Dear friends,

I have a confession to make.......................

I'm.......

a..........

SNACKER!!!!

A certified, chronic, obsessive, interminable, eternal snacker. The idea of skipping proper meal for bars (yes, BARS) of chocolate or a bag of chips to me is nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, I could live solely on snacks and won't have a problem with it. Heck, that is my idea of diet!

It doesn't help that I was born out of snacker parents, one was into sweets and the other into the salty stuff. So much so that the one into sweets now has diabetes and the other into salty snacks lost a kidney (around the time I was born) due to so much salt consumption! I know, those two facts should serve as my double, persistently-waved red flags. I would, in more than one occasion joke that I should be fine since I'm a good mix of both. For now, it's too early to tell how this would all boil down to.

Substituting chocolates with fruits and chips with peanuts just don't cut it! And the loves of my life indulge me, so you see, I really am in no position to complain (not that I would care to anyway!).

My Mah sends me and my husband boxful of treats several times a year, while my mother-in-law whips up yummy bars and cookies on special occasions. Whenever she travels to France (the other love of her life) and other parts of Europe, she always brings us (or mostly me, my husband doesn't want to have anything to do with the chocolates save for a couple of bites) these chocolates that make you feel like a billionaire with every bite!

I've always loved European chocolates, they put all other chocolates to shame! Here's what my mother-in-law, Donna recently brought back.

I also have a soft spot for nice boxes and packaging, so this one is definitely a keeper long after the chocolates are gone, and they are long gone!

Here are other chocolates and other snacks with cool packaging (waiting to be sampled and blogged about some time in the future):

Ardeche - Chocolate covered chestnut

Askinosie

Mast Brothers

Olive & Sinclair

Taza Chocolate

Moonstruck

The Frenchy Bee

Is a wonderful source of French products from cooking and baking ingredients, cakes, candies, beauty supplies, etc. Here are some of the snacks they carry that I've got my eyes on:

Microwaveable Fondue Dark Chocolate with 70% REAL Cocoa.

La Mere Poulard Galettes au Caramel au Beurre Salé - Salted Butter Caramel Galettes in Collector's Tin

La Mere Poulard Palets de Bretagne - Collector Tin

This is supposedly more crumbly rather than crisp and more buttery, too, than the Galettes above.

Both have irresistibly awesome tin packaging though!

Le Petit Saunier French Salted Butter Caramels - Caramel au BeurreSalé

The packaging reminds me of a beauty soap bar you can find at luxury hotels!

Paris Caramels - 9% Charentes-Poitou Pure French Butter - Vanilla French Caramels

Also available in Fig & Walnut, Hazelnut, Chocolate and the packaging just as elegant.

Amazon also carries a good selection of imported goods.

French Dark Chocolate Truffles.
There are lots of it but this is probably the only one that comes in a wooden box. Now, how chic is that?

Chocolat Bonnat Trinite 75% Dark Chocolate Bar.

There are nine classifications available on Amazon, this one is trinite just one of the nine places they sourced the cocoa from. Makes you want to sample all to find out which has the best!

30 pcs. 100% Natural Basswood Chocolate.

It comes in a thick wooden crate and is handmade by Pascal Caffet, World Chamion French Chocolatier. It doesn't get any richer than this!

Primo Pan Noccioli Hazelnut Cookies with Chocolate from Italy.

Beats any premium biscotti out there just by the packaging alone!

Bellagio Cocoa (French Vanilla, Chocolate Truffle, Caramel Praline) Gift Set This is perhaps the most classy hot chocolate packaging I've ever seen. I wonder how each tastes like!

French Broad is another online source for premium chocolates and they offer a service they call "chocolate subscription," how awesome is that? I've yet to try their services but I can surely vouch for Foodzie, a San Francisco based company that hand-packs handpicked artisan products in single-serving sizes cleverly called, The Tasting Box. My first subscription came in the mail yesterday and I am hooked! Can't wait for next month's harvest!

Foodzie July Tasting Box
I am in love with their Black Truffle + Aged White Cheddar gourmet popcorn by 479° Popcorn and Botanical Bakery's Fennel Pollen shortbread cookies.

And in the subject of snacks, See's Candies is having a National Lollipop Day Sweepstakes until July 23, 2011. You could win a trip for two to San Francisco for the VIP See's Factory tour or $50 worth gift cards!

My go-to chocolates for my pen-pals are the minis from Ghirardelli. They are small enough like tea-bags to fit in letters and have very exciting seasonal flavors, too like Eggnog for Christmas.

So, what kind of a snacker are you?

Lately, I'd been reading about the issues USPS has been having, like closing on Saturdays and increasing postage from $0.44 to $0.46 by January 2011. It's inevitable! While a lot of people claim that USPS will soon close down its services to the public as more and more people choose to pay bills online with the urging of most billing companies adding a certain percentage of fine for not going paperless - the number of letter writers and postcard collectors are rapidly growing each day! I would think so. Ask any letter writers you know who go past sending greeting cards on holidays and they'll tell you we are on a letter-writing revival! It's certainly not primarily to save USPS, but personally, I think because people just miss the feeling of getting actual letters that are not bills you needed to pay, or coupons and catalogs you only browse once. It's true, there's nothing quite like it, and the joy of every process in writing, sending, receiving and reading one is unmatched. It especially excites me that younger generations are getting into this old trend. I've noticed more names in the 14-20 year-old bracket at the penpal section of this one pen pal finder site I found some of my new friends at.

Which brings me to this new argument re: USPS rebranding, will redesigning it appeal to the masses or help solve the ongoing budget crisis?

Designer Matt Chase created these gorgeous body of work for USPS taking in a more retro appeal. I love it and support implementation of this project, why should USPS be a stark white space like every other boring government office? While the eagle head logo is famous, I sure won't miss it if they changed it to Matt Chase's proposed one. In fact, I think the current eagle head logo would be more appropriate for, say, a new military or air force department if they don't have enough eagles in their logos already.

But this argument should also be taken into consideration: Shouldn't USPS focus more on finding strategies to become more competitive with FedEx, UPS, and perhaps partner with larger companies to develop some sort of mailing campaign? To make USPS the primary carrier if that is at all still possible? This article by Max Fisher (The Future of Mail) packs some very feasible solutions, including one that I don't approve of: shutting down USPS.

While the nostalgia route of the proposed designs appeal to people like me, if it's only going to generate appreciation instead of more supporters, then I think it's time to look the other way. But seriously, how can these not work? If our government couldn't rescue USPS, maybe a designer/creative agency could?