Last month I was poking around in the food blog world and ran across an interesting post on The Lean Green Bean. Lindsay over there runs the niftiest thing call Foodie Penpals. Yup…you heard it. She had the genius idea to combine my two favorite things–food and snail mail–into one. I’ve written about Postcrossing on here before and my ambitions to finding other things besides bills in my mailbox. I was the kid who sent corny letters to my friends during summer vacation. I was the kid who waited patiently for my next issue of Ranger Rick magazine every month. As far as I can tell, there’s no better cure when it’s 40 and rainy for an entire week, or if you’ve had a tough day at work than to come home to a package with your name on it. Foodie Pen pals meant one of the happiest days my mailbox has seen in a while!
Here’s how it works: For every month you register over at the Lean Green Bean, you are paired up with another food+snailmail lover. You exchange names, addresses and diet info and then are tasked with the job of preparing an extra special box of food, baked goods, or other kitchen treats for your new pen pal. You send out the box by the 15th and then patiently wait for your very own box of goodies to come from the person who received your address. On the last day of every month, all the foodie pen pals hop online and blog about what came in a very special “Reveal Day” post like this one. You can see all the April Reveal Posts in a link up here.
This month I was super excited to shop and pack a box for Christine at Life with a Side of Coffee. She writes about a variety of topics and her posts are really great at making me snicker at my desk! I was a little nervous winding through the aisles at Mississippi Market in search of goodies to send her. I wanted to keep things local (duh!) and still package up something this super hip Chicagoan would be excited to see. You can check out what was in my foodie pen pal box here.
It only took a few lines by email to figure out she and I have a deep and enduring love for potato chips. I had a huge smile on my face when I opened her box this week to find a bag of salty goodness and some other treats I can’t wait to try. Check out what was in my pen pal box:
- One Potato Two Potato cracked pepper kettle chips. And these were gone in approximately .7 seconds.
- Rickland Orchards Greek Yogurt Bars in strawberry and blueberry acai imported from Europe. Being careful to savor these…I opened the box and Greg said “so which one of those is for me?” Trying to keep them hidden from him and all for myself!!
- a Gluten Free Bar in cranberry toasted almond. Never had these before, but loving the yummy cranberry/almond combination. Feeling a make-it-from-scratch recipe coming on for these.
- And my favorite thing in the box: this really nifty cilantro seed pod I can plant on the patio this summer for fresh salsa and tacos!
Thanks Christine!! So excited to sign up for next month’s foodie pen pals. If you think you’d like to join and send/receive a food+snailmail box of your own, head over to the Lean Green Bean and register for May!
