A Taste of Ohio

Recently April of Abby Sweets and Megan of Megan's Cookin put together a food swapping event called Tastes like Home. Local goods were exchanged by all and the above pictured goodies are what came in my care package from Becke of Columbus Foodie. One can tell just from her blogs name that she is proud of her local food and with cause to be. The Ohio food she sent me was just wonderful. You may have even noticed that there are a couple of empty packages up there. Uh huh. That's because I ate and used them up so fast I couldn't even catch them on film.

The first empty bottle you'll see sitting atop the sweet pepper relish was some of her homemade chive blossom vinegar. Insane how good it was. Just insane. Some of it was eaten with bread and olive oil and most of it was used in a small batch of pickled gypsy peppers. The sweet pepper relish is just about gone now and has been used lavishly in sandwiched for the past week.

The next empty package is the candied rosemary walnuts. They were gone quickly. Mostly eaten out of hand, but some were saved to be picked at alongside a grilled peach topped with the rosemary infused honey up in the top right hand corner, which sits on another homemade item, apple pie jam. Heck yes. Another jam in there is an apricot chai jam that is delicious on sourdough toast.

And then there are the things that have not been opened yet: a bottle of Ohio maple syrup, cranberry chutney and a bag of very nice looking mixed beans. Oh, I'll get to them, though. Just give me a couple more days and I'm sure they'll be just as ravaged as the rest.

Thanks Becke for a mighty enjoyable taste of Ohio and thanks to April and Megan for dreaming up such a lovely event.