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Unexpected Food Gifts

liuzhou

By liuzhou
in Food Traditions & Culture

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FauxPas

FauxPas

Posted
Posted
13 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Left for me at the office today - company called FoodiePages. Looks like our own @Alleguede has some items in their catalogue. 

 

Thanks for mentioning the company name! I sometimes send gift baskets/food gifts to friends and relatives in Ottawa area and I'm always looking for something new. 

 

Good that they didn't include chocolate in your gift, "coals to Newcastle", etc.   😄

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Kerry Beal

Kerry Beal

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

 

Thanks for mentioning the company name! I sometimes send gift baskets/food gifts to friends and relatives in Ottawa area and I'm always looking for something new. 

 

Good that they didn't include chocolate in your gift, "coals to Newcastle", etc.   😄

There was one chocolate thing in there - the salted caramel crackle. 

Edited by Kerry Beal (log)
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KennethT

KennethT

Posted
Posted

My friend came back from Thailand and all  she brought me was 5 different curry pastes, 2 chilli pastes, 2 shrimp pastes, 2 loose leaf teas, and some impossible to find spices...

 

PXL_20221114_015414022.thumb.jpg.57328e002a754951a397aff5a31463b2.jpg

 

Oh, and some celadon potteryPXL_20221114_014630996.thumb.jpg.ea15b53f2bde07a2ff6991d646b7746e.jpg

 

 

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ElsieD

ElsieD

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, KennethT said:

My friend came back from Thailand and all  she brought me was 5 different curry pastes, 2 chilli pastes, 2 shrimp pastes, 2 loose leaf teas, and some impossible to find spices...

 

PXL_20221114_015414022.thumb.jpg.57328e002a754951a397aff5a31463b2.jpg

 

Oh, and some celadon potteryPXL_20221114_014630996.thumb.jpg.ea15b53f2bde07a2ff6991d646b7746e.jpg

 

 

 

What a great friend!

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KennethT

KennethT

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

What a great friend!

Oh yeah.  This kind of haul was comletely unexpected.  I knew she was going to bring back some curry paste - we had discussed how to pack it so it didn't stink up her luggage but I didn't expect 5 different ones plus all the rest! 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Darienne

Darienne

Posted
Posted (edited)

Warning:  long story:  We now have a cleaning lady who comes every two weeks.  She's has become a young friend which is lovely.  She's the age of our youngest.  She and her husband are financially worth ten of us.   I note that only because most cleaning ladies are not financially well off.  She owns the cleaning company but loves to clean and picks her clients according to some set of criteria...mostly old and to quote her own words concerning me... 'you really are a dear old lady'.  

 

Background now set.  Her husband has some kind of incredible job where he travels a lot and last month he and the other executives went on a fishing trip where he caught many salmon.  Neither my friend nor her husband like salmon at all.   Today, cleaning day, every second Tuesday, she brought me I'd say roughly $75.00 worth of freshly caught salmon frozen professionally in water.  I was stunned to put it mildly.  Talk about an unexpected food gift. 

 

I am now going to make her a raspberry pie ice cream.  Like my apple pie ice cream, but with raspberries. 

 

Oh, and feed her some salmon cooked by Ed in two weeks time.  She said she cooked it once and it was just awful. 

Edited by Darienne (log)
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Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted

At lunch today wth my ladies Dympna brought each of a packet of these molasses crisps - dark chocolate. One of my favorite items always in the See's assortment. 

IMG_1853.jpg

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted

And at the same ladie's lunch (5 of us) after finishing  our meals, amd chatting a long time, my friend who manages the plaza went in. When she returned I leaned over amd said "silly you - did youjust pay the bill?  - reply " I tried but my plumber paid bill and tipped" He was working at one of the offices or stores, saw our group amd treated us. Think that counts :) We did pay it forward and gifted our leftovers when we ran into another contractor for Verizon in parking lot. He teased us about feeding him lunch and we said to help himself to our packaged leftovers. 

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Smithy

Smithy

Posted
Posted

Our housesitter gave us some of her home-harvested, home-boiled maple syrup before we left for the winter. I'm not usually a fan of maple flavor, but this is the Real Deal and it's delicious. My husband quipped that we should see if we can get more from her next season. A quart, maybe, instead of the cup jar that she gave us. We had some with breakfast a few days ago.

 

Three other unexpected food gifts, still to be opened: pickled beets, dilly beans, and raspberry jam. I gave my great-niece a lot of my spare kitchen equipment to help her set up housekeeping now that she's out of college. When she and her mother came to collect the stuff, they brought these gifts from their (massive and ambitious) garden. I'm told that they refer to the dilly beans as cocktail beans, but since we don't do cocktails often I expect to just break into them and have them with dinner one evening. The beets are beautiful. 

 

20221124_113435.jpg

  • Like 9

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  • 1 month later...
liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)

Not really a 'gift' as such, although that's how they describe it. Obviously the cost is factored into what you actually order.

I ordered some sea grapes online. I can't buy them in any stores here - they are Vietnamese.

 

Anyway they came with these irrelevant condiment bags.

 

condiments.thumb.jpg.32a5ba15b77ff881e18663312066b60e.jpg

 

I'm guessing most of you will be able to work out what the three on the left are. In the middle column, we have  (top) 芥末 (*abbreviated to just 芥） which is that horse radish or mustard that has been dyed green to pretend to be wasabi which it ain't - and soy sauce. Bottom is honey mustard. Right is a sachet of chilli powder (??).

Bizarre. I'll probably never use them.

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

  • 2 weeks later...
liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)

I ordered myself a wedge of Grana Padano online. It arrived today with a 'free' grater. Damn! I now have seven cheese graters ranging from a traditional box grater, traditional ginger grater (which gets used with cheese too), two microplanes and four of these! I might have to give up my favourite grating cheese if they send one every time.

 

grana padano.jpg

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
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Anna N

Anna N

Posted
Posted

CCAA6383-A8FA-4B9C-BAE6-24A82116C35E.thumb.jpeg.ae930619f75125dbb9350e0e55cecc68.jpeg

Two of my favourite snacks arrived on a day when not very much was going right. 

 

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted

Noice those look like the mildly sweet rice crackers I and the kids enjoyed.

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

A friend saw this and thought I'd like to have it. She wasn't wrong!

 

268562358_CheeseCutter1.thumb.jpg.086418416d9c29f627fcfdbd87fb4252.jpg

 

1970055976_CheeseCutter2.thumb.jpg.c1b33a1b7b6b233d50124a4b7fd4977d.jpg

 

 

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

ElsieD

ElsieD

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, liuzhou said:

A friend saw this and thought I'd like to have it. She wasn't wrong!

 

268562358_CheeseCutter1.thumb.jpg.086418416d9c29f627fcfdbd87fb4252.jpg

 

1970055976_CheeseCutter2.thumb.jpg.c1b33a1b7b6b233d50124a4b7fd4977d.jpg

 

 

 

Nice!

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)

Now I am baffled.

 

This afternoon I received a delivery, clearly marked for me with my name, address and phone number. It contained nine 525g cans of "Military Specific Reserve" stewed beef from Russia! I have no idea who sent it or why. The cans are only labelled in Russian but a sticker has been applied to the top with Chinese.

 

beef1.thumb.jpg.181f9594f256218f4611c645bc7285b2.jpg

 

beef2.thumb.jpg.da5afd6dc89fa4eaec99d59c2e35e8b1.jpg

 

beef3.thumb.jpg.2b99cf4b568e91cbfa4c8f022b927958.jpg

 

Bizarre. This is not something I would even eat. The local cats are in for a treat.

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Anna N

Anna N

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, liuzhou said:

This is not something I would even eat.

Very strange. I hope you get to the bottom of it. Perhaps a friend ordered something for you and the supplier screwed up. 

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
4 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Very strange. I hope you get to the bottom of it. Perhaps a friend ordered something for you and the supplier screwed up. 

 

I'm thinking I must have ordered something from that supplier in the past and their database has thrown up the wrong customer.

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Anna N

Anna N

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

I'm thinking I must have ordered something from that supplier in the past and their database has thrown up the wrong customer.

That could explain things. 

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

FauxPas

FauxPas

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, liuzhou said:

It contained nine 525g cans of "Military Specific Reserve" stewed beef from Russia!

 

You could resell it on eBay. 😆 

 

Someone in Sochi, Russia is selling cans of something similar for $22.50 US per can. And they were canned in 2017 with a shelf life of 4 years! 😮

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184911103816

 

Or this one from Ukraine. $49.90 US. 😕 Not sure what to say about this listing. 

Russian soldier s canned trophy Army Tushonka - canned meat War 2022 Ukraine

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