Food

I have had several people ask me about the food here and whether there are some things that we cannot get that we were used to in the States. For the most part, the food is very similar and we can get most things that we were used to. However, we have experienced a few new foods and I have had to make quite a few adjustments to my cooking.
When we first arrived back in January, I was surprised by some of the things I did find in the grocery store. There was a whole selection of Campbell's soups available and several Tex-Mex items such as flour tortillas and cans of refried beans. There were also some things that I considered staples and assumed I would be able to find anywhere that were not there, such as cornmeal. (I later found it in a specialty food store.)
I have had to make many adjustments to my cooking and figure out how to do things here. The oven is in Celsius instead of Farenheit and the butter label has grams marked out on it. (Which sometimes totally throws me off.) It took me three months to realize the self-raising flour had no added salt (and I wondered why everything I made tasted flat) and nine months to figure out that tomato puree was the same thing as tomato sauce.
There are also many things that just taste different. It's amazing how the same foods can taste totally different when produced in a different place. The first time we ate grapes here, we thought something was wrong with them and were afraid to eat them, but later found out that was the normal taste. There are some foods that I like better here and some foods that I don't like as well. I like the dairy products A LOT. They are so much fresher and more tasty. The bananas and certain other fruits seem to have more flavor. I haven't found a peanut butter I like, however, and the pasta sauce tastes like vinegar. Ugh!
Despite how different most things taste here, McDonald's tastes exactly the same - a little scary.
Two foods that we have experienced for the first time that we really like are pumpkin soup and Arnott's. Pumpkin soup is a popular food here and we ate it often last winter. It is simple to make, except that cutting up the pumpkin can be hard. Basically, you cut up two small pumpkins and saute them in butter and one chopped onion until they are soft. Then you add a box of chicken stock and let it simmer 20-30 minutes. When it looks cooked, blend it with a little cream and you are done. It is delicious with a side of French bread.
Arnott's is a company that makes biscuits (cookies) and crackers. Corey spent the first several months here trying a new kind of Arnott's every week. He is now the expert on the various kinds.