After I offered to send her the pot, we went one better and decided to swap some yarn and other goodies. With the help of her family, Donna Lee immediately set to putting together a lovely package of local goodies from New Jersey and nearby areas. It's only now that I've finally got my parcel on its way to Donna Lee that I'm showing off what I got!
Two gorgeous natural colours of alpaca yarn. Tofutsies sock wool, an unusal blend of wool, soysilk, cotton and chitin (made from shrimp and crab shells, and apparently naturally antibacterial!). A book of New Jersey ghost stories, which was an excellent pick for me, I love ghost stories, I'm reading one, Blue Dahlia at the moment. A pinecone from her backyard. Delicious lemon green tea, which turned out to be the excuse I was waiting for to buy a teapot, thus allowing me to cast on for the wacky aran cabled teacosy from Yarn magazine.
And, salt water taffy from Atlantic City! I had heard of this but had no idea what it was. It's delicious! Not salty exactly, but not super sweet either.
We just might have eaten a few pieces before this picture was taken.
Donna Lee, it was lovely. Not just receiving a parcel of wonderful stuff, but also figuring out what I should send your way. Thanks!
10 comments:
Swaps are so much fun! What thoughtful items. I remember when Donna Lee was mentioning she was putting together a package, but I hadn't realized it was for you.
Oh, lovely things! Lucky you!
oh, such goodies. I'm really curious about the taffy and is taffy just an Americanism for toffee?
It's possible that the words taffy and toffee are related. But this stuff is a soft chewy candy, a bit like Sherbies.
Swaps are one of the highlights of knit blogging, I think! Lovely collection of goodies!
Salt-water taffy is quite different from toffee, I've made both from scratch (ages ago)... taffy is generally pulled a LOT (pull it out, fold it back in half, pull it again etc).
You're lucky Quarantine didn't open the parcel, they would have confiscated the pine cone... natural products (nuts, fruit pieces, leaves, seeds, wood etc) are frowned upon in the mail :/
Taffy and toffee are not interchangeable. Salt water taffy doesn't have much salt in it. It is actually based on a legend that a candy maker was selling candy on the boardwalk and a wave came up and splashed his taffy. Unwilling to throw it away, he repackaged it and called it "salt water taffy". I don't know how true the story is but I have heard it all my life.
I am glad you liked the goodies. I didn't even think about the pine cone being an environmental hazard. How un-ecological of me. Kate is excited to see the photo of her book in Australia!
What a fabulous package! Lucky you!
Just dont mention the pine cone to quarrantine....tsk tsk! ;-) I think its a gorgeous idea. My darling MIL once sent us a huge sprig of live xmas tree - which surprisingly got through! It still smells really strongly, 6 years later!
I have swap-envy, I don't knit so I can't really do a craft swap, but - and clearly it's not the same - but could we do a North/South Canberra swap????!! Or some such??!
What fun! What booty! A truely lovely collection of things that are just the right pick for you.
Although I can't help a mildly hysterical image of you being raided by customs and ending up on one of the terrible 'Border Control!' shows - dogs going wild... K in his underwear swearing...
Wow, you've been well looked after!! That's lovely. If you chuck the pinecone in the freezer overnight, it should kill any little hitchhikers that might be in there!
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