October Foodie Pen Pals

This was my first month participating in Foodie Pen Pals, a fun program I found during some lazy Saturday online surfing. Honestly I'm not even sure how I happened upon Lindsay's site, but it's quite impressive how organized she is with everything!

Here's a quick blurb on how the Pen Pal program works:

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal! 
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. 
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. 

So basically you get a box from someone and you send a box to someone else. It seems like a great way to network with other bloggers and foodies alike. This month I was matched to receive a box from Natalie over at  Free Range Human and to send a box to Nina at SweatingIt. Being that I live in Japan, I wanted to be able to share some local treats with Nina, so check out what I sent her! Being paired with Natalie turned out to be one of those "It's such a small world" type situations- she and her husband live within spitting distance from where my husband grew up! Crazy, huh? 

Here's what was in the box from Natalie:

• One loaf of homemade pumpkin pound cake
• Apple butter
• Pumpkin butter (UH-mazing)
• Cinnamon Apple Spice Tea
• Bare Naked Fit Granola

What a wonderful autumn-y themed package! The pound cake was tasty for sure but my favorite treats were the butters, since we cannot get those out here at all. I'll definitely have to hide them from my husband, who would eat the entire jar with just a spoon if I let him have at it! The apple butter will be put to great use very soon when I make more of my Apple Pie French Toast. Maybe I'll have to make a pumpkin version for Thanksgiving!! Decisions, Decisions.

Thanks again, Natalie! Otis thanks you too, since I gave him a small bite of pound cake. After which he promptly begged for 5 minutes then looked annoyed with me when I gave him his favorite toy instead of more treats.