Foodie Penpals Reveal: November

I'm a day late for my November Foodie Penpal reveal, but, as the old saying goes, better late than never! My tardiness is in no way a reflection on the quality of this month's parcel, because it was quite a treasure trove full of tasty things:

By coincidence, both the person to whom I mailed a package, and the person from whom I received a package this month are Dutch. Thus, while I sent a taste of Cornwall off to Milou in Naaldwijk, Marjolein purchased a collection of Dutch goods for me to sample here in the UK.

The savory items included 2 sausages--boerenmetworst and rookworst--and a dark grained bread known as roggebrood. To my relief, Marjolein sent instructions about how to prepare/eat the sausages. This was extremely helpful because my husband and I were unsure of what to do with the last sausage we received, and now we can rest assured that the meat has received the correct preparation. In the case of the rookworst, this involves boiling the sausage in its packaging; the boerenmetworst, on the other hand, can be eaten as-is. Marjolein also sent instructions about the roggebrood, which, again, was extremely helpful. It reminds me of some bread that my husband was given last time he was in France. It was a very hard, dry sort of bread, and we had no idea how it should be eaten. For the roggebrood, Marjolein suggests adding butter and syrup.

There were also several sweet items in my package. The first was a box of strawberries-and-cream tea, which I think sounds delicious. Marjolein was unaware that I am a tea fanatic, so that was just a lucky guess on her part. She also sent along a package of chocolate, molded into the shape of a "C." I assume that refers to "chocoladeletter," but I'm going to pretend that it is in honor of my name.

Another sweet item is mix for a spice cake that I believe I may prepare for an upcoming Christmas get-together; what better way to enjoy the "speculaastaart" than to taste it for the first time with friends? Marjolein thoughtfully translated all of the baking instructions into English, which saves me the pain of typing it all into Google Translate and keeping my fingers crossed that the resulting recipe is accurate.

Finally, I received two bags of Dutch hard candies--"roomboterwafeltjes," or butterscotch waffles, and "dropbielzen," or licorice drops. So far I have only opened the former, and I can attest that they are delicious. I have always loved butterscotch sweets; I used to eat them out of my grandparents' candy dish when I was a little girl.

This is my last Foodie Penpals for at least a month, since we are taking a break around the holidays, and then I may have to skip January since I'll be trekking around Kenya. I've still got several items stocked away from previous packages, though, so it's probably good for me to take a little time off and devote myself to eating all the leftovers up.

On that thought, thanks again to Marjolein, and to all my other 2012 Foodie Penpals. I'll be looking forward to my first package of 2013!