Swap with lyktabento!

I had a present waiting for me on Tuesday afternoon:

A box of Swedish goodies, from the author of lyktabento! I was very excited that she wanted to send me strawberry cream, but I wanted to reciprocate. I suggested a swap. She has blogged what she received from me here.

(She apparently has much better talents at photography than I do, but I'm going to give it my best shot.)

The general concept was to exchange traditional/common foods in our respective countries that were not easy to find on the other side of the ocean. Her box seems to have gotten a tiny bit beaten up in transit, but the goodies seem to be in tact. She very thoughtfully labeled the contents for me, with English translations of how to prepare the mixes.

Since I have the best lighting in my kitchen, I organized clusters of these goodies to show you on my kitchen countertop, but it isn't big enough to hold it all at once (I live in one of those tiny places...and I'm planning on moving now that I'm a "Doctor," but all in due time). So you'll get them in three batches.

Photo #1: In the rear are a trio of sweet soups: the strawberry cream that started it all, blueberry, and rosehip. In front of them is a package of Ballerina cookies, Swedish hard bread (the blue triangle), a bottle of lingonberry jam, cinnamon buns, and car candy.

Photo #2: Brown gravy to make Swedish meatballs (I'm quite curious to see if Swedish Swedish meatball gravy mix is like American Swedish meatball mix!), some dill and chive potato chips, Swedish pancake mix, dill flavored fish balls, little almond meringues with coconut, a sauce mix for hot dogs (is it like beef stroganoff with hot dogs instead, I wonder?), seafood soup, and mixed candy (that I poured into a bowl). She also very thoughtfully sent along a metric measuring cup, which is good because liters I know, and milliliters, but deciliters would require some hard thinking!

I couldn't help but try the cute marshmallow banana candy right away, after I took the picture. It smelled very banana-y. It tasted like a firm marshmallow, but the smell of banana made it new and different.

Photo #3: Two tubes of cheese, one blue, one shrimp (she says to eat the blue cheese with the gingerbread to the left, and the shrimp cheese as a breakfast spread); gingerbread, some chocolate bars, "Punchroll" or "vacuum cleaner" candy (that's the one in the green package with the blue tape across it), salmiak (strong Scandinavian licorice), some dill dip mix, and a chocolate ball cookie.

I'm so excited to try all this! I love dill, so I'm glad that she defaulted to that when having to choose. Thanks so much to lyktabento.blogspot.com!