Food Brings the World Together: China, Portugal, and US Virgin Islands

After traveling for the month of June, it was nice to come home to a few lovely care packages in the mail.  There was a box from Portugal, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and while visiting my brother in Toronto, he gave us products from his recent trip to China.  Faithful readers of our site know that we love finding out what foodies eat around the world.  We have been lucky to exchange care packages with foodies from Australia, Italy, France, Britain, Montreal, and Arizona.  Our new packages were much anticipated because we have yet to visit China, Portugal, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  So we eagerly opened up the goods to see what sorts of treasures we got.

In addition to the mascots from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, my brother brought us Lay's potato chips in three flavors:  Breezy Blueberry, Black Pepper Rib Eye Steak, and Revitalizing Kiwi. They all smelled like their flavors but tasted very artificial (as expected, I guess).  He also brought back some pricey teas that tasted like seaweed, but was refreshing and acted as a good digestive.
Lovely Viz from the blog, Desperate Houseviz, unfortunately had to re-send her food package to me due to mail issues (I bet it was that volcano ash from Iceland!)  I'm so happy I was able to receive it this time because she sent me a myriad of wonderful items.  (I also loved the stamps!)  We received (1) a can of white fish marinated with garlic, (2) sardines, (3) shell-fish paste, (4) dried tomatoes (from Spain), (5) orange pekoe tea, (6) garlic salt, and (7) fresh oregano.
Lastly, we won this tropical package from Dave's website, My Year on the Grill.  Normally Dave writes about grilling in Kansas, but earlier this year, he and his wife temporarily moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Suffice it to say, they're living the dream!  So from one island to another (Manhattan), we got a taste of the tropics with a rum variety pack, tropical recipes playing cards, and Caribbean rum truffles.
We are also looking forward to using the spice sampler of Voodou Blackening, Island creole, Pirate's pepper, St. John jerk spice, and Cruz bay grill rub.

Thanks to my brother, Viz, and Dave for these great food packages!