie Pen Pals, I had absolutely no doubt that it would be a fabulous experience! And it was!
Foodie Pen Pals is a program organized by the blog The Lean Green Bean - which, is exactly like it sounds. It's a pen pal program. With FOOD. For people who like FOOD, and like trying new FOOD, and eating good FOOD.
Obviously, I was into this idea.
So I signed up to receive a Foodie Pen Pal for July. I got matched up with a girl named Julie from Michigan. One of the cool aspects of this program is that you get matched with someone in another part of the country, so that you can include local items as part of your package. So you can imagine how absolutely bizarre it was that, when I checked out Julie's blog, I discovered that we went to high school together.
Umm, yes. The girl in Ann Arbor and the girl in Nashville who were matched together had a few classes together in Missouri back in the day. Weird, right?
Here's a quick run down of the pen pal set-up - both people spend $15 on a box of goodies, then mail it to the other person, resulting in food all around! I was so excited the day that I got a giant envelope at my door. Here's what was inside...
We have, from top left to bottom right...
- Trader Joes "Just Mango Slices" - I have to admit, I was just a bit skeptical of these dried mango slices. While I love dried fruit, I'm not the biggest mango fan, and the tart chewiness of these little flat strips was a bit disconcerting at first. But I have to tell you, these little things are awesome. They have been a GREAT snack item that has been wandering around in a ziploc bag in my purse, and got me through a long no-time-to-eat-dinner-because-of-awkward-timing meeting a few days ago.
- Breakfast Banana Cookies - Y'all. O. M. G. These homemade cookies are dabomb.com (yes, they're so good, they deserve early 2000s slang). They are made up of oats, bananas, peanut butter, honey, chocolate chips, almonds, and cinnamon. In her note, Julie wrote that they are "super rich and super filling" and she was ABSOLUTELY right. I liked them so much that, as soon as they ran out, I made some more from the recipe Julie included. I having something sweet, filling, and portable as a go-to breakfast option!
- Cherry Republic "Sour Cherry Patches" - Confession time. I have been actively rationing these sour-but-sweet little gummy candies because, as soon as I tasted one, I knew that I could instantly eat the whole bag if I wasn't careful. That being said, I have just eaten about 10 while writing this post. They're like Sour Patch Kids, but better.
- Candied Nuts - Julie wrote a lovely little note explaining what all these things were, but of course now that I am writing a post about it, I have misplaced the card. Oh well. All I know is that I tossed these in my bag for work as a snack yesterday, pulled them out today, and suddenly the entire bag was gone. Almonds, I think they were? I ate them too quickly to remember. They seemed like almonds.
- Cherry Republic "Cherry Boomchunka Cookie" - Not sure what a boomchunka is, but I can tell you that we need to have more of them in the world. It was quite like the Banana Breakfast Cookies, but a pre-packaged situation, and involving cherries. Delicious. Since Julie included two items from Cherry Republic, I looked up their website - it's super adorable, and I wish they had one in Nashville!
So I call my first Foodie Pen Pal package a great success! Now if you excuse me, I need to put these Sour Cherry Patches away before I eat all of them...
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