The recognition

Yesterday afternoon, a friend and I were standing on the steps of the Nottingham Council House, waiting for another friend, when a man near to us turned to me and congratulated me on my recent nomination. He then said that he was a lecturer from the University of Nottingham and had been present at the Nottingham Post Student Awards from the other night, as was his wife, who he said works at the Clifton Campus of NTU.

In addition, the lecturer was an American (from Wisconsin, in fact, and his wife from Ohio) and noted that I stood out among all the other finalists for him and his wife because it had been stated at the ceremony that I was homeschooled in the United States. While it was lovely to receive the recognition, I hope I will encounter the lecturer and his wife again, as they seemed like friendly people.

The Swiss Colony

Out of sheer curiosity I decided to look up The Swiss Colony, and I was surprised to see that on June 1st, 2010, it had been renamed to Colony Brands.

The Swiss Colony, or Colony Brands now, is a company in Wisconsin specializing in foods such as cakes, sausages, cheeses, various candies, and box sets containing a wide selection of the aforementioned food items. They did sell other products too, such as clothing, furniture, decorations, and electronic items, but it was their foods that interested me the most.

We received a catalog from them every year we lived in the United States, and I even kept the last one we received there. I always loved looking through each catalog, wondering what the chocolate tortes, brownies, and petit fours tasted like. We did order some of it too, and we have several storage tins with "The Swiss Colony" on them (I will see if I can get a picture of one).

I have to admit that I do prefer the name "The Swiss Colony" to "Colony Brands", but it is still the same company anyhow. We will have to keep our tins labeled with "The Swiss Colony"!