September Foodie Link Up – Best of Chicago Food

It’s October 1st! The kickoff to three months of holiday festivities and it just happens to be Foodie Pen Pal reveal day, too. Each month I participate in The Lean Green Bean’s Foodie Pen Pal link up. What does that mean? It means I get a package full of local goodies and favorites from someone else in the United States and I get to ship someone my favorite Utah foods. It’s been amazing strolling through farmer’s markets and searching out the best Utah foods for my packages. From Logan to Utah County, I’ve found some goodies!

Here is what was in my box:

•  A yummy loaf of banana bread that did not last a day!  Everyone gobbled it up.
• Farm fresh corn
• Fanny Mae chocolates. I divided each of these into four equal parts. We were big fans of these decadent morsels.
• Caramel apple suckers. Tracy was so kind to think of my kiddos! This has definitely been their favorite foodie box we have received.
• Mushroom pate. Love mushrooms, but I have never had mushroom pate. Just bought some crackers this weekend to give it a try with.
• Pumpkin cookie cutter. Can’t wait to make pumpkin sugar cookies with the littles.
• Local blueberry pie jam. I’m a sucker for jams. This one literally did taste like blueberry pie. We had it on pancakes and the children begged for seconds.

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal! 
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month. 
-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. 

To sign up head on over to the Lean Green Bean!