Spicey

Last Friday, while we played outside before dinner in the spring-like weather (which has been so torturously RIPPED from our grasp) I was waiting for UPS to deliver a package for Baboo’s birthday from my folks. I knew he usually came between 5:30-6 pm. I kept wandering around from the backyard to the front, keeping an eye out for the delivery guy. As we were in the backyard I kept an ear out for the distinctively noisy truck.

Well, I guess with the bubble induced screams of joy from the girls, the wind and the sounds of 100 school buses and most of the neighbourhood kids yelling and playing outside, I missed the sound of the truck and the doorbell. Oh well.

When Hubster came home from work, there were 2 boxes on the front step. The girls and I were still outside and as he came into the house he yelled “Hey! Where are you guys and what is this box from UPS?”.

When I said it was a gift for Baboo, he said “Yeah, but what is this other 40 lb box?”

I went over to look at the label and noticed that it was a box for the people who used to live here. This is about the 3rd or 4th time we’ve gotten a box from the same company. A few times I’ve caught the UPS guy and told him to take it back. This time, I’d had enough. I saw there was a phone number on the box and called the company. I left a message asking them to please change the address; that the previous owners did NOT live here anymore.

On Monday morning we got a very polite call back from the company, apologizing for the mix-up and telling us to keep the box. She said you can throw it out if you want, but that there should be spices in the box so if we want to open it and keep them, we could.

Both hubster and I listened to the message 4 times before agreeing to open the box. I was excited! 40 lbs of spices!? WOW! I could restock my spice jars forever!

So, I lugged the box into the kitchen; it literally is 40 lbs, and opened it.

On top there were 3 medium sized plastic jars with “spice blends crust” in them; an Asian type one, an old bay type one and a garlic/herb one. Hmm, interesting, I thought. Then there were some papers – describing each of the 3 blends flavors etc. And another paper listing all the different spice blends they had. I was intrigued– some sounded really interesting and I couldn’t wait to dive into this huge box.

Then there were 40, yes 40 small note pads with the spice company’s name on it. Uh, ok.
And underneath the note pads were scads of foil pouches. Like 100 of them, in a very large, heavy duty plastic bag. Cool! So I started looking through them and noticed something. The labels were all similar. There were only 3 flavours; the same 3 that were in the jars.

So, I have about 37 lbs of spice blend rubs carefully portioned into 1 cup packages. According to the packages, they’re good for fish. Put some oil on the fish and then put some of this rub/crust on it and cook as you will.

We tried some last night on salmon, the Asian one, and it was pretty good. I reckon the 1 jar of it will last me at least a year. So I have a life time supply of it and 2 other flavours. Ahahaha.

It seems a waste to just throw it out, I just CAN’T throw it out. A few logical and obvious disbursements came to mind immediately: friends and family. Yeah, guess what you’re getting those who know me. Donation to the silent auction. Yup, good idea. Uh, that cleared up about, oh maybe 25 of the 100 packages.

Then I laughed out loud as I imagined kids faces on Halloween when they realized they did not just get a HUGE bag of candy from our place, but a HUGE bag of spices. Bwahaha!!

And then Hubster suggested putting them in goodie bags for Baboo’s birthday party this weekend. They’ll pair nicely with the horse shaped sugar cookies. Bwaahahaha! Uh, yeah… not.

So um, if you can think of any other ways to use up about 75 more bags of spice blend, just let me know.