Invitation: Canadian Blogging By Post #2: Our Season's Bounty

Our darling Ivonne sent me a plea for help. Tania, the Candied Quince herself, is in a tizzy with exciting things, she had to pass on hosting the second Canadian Blogging By Post. La principessa dei bignè asked me to help out by hosting this parcel-giving extravaganza. Well, of course I said—er—wrote back letting her know that I’d love to do it.

Canadian Blogging By Post (CBBP) began this past spring when Sam of sweet pleasure: plaisir sucré came up with a deliciously chocolaty inaugural theme. I received some lovely packages, filled with chocolate, tea, organic sugar and some fun trinkets and toys and I sent out jars of goodies along with spices from our pantry.

This month’s theme shouldn’t be a surprise (at least not for those who’ve been reading my little bit of e-space recently). No matter what part of this great land we are in—city or country—our stores and markets brim with wonderful foods from our farmers’ harvests—apples, beans, corn, grapes, plums, spinach, tomatoes—it only makes sense for CBBP 2’s theme a spotlight on our season’s bounty.

Here's what you need to know about CBBP:
Canadian Blogging By Post is an exchange of care packages by bloggers who reside in Canada.

Here’s what you need to do to participate:
Prepare a recipe—it could be something you’ve found in a book, a family treasure passed down, or something you’ve created.

• Post your creation onto your site—photographs, although nice, aren’t necessary.
• Send me your entry information—see below for details.
• Assemble a care package and send it off once you’ve received an address—see below for details. *
• Post about the package you receive—again, photographs, although nice, aren’t necessary. *
  

Here’s what your entry must have:
Please email the following details to: cardamomaddict at gmail dot com (I know you know this, but remove the spaces and substitute the “at” and “dot” for their appropriate symbols). I’ll post your initial recipe entry in a round-up of participants.

• Your name
• Your blog’s name
• Your blog’s front page URL
• You’re recipe’s name
• The permalink URL of your Canadian Blogging By Post entry
• Your postal address
• Any food restrictions you have (allergies, dislikes, dietary restrictions, etc.)
  

Here’s what you may want to put in your care package:

• The recipe you posted for CBBP2
• Ingredients (e.g. for your recipe; interesting specialty items; local products or interesting finds from your local farmers’ market).
• An accompaniment that you might pair with the recipe (e.g. a drink, a sweet confection, a photograph, or a text).
• Something homemade (e.g. a card, a handmade craft, a drawing or a sketch).
• Anything else that you would like to include.
• You can put in whatever you want and you can be as creative as you wish. Please ensure what you include is safe and sound for a care package.

The deadline for submitting your entry is Friday 27 October. I will match bloggers up that weekend and send you a postal address. You mail off your package on Monday 30 October. Your parcel, from your mystery sender, should arrive in short order. I’ll post a parcel round up in November.

Things to note:

• Please use your judgement before including anything fresh – beware of spoilage!
• You don’t need to include lots and lots of items in your package. Three or four items are just super.
• Remember, if someone isn’t home, they have to collect it at the post office, so be mindful of weight and size.
• Please try and post the package on Monday the 30th so it's delivered that week rather than sitting at the post office over the weekend.
• If you can, please get a tracking number for your package. This will help follow up with parcels that go astray (yes, it happens).

It’s totally up to you how you interpret this theme. Be creative and have lots of fun with it—don’t get stressed over it if you can’t get to a farmers' market and you are stuck in the 24-hour mega mart at 3am with a half-bald head of cabbage and something that can now pass as an apple head doll. Part of celebrating the harvest is doing the best you can with what you’ve got.

If you need some inspiration as to what you might find at the farmers’ markets (at least those in Ontario), take a look at these two posts:

To market, to market…
…To buy a fat…

We all hope you can take part. If you have any questions, please email me directly and I’ll do my best to get you an answer.

*These are really important to the entire CBBP event, and there were some issues last time around. While we can't take away your blogging privileges, nor get you barred from any restaurant, market or back garden, we can (via our secret and potent CBBP powers), send enough bad vibrations your way to have any pasta you make taste like Chef Boyardee and any chocolate you consume to have the mouthfeel of candlewax. So yes, we'd like you to do this, and no we aren't afraid to use our awesome CBBP powers...

cheers!
jasmine

tags: Canadian Blogging By Post 2

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