Doesn’t everyone love getting post? It can’t just be me! Though I’m just as happy sending post too, so when I saw a post from Meredith, on her blog Kaffee und Kuchen, which combined post with food, well, I was straight in there signing up.

Foodie Pen Pals is an idea from a US blogger which was turned into a reality for European foodies by the wonderful Carol Anne at This is Rock Salt. Each month you get assigned a person to send a food parcel to, another person will send you a parcel and you can try some delicious foodie treats that you might not have tried before and in my case mostly can’t get in Germany. This is my first quarter post on what I’ve received by some fabulous foodie Pen Pals so far.

In month one I got paired with a Brit called Ada. After a long wait, the parcel got returned (the importance of a return address people) and had to be resent. I opened the parcel and found that she had picked really well. Feeding my nutty addiction and helping me put together an altogether more flavourful spaghetti bolognese. Those Gin-Gins though, wow, so spicy that MrC had to take them off my hands, he loved them. I don’t know how I got so lucky to get a pack of my favourite tea ever, and something that I haven’t been able to find here yet. Thumbs up.

In month two I got paired with another Brit called Kat, who wrapped everything in the package and drew that great pug card below! There was a lot of squealing when I was unwrapping these packages, it was totally like Christmas, the best kind of Christmas because there is proper tea and marmite. A moments silence please, for the bag of double crunch peanuts (I didn’t even know that they existed) that were demolished pretty darn fast, so good, so good. The gorgeous rose petals go beautifully on my pistachio cupcakes with rose frosting, and proper biscuits are always welcome here. The tea created an international incident slight friction since MrC is a Yorkshireman and likes his Yorkshire tea, but they are now safely stored away from each other, so as not to allow any cross contamination. Yes in this house we take tea very seriously. Excellent.

In month three my package came from Kamile in Lithuania, who send me some traditional goodies. This included a Šakotis, which is the things in the middle of the picture. The plastic had torn slightly in transit (so it really had to be eaten straight away) and the small was so delicious and buttery that I made some coffee and it vanished pretty quickly. The snacks were all so different from ones I’ve had before and I’m a sucker for mini salamis any day and the orange chocolate got gobbled up by a grateful chocolate orange lover here. Superb.

So far I’ve sent parcels to the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland. I even got to send one to a fellow blogger who I’ve been following for years (her blog that is, not in a stalkerey way) and you can find her at Confuzzledom. It has been a challenge to create a different box for each person, part of the process is a list of questions to make sure that you receive foods that you’ll (hopefully) enjoy, that work with your dietary requirements and that you can use (or just eat) in a way that suits you. Generally the people I have sent parcels to have been really open to anything, but having too much choice itself can be a hard enough job.

I’m definitely picking up more tips and being more creative with what I can get in a box, there’s a fine balance between getting a good selection of products and keeping the box relatively light so posting doesn’t cost the earth. I’m already planning for next months box, matches come out today, so it might be too late to join in this month but if you love food and post. I’d recommend you sign up.