Why yes it could! Offering a free box plus a discounted price if I bought the 6 month subscription package was even more enticing. They saw me coming, cast the line, I opened my mouth wide, and took the bait. Before you could blink an eye I was typing in my credit card info and mailing address. Clicked purchase__hook set!
Well today my free box and my first subscription box arrived. I was very happy to see it on the porch when I came back from the airport after dropping Son3 for his return flight to school. I was almost giddy to see what was in the box, in fact, I did not make it farther than the dining room table before I started the great unboxing. I am enclosing photos of both boxes for your amusement (if you are a sadist) or abject horror (if you follow a tight budget).
You will notice there are nine items pictured here. One of the items from the Brazil box is on the Swedish one. Mea culpa!)
The photo above is the FREE Swedish box. It came with eight items in a beautiful aqua box filled to the brim with excelsior. You know why it had so much excelsior? Because the eight items were very small. I now own for future consumption 5.3 ounces of lingonberry preserves, 3.2 ounces sweet hot honey mustard, 1.4 ounces of sweet licorice (who the hell likes licorice?) 8.5 ounces elderberry syrup, 4.4 ounces double chocolate crisp cookies, 3.5 ounces Swedish flatbread 50 grams of Lofbergs coffee (bonus, it makes 6 cups), and last but not least 2.4 ounces of Nordic fudge with the flavor of sea buckthorn. No idea what sea buckthorn tastes like but its oil is used holistically to treat arthritis, acne and measles. And if any of you are wondering, August is a sucky time to ship fudge to Alabama.
In addition to this haul they give you a few instructions on how to make this a true Swedish experience, like put some ham and cheese on the flatbread. I am glad they suggested it because I would never have thought to put cheese on crackers! Or how about brewing that coffee and eating it with the cookies?
Now lets move on to Brazil to see what treasures can be found there. Once again I got the lovely, exceptionally sturdy aqua box with more excelsior, lots more excelsior. It also features eight items including the errant jam that jumped into the Sweden picture. You have to watch jars of jam at all times because they are sneaky critters.
For my eating pleasure I own 4.94 ounces jabuticaba jam, 2.82 ounces of Brazil nut cookies, 1.76 ounces of churrasco spice mix (dry) 4.58 ounces churrasco sauce (in case the spice blend isn't enough?) 3.5 ounces of traditional Brazilian peanut candy bars, 10.6 ounces of guava paste, 7.05 ounces cheese bread mix (that I have to add my own cheese to) and 5.29 ounces of ground coffee.
Again they included some serving suggestions like having the coffee with the cookies. Those wild and crazy Brazilians!
And this completes my first 2 boxes. I will not publicly give you the name of this subscription service, but I will be happy to let you know privately. Just send me an email. Obviously I am not affiliated with it at all and all this snark and sarcasm is my own unbiased and honest opinion.
I am also not dogging all food subscription services. I know there are some wonderful ones out there, but I am not sure this is one of them. At the very least it is not the one for me, and a month before my six month subscription ends I will be canceling it.
Meanwhile I will use/eat these products and will let you know how delicious/untasty/downright horrid (hear that licorice?) they are.
If this is the worst mistake (financial or otherwise) I make for the rest of my life I will be one lucky duck, but right now I am incredibly pissed with myself
p.s. Just doing the box math I will have at least 5 empty boxes and a mountain of excelsior by Christmas. I decided at least I will have beautifully wrapped presents and nothing will break no matter how hard a "present guesser" shakes the box.
pp.s. The flatbread is truly tasty. It is a tad salty for my tastes but I am not a big salt fan, so take that with a grain of salt!
Well, this impulse buy is certainly giving you entertaining material for your blog. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't like licorice either. Not at all. I think it's one of those things you either like or not. I don't think there is any in between. Some of my friends, who like licorice, say that Swedish is the best. Maybe you can find someone like that who would be thrilled to get it as a Christmas gift.
All 1.4 ounces will be a smashing gift wouldn't it. I can't even use it as a stocking stuffer for anyone in my realm. I am afraid the licorice will just have to disappear. I can't even stand the smell of it.
ReplyDeletei totally love licorice!
ReplyDeleteI also think you got sold a pup but you know, if it's the worst thing to happen you are doing ok
If you were stateside I would send you this licorice! I was the victim of my very own unchecked impulse
DeleteI'm laughing. So sorry you got took, kid. I'm glad they told you how to eat it. What would you do without the instructions.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they are laughing too, all the way to my bank! Thank God for the instructions. I never would have thought of drinking coffee with my cookies.
DeleteThis looks intriguing tho! Please let us know how you eat some of this stuff...
ReplyDeleteTo quote Monty Python, "Your mother smells of elderberries!"
I will be more than happy to share what I do with this stuff, then next month we get a box from Spain.
DeleteI love Monty Python (is that an age qualifier?)
Hey, I like licorice too! Well, I bet the boxes will at least make great gifts, no?
ReplyDeleteThe boxes will make great holders for great gifts. I will cover them in Christmas paper and have me some fancy smancy gift boxes
DeleteHey, hey that is my heritage. I love Swedish licorice. Yeah I grew up on the horrid stuff. Let me tell you Swedes can make pastries and meatballs. Don't eat anything else. They taught us to eat inedible candy and crackers. By the way Swedish fish are not Swedish as in they taste good.
ReplyDeleteHahahahahahaha!
DeleteCrackers with cheese? Cookies with coffee? How novel! Haute cuisine, here comes Anne. I love licorice. When I could not read, the liquor store was the brightest store on any street. I begged my mother to stop and get me some licorice at the liquor stores.
ReplyDeleteYeah we have been laughing at the serving suggestions, but I will admit TheHub and Son2 have been enjoying some of the sweet goodies. Evidently Son2 is a licorice lover. He declared they were delicious and they are all gone. I smelled them and they still smell like every other licorice I have ever not eaten.
DeleteSigh. How generous of them to provide those handy serving tips. Which NO-ONE would have ever thought up on their own.
ReplyDeleteAdd me to the lovers of liquorice. Occasionally. I like black jelly beans too.
I was an expert on the present guessing front many years ago, and even boxes only slowed me down.
My sister was a professional unwrapper who would rewrap and no one was any wiser!
DeleteWhat is the price for these lovely boxes? That might just be someone's Christmas gift.
ReplyDeleteCheryl
They are right at 30 bucks a per, but remember the Swedish box was FREE!
DeleteMaybe you can use some of those items as small Christmas gifts. I don't think that really counts as re-gifting. I thought those food subscription services were supposed to give you enough items to cook a meal.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Some of them do, in fact Son1 And MamaK use Blue Apron sometimes and love it. I am having a little dinner party next Friday and will probably whip up some appetizers using at least a few of the things, and TheHub and I are coffee drinkers so I will be using it regularly. (Well, until the 6 cups run out, so I guess I will be using it tomorrow morning)
DeleteYou will have beautiful gifts!! It's so hard to tell the size of things in photos. And I have a hard time envision volume amounts. I remember a friend getting a toy or craft box and realizing how small it actually was. Everything was really neat. But it just wasn't a lot of it.
ReplyDeleteI've heard really good things about Blue Apron, but haven't quite felt up to testing it out.
They are very small Laura, in volume the jars are about 1/4 cup filled (at best). The items we have tried are very tasty, just very little of it. For example the Nordic coffee made 5 cups of coffee. The Brazilian peanut butter bars are slightly larger than a piece of Bazooka bubble gum.
DeleteBecause so many others have commented, and clearly you have a strange audience I want to note that I too am of the camp who wonder's, "who the heck likes licorice?" I'm with you. It's gross!
ReplyDeleteI think you're going to need a cupboard for sauces and mixes after these six months are up, wait, no, they are too small to take up that much room. Possibly clear off a shelf in a cupboard for them all. Yikes
They are tasty (except the licorice) but tiny. Maybe I should save the jars for my granddaughter's American Girl doodads.
DeleteReminds me of the line in Christmas vacation and Clark's Jelly of the month club."The gift that keeps on giving." Don't sip too fast-you need to make the coffee last all month until the next box arrives.
ReplyDeleteFortunately I have 6 cups worth of Brazilian coffee waiting for me! I truly felt like the Griswald's after I opened it.
Delete