Just like last year, the Boston and Austin food bloggers staged a food swap, pairing up folks from each city. I sent Sarah from Land of Abe a box full of my favorite goodies (although after I packed it, I thought of twice as many things I had wanted to include). For full details on what I sent, check out her post (including an adorable picture of her daughter!). One thing I had to include: hand-picked honeycrisp apples! They're my favorite kind of apple, and Sarah, who spent some time up in New England, had mentioned that she loved apples. Of course, it helped that apple picking always gives you more apples than you can really eat, so I was happy to share.
I told Sarah I was going to be away at the beginning of October, so she waited a bit to send her package. When I had already been home for a week, though, and it hadn't arrived, I got a sinking feeling.
And then I got the weirdest phone call ever, late in the evening on a Friday. "Hello? I'm calling from the USPS center in Boston. I have a package for you here. It's in the drying vent right now."
"The what?"
"The drying vent. Something in it broke and everything is all wet. You need to come down here, near South Station, and pick it up."
My response was, I think, mostly stupified. I'm sorry, you're calling ME on a Friday night and telling me I have to drive downtown for something YOU broke? Eventually, they called back and said they dried off what they could and would send it along.
A few days later, Sarah's box, wrapped in multiple plastic bags, finally arrived. Inside, I found a bag of Hatch green chile tortilla chips, Queen Bee Caramel and Sea Salt marshmallows, peach preserves from Fredericksburg Farms, and Bar-B-Que sauce from Salt Lick(!). I dug into the tortilla chips right away - they were mildly spicy with just a little bit of sweetness. It's a good thing they don't sell those here in Boston, because I'm pretty sure I would buy them all the time :) The marshmallows were light and fluffy, with little veins of caramel throughout. I'm saving the preserves and sauce for later - especially the sauce for when we can grill outside again. I'm sad that I didn't get to see the other things Sarah sent along, but I'm very happy with the things that did make it :)
(Uh-oh. Just found out that Food Should Taste Good, which makes the sweet potato tortilla chips I sent to Sarah, also makes Hatch Chile chips. They're also located in the town next to where I work. This could be my downfall.)
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