A lovely surprise - Blogging by Mail with Smita

Hooray! I received the best surprise in the mail today, because a parcel for Blogging by Mail arrived for me from Smita at Smita Serves You Right. I had it sent to work so that it didn't get sent back to the post office, and had great fun opening it with Patsy and Amy.

Smita knows what I love, because I received lots of wonderful sweet treats plus some spicy sauce. I myself can be a little bit sweet and a little bit spicy, so I thought that Smita's selection was perfect.

Smita's note was written on this lovely paper, in which she gave some background to the goodies that she sent to me, plus some history of the store where she bought them, Wegmans. I have been to a Wegmans once during a tour of the US, and loved the fact that it was so huge (and sold cut-price brand name cosmetics!!).

Here are some closeups of the treats that Smita sent:

A huge bottle of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que "sensuous slathering sauce" from a popular Rochester, New York watering hole of the same name.

A bottle of New York maple syrup - maple syrup is very expensive here and I love cooking with it, so I am stoked about this!

A packet of Paul Newman's own chocolate wafers - don't you love the packet design!! I have also now had my question asnwered about what "wafers" are in the US. A lot of US recipes use wafers, but here, a wafer is a thin, multi-layered flaky biscuit interposed with thick icing, which you could not use for a cheesecake base or a trifle.

And last but certainly not least, a block of Ghirardelli Toffee Interlude chocolate - which is a deep, dark chocolatey experience spotted with crunchy toffee - yum!!!!

Thanks so much Smita! Also, a big thanks to Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness for carrying out the not-so-small task of organising Blogging by Mail.