Yesterday I revealed my Gentleman’s uber thoughtful, uber expensive birthday riff on a foodie penpal box. Now it’s time to show you what my authentic foodie penpal, Carrie from Massachusetts, sent me in this month’s foodie penpal exchange!
She did a peanut butter theme, centered around a local brand, Teddie. I haven’t opened the peanut butter yet, but I like my PB chunky. And this is super chunky. Whoah!
And of course what goes with peanut butter? Fluff and honey! My mom totally packed both of those sandwiches for me in elementary school. Those were the sandwiches I didn’t actually throw away. (Seriously! I was all, “Smell ya later, PB&J” as I trashed it.) Apparently fluff is made in Mass., which I never knew. I got a great laugh out of the fluff, because not only do I like it, but I recently had a conversation with the Gentleman that went like this. [For context, the Gentleman did not grow up in the United States]:
Me: I like peanut butter with marshmallow fluff.
Him: What is that?
Me: Fluff? It’s like spreadable marshmallow. It’s probably a corn syrup-based product.
Him: Ewwww.
And the honey was like “YESSS.” I was out of honey, and I am a real honey eater, let me tell you. I’ve been holding out for some local beekeeper’s farmer’s market honey, but I kept not getting around to finding it. This is a great stopgap measure. Yes, I referred to honey as a “stopgap measure.” Nerdy!
The rest of the box (mostly) contained more things to go with the peanut butter:
Raisins (for ants on a log), popcorn (for PB popcorn balls – recipe included), peanuts (the Teddie’s precursor), cocoa (hmmm…?), and the single non-PB product, Necco wafers. Those are made in Mass. They remind me of childhood Halloween.
Kudos for creativity, Carrie! Thank you for all the PB & items!!!!
Update!: My foodie penpal, Karen of Let There Be Food, has a lovely blog post up about the package I sent her. She was very kind in not mentioning the jar of strawberry-rhubarb butter that broke in the mail. Bless her heart, Karen stuck her finger into the glassy, jammy mess to taste the butter anyway. Thankfully, I remembered to wrap it in a plastic bag, so it didn’t ruin the whole box. Anyhoo, I had great fun buying this stuff for Karen!
That is always my worst fear of something breaking. Great idea wrapping it in a plastic bag.
See my not below about the sauce. It was a good early lesson! I probably should have wrapped Karen’s jar in bubble wrap too. Oh well!
Hahahaha! I love that you said, “Bless her heart” – how very southern of you! There’s no need to mention when things go awry.
Especially when the rest of it was so great and has been a joy!!
And that’s how you know I’m not really southern! My first penpal box had a jar of tomato sauce that had opened and then molded inside the bag it was wrapped in. I didn’t have a blog then, so no such dilemma!