I was sitting on the couch in our front room when I heard a knock on our back door. What the hey? Nobody has ever used our backdoor since we’ve lived here. I went to the backdoor. I didn’t see anyone. And so I opened the front door. I saw a UPS truck. How odd. I didn’t think we had ordered anything. I stuck my head out the door. The UPS man saw me and said he had left the package on the back porch. Okay. We’ve never had that before either.
I went to the porch to find a rather large box. At first, I couldn’t see who it was for or from. It does not help matters that one of the last NCIS shows I have watched was about a messed up individual who sought revenge on others by mailing bombs in packages. I finally see the return name. It belongs to Roland’s manager. Okay. Still wondered why it was so big. I found Roland’s name on the package and left it in his office as he was not there to open it. He and Jenna were in Roseburg.
When they returned, I told him about the package. A sympathy basket sent from his work as he had asked to get time off to attend his sister’s funeral. We ended up not going. There are no direct flights from Oregon to Puerto Rico. We (or he) would have had to travel the country taking a tour of airports across the nation before he could get to Puerto Rico. Anywhere from 17 – 25 hours just one way. Too much of a gamble. Especially when the funeral turned into “just a viewing and then a cremation”.
The gift basket was a handsome size in appearance. None of us have gourmet taste buds. It’s the thought that counts, right? We appreciated the thought. For family home evening we had a taste fest. Roland presented Jenna with a small package of Carousel Chocolate creamy caramels. They reminded me of the tootsie rolls candies. The Carousels were softer than tootsie. Jenna liked that. The texture was okay, but I prefer the tootsie roll taste.
There were also some chocolate flavored quadrotti cookies and Monica’s Brownie cookies. It reminded us of assorted cookies that come in tins at Christmas time.
There were Cracked Peppercorn Crackers which reminded me of tiny crip flour tortillas.
Lots of spreads including hummus (which we didn’t open as none of us are humus fans), Sonoma Jacks Garlic & Herb Cheese Wedges which Roland had passed out to eat on their own. The garlic was strong. I took the cheese knife (which was included in the basket) and spread it on some crackers. Roland said the Daniele Friuli Brand Sopressata Salame would need to be refrigerated but he and Jenna would probably eat it all before it even made it to the kitchen. I noticed this morning that it hadn’t even been opened.
There was a hot honey mix. They weren’t kidding. So spicy the honey could barely be tasted. Veggie Sticks put out by the Daily Crave, two fruit delights from Liberty Orchard. Roland cut them so we could all taste the soft candy chew with the powdered sugar. The package had said blueberry and almond. I thought they were good but failed to recognize what I was tasting.  |
| top container with hot honey mix, bottom shows cookie variety |
Our favorite cookie overall was coconut flavored. She didn’t seem impressed with the Zebra Popcorn which tasted like caramel corn married a candy bar. It was overly sweet, but I liked it. I finished it this morning.
Gift baskets are expensive. It’s mostly packaging, too. For inside of each box was a pouch about half the size which contained the final product. We managed to pile all the cookies into a lidded container. I put the hot honey mix in a smaller container. But if we had dumped all the open contents into just one container, it would have been the size of a small to medium mixing bowl.
