Gift Basket
Just look at this wonderful gift basket I received from my colleagues at my recent retirement party! (I will finally have more time for writing and blogging – yay!!)
My brilliant co-worker, Christine, browsed around on my blog and Twitter feed to get ideas of what I liked. A lot of what you see here is groceries from Despaña , the Spanish market and restaurant in uptown Princeton. Olive oil, sherry vinegar, fancy Iberico ham, saffron, plus Bomba rice (for paella), piquillo peppers, tapenade, there are all sorts of goodies.
She also noticed that I love those sea salt and turbinado sugar dark chocolate almonds from Trader Joe’s, and included some of the most fragrant dried herbs I’ve ever come across from the Savory Spice Shop.
Plus, gin and tonic fixings – I took a lot of ribbing on that one, as you might imagine. The basket itself is nice and sturdy (this stuff weighed a ton), plus she tied dishtowels to each handle and stuck a great wooden spoon in there, too. A FABULOUS gift!
p.s. After my last day of work, a friend took me out for a lovely and relaxing dinner at The Blue Bottle Café in Hopewell. And I’ve been sleeping in ever since.
NJ SPICE 
Good thing I found NJ spice again. I didn’t know about Despana. You realize you get even more sleep tonight, right?
Yes, and thanks to you I’ll have a Dessert Boutique cupcake tonight!