Blogging by Mail - My Favourite Things

When I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favourite things, and then I don't feel so bad.

Rodgers and Hammerstein, My Favourite Things

Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness has once again organised Blogging by Mail, with a theme of "A Few of My Favourite Things". I have always vicariously enjoyed Blogging by Mail through reading about the surprise parcels jetting around the world between food bloggers. However, this time, I am actually a participant, so I am over the moon! It was fun putting together a parcel to send, and the hardest part was deciding what NOT to include.

Today, I received my parcel from the lovely Katie B at Other People's Food. Just like me, Katie is a relatively new blogger, and this is her first BBM. It was so exciting opening each new treasure, individually wrapped in gorgeous floral tissue. A picture of the contents of my parcel is featured at the top of this post.

In my BBM parcel, I received:

- A copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, which Katie says changed the way she looked at food. I look forward to reading it and hope to be similarly enlightened;

- A jar of apple butter from Toigo Orchards in Shippensburg, PA, which Katie says is made by her friend's family and is her favourite breakfast treat. I am sure that it will taste devine on a warm crumpet on a cold Melbourne morning;

- A box of fair trade chocolates made by Theo Chocolate of Seattle, WA. The flavours sound wonderful - burnt sugar, lemon, peanut butter and jelly, fig-fennel, mint and ivory coast (and I love chocolate!!);

- A packet of Intelligentsia Fair Trade Organic Bolivian Coffee - which will be perfect for my new coffee machine that I won at work;

- A Microplane mini zester - Katie, you must have ESP! I have needed a zester forever so that I stop scraping the skin off my thumb by zesting using the grater attachment from my mandolin without the guard; and

- Katie's favourite blueberry muffin recipe from February 2007 Food and Wine magazine. Katie says that even her husband likes these muffins, despite hating fruit muffins. As I am a fan of fruit muffins, I can't wait to try this recipe.

Katie, thanks so much for sharing this wonderful parcel of your favourite things!