Blogging By Mail

I love the Internet primarily because it makes the world a smaller place, and it opens up so many opportunities, particularly among the food-loving community. It's through the Internet that I've met fabulous people (Hello, DH and hello, Tatonka Family) and had the chance to experience things I would not otherwise have experienced. Recently I took part in a Blogging By Mail exchange, with a foodie twist. Organised by Stephanie over at The Happy Sorceress, the plan was to send 10 food or food-related items to someone. This was not an even exchange, so the person you sent your goodies to was not the person you received it from. I was lucky enough to get a box of treats from Tammy over at Boston Food & Whine.

She sent me a whole lot of Autumn inspired foods and treats from her local area - I adore getting mail of any kind, but getting a themed (to location and season) box was a real treat. Among other things I got the world's biggest container of Marshmallow Fluff, some Pumpkin Butter, a Boston Red Sox Pez dispenser, some candy corn, real Vermont maple syrup, a cookbook...and loads of other delicious, fun things to try. When I got the box it had heaps of quarantine stickers on it - which isn't really unusual to see. As Australia is an island and once bugs get here, we can't get rid of them - quarantine rules are particularly stringent. My niece once sent me some project she made at school and the whole thing was seized because it was in a cardboard egg carton, which is not allowed! Who knew egg cartons were the harbingers of bacterial gloom?

When I opened Tammy's box there was this huge letter with a brochure telling me that an item had been seized. The item was listed as "20g of dried leaves" - so there I was thinking that Tammy was both liberal and brave to be sending me some pot in the mail! I assumed she had seen this blog (because we all got the recipients blog addresses) and maybe she thought I'd make some hash brownies?! Might as well put my baking skills to good use, right?


Quarantine gave me the option of either a) writing and telling them to destroy the item or b) paying to have it shipped back to Tammy. I thought I'd better check with Tammy before I shipped my precious drugs back to her. Turns out the 20g of dried leaves...was exactly that, DRIED LEAVES! She assumed (correctly) that there isn't much here in the way of fall foilage changing colours, so she had collected some leaves from her garden and sent them.

Damn. No pot for me, I guess.

Sadly, you can't smoke a letter from the Quarantine office, no matter how small you chop it up.