Gifts

Jenny sent us a care package for our birthdays--a box of  So African goodies. You'd think from the looks of us that Americans are the chief snackers of the world. I can confirm that with the size of my seat. But certain SA treats put our reputation to shame and threaten the popularity of the junk that made it happen.

Enough to say Art and I were like two children on Christmas Eve, a week after being adopted by a wealthy and loving family. We pawed happily through the smooth Cadbury chocolate bars in flavors we don't get here: Top Deck, Turkish Delight, Milk, Dark Chocolate. Yum. There were short-bread biscuits--that's cookies to us--and yummy sodas called -tizers: grapetizer, appletizer. We doled the goodies out one-by-one. We inevitably ran out, long before we wanted to, or even realized we were getting low on supplies. 

That was a great gift--the second of its kind Jenny sent us, so to me it feels like a tradition in the making. Wonderful as the new box was, it lacked my two favorites: rusks, those hard-as-biscotti dried up things that look like big croutons but are most delicious when dipped in coffee or tea. AND biltong! 

That's OK though--Jenny ordered this stuff from a California shop called the African Hut. For some reason, biltong thru a US shop is OK. Biltong thru the airport in your hand luggage is not. That "legality" kills it for me and lets me quickly "forgive" Jenny's omission. It's simply not the same recipe. 

I like my biltong spiced with intrigue and subterfuge and encounters with meat-sniffing dogs.