Unique Australian goodies

What goodies would you miss from Australia if you moved away? Whilst we can readily source tim tams and vegemite there are a few lesser known items that we really would like to be able to buy here. When Andrew travelled back to Oz he picked up a number of things we've missed including: mint slices, chocolate montes, gravox, dettol, milo, violet crumbles, SM33 teething gel (no colours or flavours), nurofen gel and dunlopillo pillows. Thanks to Rhonda for the Haighs chocolate.

At www.simplyaustralian.com we can source many things of these things at a slightly higher price. But sending chocolate biscuits through the mail between June and October is not a good thing. Also the cost of the meat pies and sausage rolls is prohibitive!

A reason to blog

"But that feeling of impatience arose because I was aware that what I didn't hear now, I never would hear, there'd be no instant replay, as there can be when you listen to a tape or watch a video and can press the rewind button, rather, any whisper not apprehended or understood there and then would be lost forever. That's the unfortunate thing about what happens to us and remains unrecorded, or worse still, unknown or unseen or unheard, for later, there's no way it can be recovered."

a heart so white by Javier Marias

Keeping up appearances

One of the cultural differences we have encountered is that Americans seem a lot more worried about appearances than Australians. Here are some examples.

We don't have blinds on the windows in the living areas of our house. So whilst Andrew was away in Oz we put up some sheets and picnic blankets on some key windows so that it didn't feel so open whilst I was home alone. When visitors came over during the week they were shocked about the sheets. They would prefer either nothing on the windows or proper blinds. Everyone was full of suggestions for where to get cheap blinds and someone even gave me a coupon. It's not that we don't want blinds its just that we need to save up to buy them (we just got the fence installed!) But it was interesting that nothing was a better option that sub-prime. In the land of convenience you must buy buy buy.

Another example about appearances is that Southern belles can't leave the house without makeup. I never see anyone (else) just whipping out to the shops in their trackies for milk. At the supermarket everyone is nicely dressed with perfect lipstick. In fact this is an easy way to spot northerners as they aren't usually so well turned out.

When we first moved in we didn't have a lawnmower (and still don't). The grass got really long and wasn't looking too good. All the neighbours offered to lend us their lawnmowers (one person offered twice). We were just waiting to get things sorted out at home so weren't too worried about having an immaculate lawn. But clearly others do worry and they spend an inordinate amount of time keeping it looking good. Two ironic things have now happened: Wilmington is now in drought and we aren't allowed to use the watering system anymore; it's winter so the grass has gone dormant (ie brown). Our front lawn is now looking good, aparting from its winter hibernation, but it was never something we really worried about too much.

Appearances can be deceptive.

Product of the week - Golden raspberries

There's nothing wrong with the camera - the raspberries are actually yellow! They taste fairly similar to regular red raspberries. So that's it. They're just regular raspberries. End of blog.

Weekend update

Since thanksgiving on Thursday we have kept a fairly low profile just catching up on sleep. The exception being that we ventured over to Mark & Sandy's for a catch up and an aussie bbq complete with chocolate pavlova. It's good to have Aussie friends here!

On an unrelated note over the weekend we did encounter some southern racism that TOTALLY shocked us. It was said "I wouldn't allow my [white] child to marry a black person because they would have tanned babies". WHAT??? Words fail me.

Thanksgiving

We are currently in the middle of a 4 day long weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving. In fact today is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. Yesterday we spent helping to put up Ava's Christmas present, a swing set which both Ava and Lucy loved playing on. Last night we were invited to a thanksgiving feast at Gary & Mary's and we had a fantastic time with their family and Grammy Lou & Poppy. The food was awesome so I am going to detail it out. We started with acorn pumpkin soup (butternut pumpkin) with apple and onion (Lucy devoured this), followed by spinach, cranberry and pecan salad, followed by main course - roast turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with pecans and brown sugar, asparagus with garlic butter and slivered almonds, homemade stuffing, and cranberry jelly. Dessert followed with chocolate cream pie, pumpkin pie, ferrero rochers and gerwertztraminer (brought back from Aus). Lucy enjoyed running around in the backyard playing in the autumn leaves with Elsie and Noah. She is wearing her new dress and boots and looked very gorgeous. Of course Andrew ate too much and felt sick when we got home! Despite this we all enjoyed our second thanksgiving in the US.

Indochine

We have been lamenting the lack of authentic Chinese restauarants around here so Andrew very much enjoyed going to Lots back in Sydney. We have pretty much given up on Chinese cuisine so last night we decided to check out Indochine - a Vietnamese and Thai restuarant. And it was GREAT! It's not a chain, it charges higher prices (like all good Thai restuarants) and it has a very unique decor including an outdoor courtyard with pagoda (and wooden monkey). We very much enjoyed the chicken dumplings, moo goo gai pan and bun-thit nuong followed up with chilled lychees (on ice) and mango with sticky rice and coconut sauce. Lucy couldn't keep still but managed to enjoy herself especially as the waitress brought her a special monkey plate to eat off. Andrew doesn't like going to Thai restauarants as many menu items contain shrimp and although this was the case at Indochine there were still enough options for him to choose from. I could tell he really liked Indochine when we were ordering dessert as he ordered another lot of chicken dumplings to go. We will be returning soon.