spoiled!

"You'd better hurry up and take a photo, before I eat the rest of it" said Gavin about the chocolate, as we explored the contents of my Canada Day Swap parcel from Mary in beautiful British Columbia. Chocolate doesn't last very long around here, especially not good dark chocolate. The bar is from Roger's in B.C. - Canada's First and Finest Chocolatier.

For the handmade portion of the swap Mary sent three dishcloths ... and look, when you fold a red one on either side of the white maple leaf cloth it's the Canadian flag! Clever! I'm not sure what yarn she used but it's lovely soft. I might have to use them as facecloths instead; they seem a bit too luxurious for my kitchen sink. Certainly it's a very nice shade of red!

The final required item for this swap is a recipe for Canada Day; Mary included two. There's a coconut salmon recipe and a recipe for a Rhubarb drink. Mary tells a story about how her father created the Rhubarb drink recipe one summer as a strategy to use up a bumper crop of rhubarb from the garden. And how years later a friend sampled her rhubarb juice, then turned around and served her an adult cocktail version - with vodka and Triple Sec added -  at a BBQ the next day. These stories really rang a bell with me. When we were kids my Mom used to get giant burlap bags of carrots, potatoes and onions from her farmer BIL every fall; I know a million recipes for those three vegetables :)

Aren't swaps fun? There always something unexpected and personal that really makes each parcel special. Look for us on Canada Day - we'll be the ones sipping Rhubarb cocktails on the back deck!