Real Maple Syrup and Tasty Cheese

I went to the grocery store Monday, like I do most Mondays. As I grabbed a bottle of the only brand of real maple syrup this store carries, a Canadian import, I had to pause and consider whether that 1 cup of syrup was truly worth $7AUD. The pause was very brief. Real maple syrup is a "must have" in our household. We've become maple syrup snobs.

It is quite amazing to me that we can be living so far away from home and still be able to supply the particulars of our culinary preferences. Really, we can find most of the food items we routinely used back in A2, even some of the more unusual ones, though admittedly with fewer brand choices and a higher price tag attached. We can even find the imported goods we relied on back in the States, Dutch cheese and drop candy, as well as Italian parmesan, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. There are a few exceptions, of course. We were warned before we left that chili powder here is really just powdered chili peppers, not the blend of spices that we're accustomed to calling "chili powder." Also, decaf coffee, a daily consumable in our house, is available in so few brands (only 1 at our local grocery) and at such a high price, that David brought back 4 packages of his favorite brand when he went to the States on a business trip earlier this month. Other food items he brought back: 2 bottles of chili powder and a box of baking soda. There's a general murmur in this home that baking soda here causes a "soapy" taste in baked goods. . . .

Then there are the new foods which we've happily discovered here. Besides giving us a chuckle the first time we saw it in the store next to the "extra tasty cheese" brands, "tasty cheese" has become a household staple. (Tasty cheese is sharp cheddar.) The same is true for McVitties digestive biscuits, which I believe are also available in the USA. Cordials, Anzac cookies, and Sharp crackers are popular snacks with the kids. David and I appreciate the numerous bakeries sprinkled throughout the city and our nearby green grocer who sells consistently good fruits and vegetables for great prices. Though we haven't gotten into the ubiquitous sausages, we have succumbed to lamb steaks thrown on the barbie. Oh, yum!

I wonder if we'll be Australian tasty cheese snobs when we return to the USA?