It's All About the Food

I've discovered a common trend when chatting about missing home and going home with fellow North Americans here: we all miss the food. There's some items that are missed by a bunch of us, and then there's the personal favourites that might be region-specific, or have some special meaning for the person. Derek and I try to find adequate substitutes, as we probably all do, but these generally receive the same response: it's good, but it's not the same. Wondering what we're missing? Well, for months now Derek has been talking about how much he's looking forward to a good backyard barbecue burgers, sausages, and all the works. Me, I'm missing a few more specifics (in no particular order):

• Tim Hortons
• Pizza Pizza's hawaiian pizza
• Hewitt's Dairy Bar
• Cheetos

Tim Horton's is probably the most often mentioned missed shop by our Canadian friends. Most miss the coffee, but as I'm not a coffee drinker, I miss my usual order of a medium french vanilla cappuccino and a cinnamon sugar doughnut, although a box of TimBits would be excellent right about now. Having tried a couple types of cheese puffs and balls from the stores around town, I still haven't found a suitable replacement for a bag of Cheetos Crunchits. We do have some pizza store chains here, like Domino's and Pizza Hut, but for me nothing beats a Pizza Pizza hawaiian pizza, well-done, with creamy garlic dipping sauce. And then there's Hewitt's, with its excellent ice cream and old-fashioned Dairy Bar and grill. I'm so looking forward to my standard lunch order of a plain cheeseburger with an order of fries to share with Mum or Grandma and a can of cream soda, and a delicious hot fudge kiddie sundae.

When someone mentions that they're heading home for a holiday, the discussion usually turns to food at some point. Other much-missed items amongst friends include Kraft Dinner (the Kraft 'Cheesy Pasta' here just isn't the same), Coffee Crisps (which I didn't know were a Canadian thing until I moved here), Welch's Grape Jam, Diana's Barbecue Sauces, and stores like Seven Eleven and M&M Meats. A Harvey's cheeseburger and onion rings also sounds tempting. Family members and friends who come visit from Canada sometimes bring missed food, which is very kind. And friends returning from a trip home take orders and bring favourites back here to share with others who are missing the same stuff. The Coffee Crisps have been such a nice treat! We'll definitely be returning the favour. But we also take precautions before coming back here. Last time I brought myself back a tin of Tim's French Vanilla Cappuccino mix, and am down to the last mug or two, so I've been rationing it over the past month or two. I may just bring two tins back with me next time.

Cooking from recipes is also more complicated here. Some items that I could just pop over to Sobey's and pick up off the shelf just can't be found, including cookie crumbs for crusts, or even graham crackers from which to make crumbs, so you have to find alternatives. In this case, using plain digestive crackers smushed with a wine bottle. I also learned that fruit pies aren't common here, and thus cans of non-meat pie filling are also rare. And so when I was making my birthday cheesecake last December I ended up using a Polish cherry jam for the topping. One also needs to take time to convert measurements from cups to weight, and even to convert the oven's temperature as we now have a fan-assisted oven.

But it's by no means all bad when it comes to good food. First of all, some of my favourite snack foods are available here, including Pepsi, Doritos (although some of the flavours are different), and KitKats. I'll sometimes meet friends for a hot chocolate at Starbucks. Some have different names, such as Lays potato chips which are Walker's here (and come in a wild range of flavours). Other familiar brands make different things. Not surprisingly, we have access to a wonderful variety of Cadbury products, which makes Easter an exciting day. But there's also British and European brands of food that offer some great stuff, including Milka's chocolate bars, ChicagoTown frozen pizzas, Walker's shortbread, and pretty much anything from Marks and Spencer's food court (my favourites are their Chinese lemon chicken and their Indian butter chicken). Chocolate Soup makes the most amazing hot chocolate, although it gets way too busy during the festival season in August (it's just off the Royal Mile, so a prime spot for tourists). Jimmy Chungs does a good Chinese buffet, and the Red Fort has a good and affordable Indian buffet, although service is always slow. Overall, I'd have to admit that vegetarian haggis is one of my absolute favourite home-cooked meals, and happily we'll be having it at least once this week :)

So that's my summary of some of the more missed foodstuffs. Although I haven't included the home-cooked meals of mums' and grandmas,' which we all also miss, hopefully it's been enough to make you hungry!