Foodie Pen Pals

This month I participated in Foodie Pen Pals.  Foodie Pen Pals is the brainchild of Lindsay of The Lean Green Bean and is an opportunity for food lovers to send and receive food packages.  The rules are simple:  spend no more than $15 (much more difficult than it sounds) and include a handwritten something.  

Our pen pals are randomly selected and your recipient will not be the person you receive a box o'food fun from.  I was lucky enough to get Susan as my pen pal.  Her choices thoughtfully included my likes (chocolate and honey) as well as some fun, and healthy selections as well:

• Dr. Oetker Organic Brownie Mix - We eat a lot of brownies around here so I always keep a box mix around for those nights when we all are jonesing for some chocolate and I'm too lazy to make anything from scratch.  Can't wait to make these!
• Gunter's Pure Honey Comb - Honey is perhaps one of my favorite things in the world so I literally squealed when I pulled this out of the box.  Susan said she 'hearted' the jar and the honeycomb.  Me too!
• Justin's Maple Almond Butter - I love these little packages of nut butters and loved this one with its maple sweetness.  It was the perfect treat for lunch.
• Luna S'mores Bar - My daughter and I are big fans of Luna bars and the S'mores flavor was yummy!
• Clif Kid Organic Fruit - Susan wrote this was an alternative to sugary gummies and goodness knows I need to find alternatives to my many sugar cravings so this was much needed and appreciated!

Susan was a joy do this with and I am so glad I participated.  Thanks again for everything, Susan!

This was such a fun and interesting experience.  I love to shop for food and it's not very often I get to shop for someone else.  My pen pal Jean is a vegan.  I'm not gonna lie - I was freaked out for a minute.  I mean I use copious amounts of butter, cream, and bacon in my cooking so the vegan lifestyle is not something I'm all that familiar with.  But learning and doing things outside of your comfort zone is part of the beauty of a project like this. 

Jean quickly put me at ease with her sense of humor and told me that they eat vegan for health reasons and not ethical ones and not to stress about it.  But I wanted to respect her choice and stick with vegan foods.  Since most perishable items are out I knew trying to find vegan friendly options that I could ship would be a bit of a challenge.  But after reading a lot of labels and asking myself lots of questions, I found items that not only were vegan, but that I would eat as well including vegan sprinkles, sweet Spanish tortas, dried seaweed, marshmallow cereal bars, and a package of soup bean mix made here in Kentucky.  

Foodie Pen Pals was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to doing it again!