July is the second time that I participated in Foodie Penpals and I love it. Nothing beats the excitement of finding out who your penpals will be for the month, putting together a special box for the person you’re sending a box to, and receiving and opening your box from your other penpal. I love how everything remains a mystery until the end of the month as well.

I sent my box to Sarah of At Home for Dinner. You can pop on over to see the goodies I put together for her.

This month’s box was sent by Anna, a reader, all the way from Whidbey Island, Washington. Judging by the images I’ve seen, I would love to travel there. My mom says we went to Washington when I was about 9-months-old, but to me that doesn’t really count.

A first look at the box, the card, the magazine, and huckleberry tea with a thoughtful description.

The first thing I noticed about my box, when I opened it, was the aroma. It smelled like fruit and I couldn’t wait to find the source. I also loved that everything was local to the Seattle area. Here’s a look at all of my goodies:

• Edible Seattle cooking magazine
• Quinoa spaghetti
• Bing cherries in whiskey (made by Anna herself)
• Albacore tuna from Island Trollers Whidbey Island, Wa
• 3 Trio nut, seed, and fruit bars: tropical, strawberry, blueberry
• smoked salt milk chocolate caramels
• Huckleberry tea bags from Seattle (this is where the aroma came from)

Homemade bing cherries in whiskey.

I have to admit, at first I wasn’t really sure what to do with these cherries. Anna said she made cocktails with them, so I decided to invent a new concoction. I seeped some of the huckleberry tea and iced it. Then I added a few spoonfuls of the cherry juice (whiskey and brown sugar) and a couple cherries to some tequila blanco and topped it off with the huckleberry iced tea. It turned out pretty good.

Albacore Tuna from Seattle. By far the best tuna I have ever tasted.

The can says to not drain the juice from the tuna because of all the nutrients it has, and Anna’s card said it’s so rich that I wouldn’t need mayo. And she was right. I grabbed this one day for lunch at work. All I added to it was a hard boiled egg and just a little bit of salt, and it was delicious.

Three trio bars and a look at the blueberry flavored one. Kind of reminds me of bird seed, but is definitely better tasting.

Box of salted caramel chocolates.

Check out what other foodie penpals members received this month.

Interested in becoming a Foodie Penpal? If you’re interested in participating for August, please CLICK HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and conditions. You must submit your information by August 4th as pairings will be emailed on August 5th!

Here’s how the program works:

-On the 5th of the 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 can choose 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 Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK 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, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!