Week 12: Blogging By Mail

Hey Leigh,

Time to reveal the contents of my Blogging By Mail box. I'll just start by saying I got a great box. Many thanks to Antonia, author of Food, Glorious Food (http://www.foodgloriousfood-toto.blogspot.com/), for putting together such a thoughtful package.

I was curious about Antonia. Who is she? What does she do? What do we have in common? Well apparently a lot because there's not a single thing in the box I'm not excited about. You may notice the lovely piece of fudge above - I didn't cut it up nicely so you could see the inside. It's cut in half because I had eaten half of it before I got around to taking a picture. Same goes for the spicy chili puffs in the front there.

So besides the fudge (which was silky, sugary and truly indulgent) and the chili puffs (like a gourmet Cheeto, but so so much better), I got a bunch of great little gadgets for the kitchen:

• a cook's trivia book full of all kinds of info, for instance: cannibals think the French are the tastiest, while they find Spaniards almost inedible and less gross stuff like 10 reasons you should eat chocolate, mini-bios on famous chefs and cooks, etc.
• a pie steamer which I am very unfamiliar with but quite excited about. Apparently it lets the steam out of pies gently so they don't explode or boil over. Antonia was a bit nervous that I don't make pies due to California weather but I assure you Antonia - I love pie.
• a mini spatula - perfect for scraping the last whatever out of small jars; and it's super cute
• a stainless steel soap bar which, when used like a regular soap bar with cold water, will take smelly things like garlic and fish off your hand!
• a pretty little cupcake-shaped bath ballthat dissolved in your tub for a flowery soak

And, being that Antonia is British, I got a couple traditional English items as well:

• a mini Christmas pudding with a recipe for Brandy butter - Antonia also has a recipe on her blog to make your own full size Christmas pudding, but you'd have to get started on it now, it has to "ripen" in a cool, dark place for a month or so
• Anglesey sea salt - Antonia mentioned in her card to me that she loves to use crunchy salt to finish many of her dishes and I couldn't agree more
• a jar of Fig spread good for cheese plates, since I LOVE cheese! I think I'll save this for Thanksgiving
• a British magazine called Good Cooking (not pictured), filled with some GREAT winter recipes and insight to British home cooks

Thanks Antonia for sending me a little piece of your world!

And for next week's ingredient...CINNAMON

 Bon

Comments

[Antonia]

So pleased that you liked the contents of your box! I hope the gadgets come in useful and you continue to enjoy the reading material.