American food

When people ask me the biggest difference between living in the US and living in Australia I always say that it's the food. The food in general is so much better in Australia both in terms of quality and variety. Maybe it's Wilmington being a small town, maybe it's American indifference or even the lack of multiculturalism but it just seems that it is hard to rave about the food here. There are some awesome top end restaurants that I can highly recommend but when it comes to everyday dining or shopping it is a lot harder to get what you need.

However it is easy to get some traditional American foods that I hadn't really eaten before moving here. These are the sorts of the food you read about (or see in American movies):

• graham crackers (pronounced 'gram' crackers)
• mac and cheese
• pie (like a large custard tart)
• grilled cheese sandwich
• bbq (shredded pork)
• sweet tea

Product of the week: Chicharrones

Who can resist fried pork skins? Not our family.

When cruising the Mexican aisle at Food Lion I came across these chicarrones. The ingredients are literally fried pork skins and salt.

Andrew was pretty excited to give them a try. However it turns out they are fairly tasteless, almost like eating packing foam - light, airy and not very flavoursome. Nothing like Mr Porky's pork crackles. Katrina, you better bring a big suitcase full of Mr Porky's products when you come over (then again to keep Andrew's cholesterol down maybe just a couple will do!)

BTW check out this website dedicated to Hairy Bar snacks!

Product of the week: Abuelita

The Nestle package says that this is an "Authentic Mexican style instant chocolate drink mix". You just add hot milk or water. Abuelita (which means 'grandma') is flavoured by sugar, cocoa and cinnamon. Ingredients include: sugar, nonfat milk, dairy product solids, vegetable oil (partially hydrogenated), corn syrup solids, cocoas, various other ingredients and of course mono- and diglycerides. This particular packet mix is not too good and our Mexican friends suggest buying the tablet version which is much better. We'll check out the tablet version soon - or else make our own mix with sugar, cocoa and cinnamon.

Product of the week: Tam tam crackers

The name of these kosher crackers caught my eye (I was hoping for tim tams) and decided they were work a try. "The sweet taste of chocolate combined with the salty Tam Tam crunch is sure to entice every chocolate lover's palette." And indeed they are very good. So good that the contents of the packet only lasted 2 days in our house and they were all gone (or as Lucy says "in the mouth, down the throat, in the belly") Highly recommended!

Product of the week: Jell-o

When I think of the word Jell-o I think of jelly, that artificially bright-coloured rubbery substance that could almost bounce. Well Jell-0 does sell that sort of product but their range is much wider than that. Today's featured packet is coconut cream pudding. You just add 2 cups of milk to the packet mix, whisk for 2 minutes and then wait 5 minutes and your dessert is ready. With some left over pastry I made some mini pie shells and filled them with this jell-o. Andrew did a blind taste test and concluded that the pies were very good. I then informed him that he had eaten a whole lot of sugar followed by mono and diglycerides, yellow 5, yellow 6, and sodium metabisulfite (retains coconut whiteness). Admittedly there is coconut in there as well but overall two thumbs down on the ingredients list. The packet screams that it is a "good source of calcium as prepared" (ie the milk you add will give you calcium) so you are probably better off just having a glass of the white stuff on its own. Though it did taste ok it had nothing on Jestine's coconut cream pies from Charleston.

Product of the week: Butter bread (and Irish bangers)

This bread is yellow! (Thanks mainly to turmeric and annatto colourings) The bread does have butter in it but it also has lots of horrible things like high fructose corn syrup and mono and diglycerides. Disappointingly it didn't taste like butter which further adds to our theory that you can't buy edible bread at the supermarket! Lucy is still eating tapioca bread for lunches without complaint (and without butter or margarine) and will continue to do so for a while.

We bought this butter bread for our sausage sangers. Aahh sausages! We haven't had sausages since we left Oz over 16 months ago. The reason is that they are not readily available. There are sweet and spicy Italian sausages at the supermarket but no regular plain meat ones. I finally found 'Irish bangers' at Fresh Market and can recommend these as good sausages. Unfortunately Lucy has eaten far more hot dogs than sausages so we will have to remedy this soon.

Product of the week: Hamburger Helper

I haven't purchased this product so I am relying on Wikipedia to provide you the details. Once you've read the description below you will understand why the packet remains on the shelf of Food Lion.

"Hamburger Helper is a brand of boxed meal product produced by General Mills and sold under its Betty Crocker brand. It consists of a starch (most often pasta, but also rice or potatoes) and specially measured dried sauce packets separated in a single box. The remaining ingredients must be provided by the consumer. The consumer browns the hamburger meat in a skillet and then adds water, noodles, milk and the seasoning packet(s) to create the complete dish. There is as well an "instant" version of Hamburger Helper which contains dehydrated meat, noodles and seasonings in a small pouch — instead of adding meat, milk and water, the consumer only needs to add a small amount of water to a bowl containing the helper pouch contents."

Independence Day weekend

Well we didn't have much planned for Independence Day but it turned out to be a 'big' as well as a 'long' weekend. Americans don't like you to be alone on holidays so we were invited out!




Saturday morning we decided headed down to Wrightsville beach which as it turns out this was the same thought everyone else in Wilmington had. After 30 minutes of circling the parking lots for a spot and someone in our car continually moaning 'beach, beach, car spot, grammy lou, poppy' Andrew decided to drop us off and then continue looking. After another 25 minutes he found a place to park! It turns out it is more economical to park illegally and pay the parking ticket of $30 than drive around for 1 hour wasting money on gas/petrol! In the end we met up with the extended Mahlow clan for some beach fun making sand castles and frolicking in the tidal pools.

After swimming we made a 'nap stop' which also involved making a patriotic pavlova. Andrew decorated the square meringue in the shape of an American flag with blueberries in one corner and sliced cherries to make the red stripes. Saturday night we were at the Mahlows again eating hot dogs, baked beans and peach cobbler. We were a little out of place, in more ways than one, as everyone else was wearing a red shirt of some description but they all appreciated the Australian dessert with the salute to the flag. After dinner and toddler time in the pool we headed over to our prime viewing spot for the fireworks.

The fireworks are launched from the battleship in the Cape Fear river and we had a good view from the Leland side. We weren't expecting much (again underestimating American patriotism) and so we were surprised and delighted at the massive 20 minute firework display somewhat choreographed to music (including Springsteen's 'Born in the USA'). It was very fun and Lucy got to stay up until 9:30pm!!! (The fireworks started at 9:05pm as it was still light until 9pm)

Saturday brought gymnastics, blackberry picking and a Double Happiness Chinese dinner. Sunday brought the agonising Wimbledon final that we thoroughly enjoyed over many hours and rain delays! We even had some fireworks of our own in the backyard (they are legal as long as they don't leave the ground)

I think life for us will be getting back to normal tomorrow - no more vacations, holidays or tennis for a while. Phew! But I still have a few more vacation blogs to bring you up to date on.

Product of the week: Elmo cupcakes

I couldn't resist putting this photo up. We visited Apple Annie's bakehouse as we were at a shop nearby and a few people had recommended the bakehouse to us. It is a bakery specialising in cakes and bad-for-you treats. Lucy saw this Elmo cupcake and had to have it! Immediately! (But she had to wait to get home for a taste) She knows Elmo from a couple of books we have not from watching Sesame Street so she had no idea who the blue cupcake next to Elmo was (cookie monster). The head was mostly icing and thankfully Lucy had a few bites and then gave up.

America's Test Kitchen

I like to cook. So when we moved here I sought out good food and new recipes. Although I constantly lament the poor food choices available I am happy to say that I have found a good source of American recipes at Cooks Illustrated. They test different food brands and products (much like Choice magazine in Australia) but best of all they support the idea that cooking from scratch is preferable to cooking from a packet (and it usually doesn't take much longer). They have a tv show called America's Test Kitchen which demonstrate some of their recipes. Although they do sometimes cook with corn syrup I have found that on the whole their recipes to be very good (ie lemon layer cake from Andrew's birthday) Generally the process they take is that they determine what they want to cook and then they use different ingredients and cooking techniques until they determine the best way to produce that particular item, often trialling the different recipe variations 100 times. It does mean that the recipes always work unlike some recipes from famous international chef that don't always turn out the way you expect. In any case if you have some free internet browsing time check out their database of free recipes. [Bear in mind though that Australian butter performs differently to American butter due to a different fat content but that is a story for another day]

Home grown produce

We reaped our first crop of basil on the weekend and immediately made pasta with pesto. The pesto came out bright green and it tasted amazing! Whilst pesto doesn't always look the most appetising, especially to toddlers, Lucy didn't even blink when it was served to her and just chowed in. Drop round sometime for a jar of the green stuff!

Product of the week - Iron Chef General Tso's sauce

We saw this Iron Chef product at Costco the other week and had to blog it (though we did not purchase it). Here is the blurb from the website, and by the way if you haven't watched the original Iron Chef series you should!

Welcome to the home of Iron Chef Food. We are the exclusive licensees for all food and beverages for the Iron Chef, we are licensed by FujiTV in Japan and work closely with them to maintain the integrity of the Iron Chef name in our products and flavorings. Our Iron Chef products include an extensive line of sauces, a line of gourmet soup mixes, our line of exotic rice crisps and our new line of flavored Panko (Japanese bread crumbs). Four years ago, we realized that there was no brand that was offering authentic Asian sauces that was appealing to the American palate. There were a few sauces with Asian names, but these sauces used artificial flavor enhances and preservatives, or were sticky-thick sauces, that still needed to be refined by the customer. Iron Chef Foods developed a line that combined the authentic ingredients (like real brewed soy sauce) to create authentic Asian sauces that were exciting and credible to the American palate. At the same time it was important to us that all our flavors remain faithful to the original sauces that bear their names. In the words of the Iron Chef Chairman, "Allez Cusine! Let your cuisine reign supreme!”

Product of the week - Strawberry Fanta

At Subway the other week (I promise we only went there once but there are so many stories to come out of it!) we had the regular choice of sodas (soft drinks) with the addition of strawberry fanta. It seemed an unusual choice so I got Andrew to taste it so I could blog about it. It is extremely red in colour and it tastes like strawberry Aeroplane Jelly crystals! It is very sickly sweet and not something you can drink a lot of at once. I imagine that Lucy would take one look at the drink and start running around in circles singing happy birthday! The other downside is corn cyrup but don't get me started on that old chestnut.

Product of the week - Australian wines

Going to a boutique wine shop opened my eyes to a different range of Australian wines. Maybe they're not bad wines but the focus in definitely on the marketing of the label. I was cringing to see names like Bitch, Boarding Pass, and Ball breaker. Often there was no specific wine district on the label just something vague like South Eastern Australia. The staff at the shop were enthusing about what a great marketing genius the guy behind these labels is but to me these labels were a turn off. What do you think?

Thankfully this same wine shop is able to supply us with the amber coloured 2003 Noble One botrytis so not all is lost!

Product of the week - Teff flour

I read about the flour in a recipe for wheat free chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to try out the recipe so ordered a packet of teff flour over the internet from Bob's Red Mill. The cookies were awesome! I thought there were too many choc chips but Andrew disagreed with me and quickly ate 4 cookies when I wasn't looking. In any case here's the scoop on teff flour (though I find it hard to believe that is is grown in Australia):

Teff is an intriguing grain, ancient, minute in size, and packed with nutrition. Teff is believed to have originated in Ethiopia between 4000 and 1000 BC. Teff seeds were discovered in a pyramid thought to date back to 3359 BC. The grain has been widely cultivated and used in the countries of Ethiopia, India and it's colonies, and Australia. Teff is grown primarily as a cereal crop in Ethiopia where it is ground into flour, fermented for three days then made into enjera, a sourdough type flat bread. It is also eaten as porridge and used as an ingredient of home-brewed alcoholic drinks. The grass is grown as forage for cattle and is also used as a component in adobe construction in Ethiopia. Because the grains of teff are so small, the bulk of the grain consists of the bran and germ. This makes teff nutrient dense as the bran and germ are the most nutritious parts of any grain. This grain has a very high calcium content, and contains high levels of phosphorous, iron, copper, aluminum, barium, and thiamin. It is considered to have an excellent amino acid composition, with lysine levels higher than wheat or barley. Teff is high in protein, carbohydrates, and fiber. It contains no gluten so it is appropriate for those with gluten intolerance.

Andrew's birthday weekend

The weekend was jam packed with fun activities to celebrate Andrew's birthday and most of them revolved around food. We breakfasted at Cracker Barrel (Kaka bawell) with maple syrup pancakes before heading over to Lewis Farms to pick strawberries. The farm is 3 minutes from our house!! Lucy was strategically dressed in a pink t-shirt and had a ball picking strawberries and eating them. After picking 2 and half buckets worth we headed over to the shop for some home made strawberry icecream. The farm was set up very efficiently and it was surprisingly quick and easy to pick the berries as the plants are on elevated beds covered with black plastic so it is easy to see the ripening fruit. Although there were lots of people around it didn't feel crowded.

Dinner saw us at Marc's on Market (2 minutes away) for a wonderful 3 course meal. Lucy is a true gourmet happily dipping her bread in a fruity olive oil and then eating pizza with chicken, rosemary and olives.

Sunday lunch was a home cooked lamb roast, which was Andrew's first taste of lamb for the weekend! It was followed by a lemon layer cake comprising of 4 layers of cake, 3 layers of lemon curd, swathed in a meringue icing - an awesome Andrew combination.

We finished off the weekend with some yard work. I didn't say gardening because it was mostly digging and pruning. I'll tell you about some of our projects another day.

To finish up Andrew is looking forward to picking out his birthday present - a bbq!

Good American food

Not an oxymoron but a reality. This might seem like an extraordinary statement given my usual railings against this cuisine but today I wanted to give praise to home style Southern country cookin'. At the Azalea Festival we stopped into a little cafe for lunch. See how many of these items from our lunch you can identify without having to look them up:

• Sweet Georgia Brown


• Hoppin' john


• Fried okra


• Shrimp and grits


• Cheese sandwich with fruit

Okay I'll give you Lucy's lunch, the cheese sandwich, but the rest is pure Southern style food. And it was very good and we very much enjoy it! And we will miss our creamy grits when we move back to Oz.

Product of the week - Triple Succotash

Succotash is an American dish and this one being a mixture of tomatoes, corn and butter beans. Really there is nothing to write about. I opened the can, heated the contents in the microwave and served the mixture. It tasted like a mixture of (canned) tomatoes, corn and butter beans. I assume there are more involved recipes for succotash but this one was pretty simple and pretty ordinary. Of course "Thufferin' Thuccotash" is the catchphrase of Sylvester the cat which Andrew tried to teach Lucy to say to no avail!

On a side note, the fridge is still broken. The GE repairman returned on Monday to say its last rites. After a lot of anxiety due to the fridge being 15 months old, and thus out of warranty, GE agreed to replace the fridge with just a $100 delivery charge. To downgrade to a different model that would fit in the space better would cost an additional $400! I don't understand and I don't care so long as we have an operational fridge. We need to wait another week for delivery so we are living out of a new bar fridge and a new deep freezer (total cost for both $350).

Product of the week - Coastal Carolina Coffee Beans (Decaf)

Thanks to cafedave for his discussion on decaf coffees as it made me search out some swiss water decaf here. I discovered this local business called the Carolina Coffee Company that sells its Coastal Carolina blend in a decaf version. Rick & Erica gave us a grinder so we can make freshly ground plunger coffee. This coffee is very good! We'll be buying some more of this brand soon.

On a slightly different note it is amazing how much people love Starbucks here. The moms in my moms group were complaining that there were no drive through Starbucks close to their houses! I told them that friends don't let friends drink Starbucks and they just ignored me.

Product of the Week - Pigs Feet

This probably isn't the most appetising way to start the month! Whilst shopping in Harris Teeter (Coles equivalent) we surprisingly came across a jar of pickled pigs feet.

Pigs Feet.

Edible Pigs Feet.

According to Wikipedia "Pickled pigs feet are usually consumed as something of a snack or a delicacy rather than as the primary focus of a meal as its meat course, although this is not a universal rule. If proper refrigeration is available, any unused portion can be kept in the jar for several days after it is opened. Often they will be consumed with crackers. Although long available commercially, particularly in grocery stores catering to consumers who are likely to have a preference for them, it seems that consumption of this product has declined in recent years due to changing tastes, health concerns, and the ready availability of other snacks."

We obviously live in an area that appreciates this sort of delicacy.

It is too gross to post a picture. If you want to see a jar then google it!