If you were my partner

. . . my Fall Foodie Swap partner, that is, you would soon be receiving a tasty little package.

Laura over at Cookie Crumbs—the blog documenting her excellent life, cookie business, and bakery in Vermont—hosted this swap. The deal is you swap and then post, but since my partner does not have a blog, I'll hold up both ends on this one, posting what I send and what I get.

It was fun to be paired with someone from Vermont and try to put together a package with the theme California Fall, demonstrating to someone who might be sceptical that we do indeed have a fall. 

My partner and I emailed back and forth a bit to get acquainted, and I discovered that she does not ski, drink wine (how is that possible??), or cook fancy stuff. But lest you think we not have anything in common, imagine my delight when she revealed as a disclaimer to the package she would wrap up for me that SHE DOES NOT SCRAPBOOK. Whoohoo! I wanted to give her a big high-five across the country. Not that there's anything wrong with scrapbooking (a funny friend of mine calls it crapbooking)—the finished products often being nothing short of astonishing—but I just don't. Have not and will not. When I am dead, my daughter will probably be left with a shoebox of photos (before the digital camera) and a few CDs (after the digital camera). My partner and I are also both editors and love our cats and cupcakes. She lives out in the boondocks, and I wish I did.

So there. Let's get this show on the road.

I couldn't find any decent paper to line the box, and so I took some recycled craft paper and hit it with a few stamps. This does NOT qualify as scrapbooking, especially since the way I do it, things not lining up and the stamp not being completely inked are part of the look (heh heh—yeah, right).

I included small a Talavera ceramic bowl because to me nothing says California as much as Mexico. Trust me on this: When I lived in the Boston area in the early 80s, I would practically break down in tears at the sight of a tortilla chip (different from a Dorito, although in Boston at that time only people from California understood this).

I then typed up a little list explaining my rationale behind the contents of the box. I'll spare you, but in addition to the bowl I included a fall-colored dish towel, black flaked salt, spiced fig jam, roasted pumpkin seeds, kalamata olives, and a few branches of rosemary from my yard.

Here we are packed and ready to go. Laura says I have to put this in the mail today, and I can play by the rules when there's a reason (like Laura says so).

My partner says she put her box to me in the mail today too. Post of that coming up as soon as it arrives. 

Aren't swaps fun?