How Friends Help Surviving Italian Life

It is a good day.  The Well Fargo Wagon has arrived!

Have you seen the musical,  Music Man?  If you have you know that Wells Fargo used to make deliveries quite like amazon.  We are celebrating because our friend who lives at Aviano Air Base brought some nice gifts of American goodies.  All of them what we miss here in Italy.

There are a few blogs written by expats, and one of the questions we always get are, what do you miss?  So now you see what I miss, and have needed!

Some of this might seem silly to you, and I forgive you  for thinking that.  Only after you live in a foreign country for 7 years do you begin to appreciate certain things… here are some reasons.  Believe me when I say that some readers have expressed that I should just give up and get used to what the locals eat.  I could not do that.  I like to cook and I like choices. 

                                   The Collection  of Treasure

Quaker Oats… these oats are cut different than the ones we find in Italy.  They cook different.. And Oatmeal cookies are different with their oats.

Try to go several years without an oatmeal cookie if your mother used to make them when you were a kid.  Starbucks knows you WANT them!

Corn Meal made in America is quite different than Polenta which we find here.  Soon we will have corn bread with chili peppers on the table.  Beans and cornbread are around the corner.

Yuban coffee…Italian coffee to my taste is more bitter.  We can get Starbucks when we are outside of Italy, in Munich, for instance.  But it doesn’t last for long.  This YUGE jug of Yuban will go far… I hope.

Bloody Mary mixer, spicy…You cannot buy tomato juice in Italy.  They don’t believe that tomato juice is to be a drink.  With this many bottles, I am set for a long long time. :-)   I am not a big boozer, but I get a laugh when I have  a bloody mary for breakfast and hear my wife make comments!  (Also, the fruit juice in Italy is not very good.  It tastes like a fruit drink.  Flavored water.  some thing like that Hawaiian fruit drink.)

Pecan Nuts….Even the nut dealer in  Padova market has never tasted a pecan nut.  He does not know what they are.  You will never find them here in northern Italy.  I have seen them in Germany.  So if you are like me and want to make pecan rolls  or a pecan pie, forget it.  Unless you have a good friend who can make a delivery…and my friend is a queen today!  We are taking her to the best restaurant in Padova for lunch!

Corn Tortillas….What  is Mexican food without a corn  tortilla?  Italians have never seen a corn tortilla.  There are flour, but tacos are truly made with corn tortillas.  Mexican restaurants here use flour.  I have only see one use corn and it tasted like dry cardboard. In fact, we NEVER go to Mexican restaurants in Italy anymore.  They are always a big disappointment.  

There is a place in Paris that makes pretty good corn tortillas, but they no longer ship to Italy!!!!! The dirty rats!  

 There is a guy in Ireland who is struggling to find backers to help in his corn tortilla factory that raises it own corn.  I cannot fathom corn growing in Ireland…and he  asked me to send 20,000 dollars to be part of his enterprise.  There is a smile in this, can you feel it?

Now we are set for a while in corn tortillas.  Most will go in the freezer which keeps them pretty well until you need them.  If you take a package out of the freezer you have to leave them on a flat surface inside the package until thawed.  

You cannot know how many of our Italian friends ask to taste Mexican food, now we can make them happy…. and we like happy.

When Will Doritos Come to Italy?

Ciao, Dave