The Munchies Blog

A while ago, I had sent off a food parcel. When I returned from two weeks in Sweden last Thursday, I was quite surprised to see that it had somehow found its way back — in a new wrapping and filled with lots of goodies from England :) Thanks a lot, Katrin!

I managed to forget my camera’s battery and the compact flash card in Sweden, so this blog entry has to survive without any pictures. Sorry, folks!

The parcel contained

• A small bag of Hearty’s salted soy nuts.
• A cranberry and macadamia bar made by Eat Natural.
  
• Three small bars of Green&Black’s organic chocolate: Milk, White and Maya Gold.
• A bag of Organic Bombay Mix.
• A package of Desert Cajun Rub “proudly hand-made in Australia” by Screaming Seeds Spice Co.
• 2 vanilla pods in a very nice silver tube.
• A book with chocolate recipes, apparently from a series called “cook specials” by Oil&Vinegar (which is a shop in Bath, if I remember correctly).
• An organic almond biscotti (or whatever the proper singular form is) “made for Caffè Nero”, a café in Bath that I’ve heard mentioned once or twice or maybe a few more times…
• And, last but not least, a pencil sharpener with a wind-up flower (the head can rotate) which has removable eraser leaves. Or something. I guess I’ll have to take a picture of this as soon as I’ve got a working camera…

So far, I’ve tried the soy nuts (nice but a bit weird) and the cranberry and macadamia bar (ok for a granola bar, but somehow not quite my taste). But the biscotti thingy is definitely in danger now ;)

Yay for food parcels, especially those that also come with toys!

Somehow it feels like Katrin is trying to get the title “the great munchies hunter” ;) A while ago, she sent in a picture of “Les Munchies”, a sandwich place in Bath, UK. When she was in Bochum the last time, she brought me a package of Munchies made by Nestlé, which she apparently found lurking around in a shop at Bristol airport (well, the Munchies were lurking, I wouldn’t know about Katrin as I wasn’t there).

They taste like, hm, well, I guess like it’s to be expected. Cheapish chocolate with caramel and a tiny biscuit. Something that probably wants to be a Twix when it grows up. Not too horrible altogether, but I don’t think I’d buy it. But thanks anyway :)
A fun thing I read somewhere on the Internet is that apparently, the message on the package side changes (in case it’s not obvious from the picture, the message on mine read “devour me” before I opened the package).

Last week, I signed up for DFssgF 1, the German version of Euro Blogging by Post. I’d already given up hope that my parcel would arrive today — and then the doorbell rang and a neighbor delivered a parcel for me :) I was at home all day, so I guess the parcel delivery guy got scared away by all the scaffolding around the house and didn’t even try to deliver it directly.

Anyways, back to the parcel. Unfortunately, all I know about the sender is that he’s someone called Jens, and that he’s from Bonn. I had kindof expected to find the link to the sender’s blog inside the parcel… There’s one thing I can guess about Jens though: he seems to like Korean food.

At least, that’s what I got: a weird mixture of probably even weirder Korean food. Me, who’s definitely sceptical about Asian food! Oh well, that’s a chance to try out something new, I guess ;) And Andreas is quite happy.

The contents are (on the picture, clockwise starting from top left):

• Roasted Seasoned Laver.
• A can of Sweet Cinnamon Punch (on the side of the can, it says “Expired Date Prints On The Bottom”)
• Two tinfoil-wrapped, erm, rice rolls wrapped in seaweed? Or something? Seriously, I don’t have a clue about this stuff.
• A bowl of instant noodles. Without a single word I understand on the packaging (well, except for “bowl noodles”). And a picture that promises something like chilli peppers and something red as the flavor. Hmmm. I guess I’ll give this one to Andreas and watch from a safe distance…
• A very pink package with miniature chocolate-filled cookies. They’re nice. And all gone already :)
• A package with, hm, chocolate-covered cookie sticks, or something. The ingredient list says “wheat flour, sugar”. No mention of chocolate. They look good too, though.

Well, thanks a lot Jens! I think you would have made me even happier by sending me at least some instructions on what to do with the food though… Additional thanks go to Rosa for organising the whole thing and to Svenja for mentioning DFssgF in her blog.

For a round-up of DFssgF 1, go here.

Oh, and one more thing: I’ve been told that this blog entry doesn’t sound too enthusiastic. I’m sorry — I managed to catch a bad cold and find it fairly difficult to write cheerful things while my head feels like it’s wrapped in several layers of wool… I’m definitely happy about the parcel!

And another update: the sender is this Jens.

I just signed up for DFssgF 1 (”Deutsche Foodblogger schicken sich gegenseitig Fresspakete”), a German version of Euro Blogging by Post. That means that in a few days I’ll get the address of a fellow German foodblogger — and then I’ll have to come up with a few nice things to put into a parcel and send off to him/her. Of course, I will get a similar parcel in return. Whee, food surprises ;)

I just found a not-quite-serious Periodic Table of Desserts — “A Scientific and Rigorous approach to patisserie — in Full Color”.

That page also has links to flavor wheels to describe the taste of several foods and drinks, for example beer, wine, coffee, cheese, chocolate and, of all things, maple products.

On a related note: I just added Cooking for Engineers to our link section. The recipes there are written in a fairly “scientific” way, with pictures of the ingredients as well as of the finished food. One special thing on the site is the special tabular recipe layout (”patent pending”). This is difficult to describe, so head over and check it out, for example on today’s “Recipe File of the Day”, Simple Tiramisu.