After taking July off from the Foodie penpal due to vacation (no complaints!), I was raring to go for August. I could hardly wait for the start of the month to receive ‘the assignments’ spreadsheet from Carol Anne.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I do two things when I get that sheet. The first thing is I check to see who I get to shop for. I love it when there is a web address, as that sometimes gives me a bit more insight into who I’ll be buying for.  Then, of course, I check to see who will be sending me stuff this month. And it’s the same ritual of checking their website to find out their M.O.

I always try to send a quick note off to my recipient right away so I can get their likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams, etc quickly, which gives me more time to ponder and shop. Then I just sit back and wait for my benefactor to contact me.

This month, I didn’t have to wait too long. Shanna sent me an email right away, and I was delighted to find out my package would be coming from Germany. I’ve had two other out-of-country penpal senders, and you can get some really cool stuff.

This package was not to disappoint! My first response was a squeal of delight as it came in a Nikon D3100 box. This really did exceed all my hopes, and I knew I had fallen into a bit of luck here. Food and a camera! But alas, no . . . it was not to be.

It’s a NIKON D3100 camera!

When I opened the box, I found my pink-inked letter from Shanna, in which she apologised for it not being a nice camera. Well, since she went to all that trouble to apologise, I could hardly hold it against her, right?

What I did find out was that Shanna is also American, and is studying in Germany, so I knew this would be interesting. And she had a brainstorm. She sent me a German breakfast! How cool is that?

What I got was some wonderful German bread rolls that I bake when I’m ready to have them. So they’ll always be fresh and warm. This, I think, is such a great idea. And they’re seedy, which is just my favourite thing in bread.

Home-baked bread rolls

I then found some chicken cabanossi, which is a smoky chicken sausage, and just delicious. This is managed to escape from my breakfast fare and has made it to mid-morning snack, lunch, and late afternoon snack. I’ve tried it with all kinds of dips and sauces. And all seem to work with it.

Chicken Cabanossi

Then came a jar of love . . . er . . . I mean . . . raspberry jam. But hand-picked-raspberries raspberry jam! I love getting someone’s efforts. There is so much of them in that gift (hopefully not literally). And it’s delicious jam. So nice on just-out-of-the-oven bread rolls!

Homemade Raspberry Jam

And then I got two pots of difference pork “pate” with different seasonings in each one. Clearly I had to have several tastes of each to make sure I could tell them apart. Sadly, just as I think I figured that out, the pots were empty!

Leberwurst and Mettwurst

And the final offerings were so welcome to satisfy the sweet-tooth, although I have to admit that I had to save these for later in the day. But definitely worth the wait. I loved the little marzipan bar that is made very near to where Shanna lives. And who doesn’t love Kinder Riegel?

Kinder Riegel and Marzipan

So you can see that I collected a great haul again and have been truly spoiled. Shanna did a wonderful job of selecting and representing her (current) home country.

Danke schön, Shanna.