I know, I know... It's September now isn't it? Autumn is looming eerily upon us, although it feels like we're still waiting for summer. But this post is better late than never! This month I received a parcel from Carl Legge of http://www.carllegge.com/ fame. He is a permaculturalist living on a peninsula in Northern Wales, so we are quite far removed from each other, but looking at his blog I was very excited to see what would arrive this month. I would thoroughly recommend his blog for reading! Unfortunately, we had some trouble with a certain courier (who I'm sure will never be trusted again!) who managed to damage the box and it ended up leaking. Part of me is still suspicious that "damaged" meant the delivery driver eating it's contents but we will never know.
Today my box arrived and a small crowd gathered at work to watch me open it. It was very clearly very well protected this time, as I pulled back the multiple layers of bubble wrap, feeling like a kid at Christmas. Carl's box was lovingly put together with a comprehensive letter of explanation, two recipes and everything labelled gorgeously.
Drum roll please for the contents of my box...
Three different types of garlic... Three. I nearly had an aneurysm. These are all homegrown by Carl. There's Early Purple Wight, Garlic Music and Chesnoil White. I am in garlic heaven. I've made three different garlic butters for Rob and myself to do a tasting with. We both favoured the Early Purple White variety as it seemed to have a more pungent flavour than the others. Vampires beware!
A bottle of homemade chilli oil. Everyone who had eaten my food knows that I get a bit enthusiastic with the chilli. I even put fresh chillis on my salads at lunch. Carl warned that this may be a little bit hot but I tried some straight away and it has a lovely kick to it! Not too hot for this daredevil however... He also included the recipe for this, so I will be making my own supply shortly.
Then came the Billy Bars... I will share with you what Carl had told me about their name as it's a great story...
"The name of these spiced muesli bars is an old one with a family history.I wanted healthy but tasty bars for my young son which didn’t have the processed sugars and fats in of most commercial ones. So I invented my own. Now when my son was little (and even now) if he asked what something was called I would answer William” as a joke. So when I was looking for a name for these bars, I chose the alliterative ‘Billy Bars’."
I tucked into one of these immediately and shared it with a few colleagues. It was very well received! Tasty but without the guilt of having a donut or some other artery clogging treat.
Finally was a Soda Bread Mix. My experiments in baking bread have been less than successful in the past. Paul Hollywood I am not. But Carl assures me that I'll be fine with this one! It's a mix of wholemeal spelt flour and white tybalt flour from his favourite Welsh Water Mill, Felin Ganol, in Ceredigion. He has included a great recipe from Dan Lepard’s book Short & Sweet, which I will hopefully be trying this weekend! Please cross everything you can for me.
Carl also included a beautiful egg candle made by Deb, which I have added to my already worryingly big collection of candles.
I've been very lucky to have such great foodie pen pals so far, and am already planning for the next swap. If you love food, this is a great project to get involved in and you don't need to have a blog to be a pen pal! The Europe branch is up to 200 members and growing, so I implore you to "get involved". Think of all the tasty food you could be receiving every month!
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