Food Greetings from a Friend
I am so lucky to have met the nicest most generous blogger friends. I am not sure exactly how I met Michelle from The Accidental Scientist but I certainly am thrilled. Michelle's site has been funny and informative about things that I have never eaten, drank or even considered trying. That's the best part of being blogger friends; we all live and learn about food via each other. My first lesson about Oregon food was with Michelle's very
first box for me.

It was filled with all kinds of Oregon based foods. I went nuts over the Hazelnuts that she sent me. I think I ate that whole bag over a few days all by myself! Shame on me. I had promised to make something with the hazelnuts. All I did was make pounds for myself. I did eat the little jar of honey and it was savored with every whole wheat English muffin that it was spread on. Hubby and I drank every drop of the Oregon Chardonay and loved it.

I got home from work last week and found a box on my front porch. I didn't remember ordering anything from the mail. Maybe it was the neighbor's box. He can't seem to remember his own home address when he orders car parts for his beloved race car. I looked at the return address and knew this was no mistake. I got a box from Oregon!

I threw down my purse and cut that box open with scissors so fast it surprised me. It was Christmas in April, which is a good thing. This is what I found inside.

I have to talk about these two first items in glowing terms. I love tea. I am not expert by any means but I am learning all the time. I am into Harney& Sons Chocolate Decaf Oolong tea. My new daughter-in-law ordered some for me one year for Christmas and I have been hooked ever since. I now order it on-line and panic if it takes very long for that little brown box to appear on the front porch. Michelle pays attention, far better than I ever guessed! So there was a little bag of Rooibos Spicy Chocolate Seduction tea in the box along with lovely cup and saucer to drink the tea from. The tea is from Savoure.

Here is what it looks like in the tea basket before brewing. I have to say that I really didn't pay close attention to what the tea looked like in my haste to brew it. I boiled the water, poured it into the pot, poured out the hot water, then added more hot water to actually brew the tea. I set the timer on the microwave for 4 minutes and got my new cup and saucer ready for the new brew. Of course I poured just a bit of milk in the bottom of the saucer. I paced and paced, looked at the microwave, unloaded the dishwaser and ding! It was time. It smelled so good. I poured it into the cup and and had a sip. It was good, really good. Then...a little tickle in the back of the throat. What was that?? Did I denote some pepper? HOT PEPPER? Whew! I had to have another sip. There was that tickle again. Okay, now I have to look into the wet tea in the basket. There on the top were three little tiny red things. Oh, lord-there were peppers in there. This called for another look...in the dry tea pouch. There they were, tons of little red chili peppers just waiting to heat up my life. Yummy. I have had never had tea with peppers. It was good. And it shocked me. I loved it. I had to have another pot. I was so taken aback with the spiciness of the tea and that I loved it. So now I have expanded my tea tastes to spicy tea. What a thrill to learn something about my tea tastes.

Here is the complete box contents.
I got two bars of soap. I collect handmade soaps (Michelle knew nothing about this) for a basket in all my bathrooms. I just love them and they each unique and have a story about where it was purchased and usually I get to meet the creator. The first box is a little green box of lettuce soap. It's white so that threw me. I thought for sure it would be green. Nope, just lettuce extract. After my tea experience with those little peppers, I read the soap ingredients. It's surprising what you learn if you only take a moment to read things. Duh! lol!

The second bar of soap is the one with the lovely pattern on the top (let me give you this disclaimer before you click on the link I have provided-there are examples of a shapely naked woman with bare breasts as soap bars-read the site, it has an interesting story about all her handmade soaps.) and it's made from goat's milk. Alsea Acre Alpines has more to offer so check out their homepage.

Next, there was seafood from the god Neptune-CRAB! I live near a huge mecca for crabs. I think that if you live near the Chesapeake Bay it is mandatory that you either love crab, or catch for those who do; plain and simple. I love crab! I have eaten every way you can fix a crab cake in this world. I am not sure where my love for crab came from but who cares. I will make crab cakes with this special can of love from the sea soon and post it here along with the recipe. The recipe wheels are churning! The company is Chuck's Seafood.

I am not sure I should talk about the huge Hazelnuts...I could show you the bag about 6 hours later, but I am sure you all have seen empty bags...need I say more??? I can't get enough of them. I wanted to give you a link to River Bend Farm so you can do business with them, but when I did a search, I couldn't find a site for them. So here is their phone number 541-741-1411.

Thanks Michelle! You are so generous and I do appreciate the love from Oregon.