Food

So eating over here is proving to be harder than we thought. As I've already mentioned, grocery shopping takes me forever - partially because everything is in Polish, but partially because I can't find everything I need in one store so I continue to loop around the giant store thinking I obviously missed it. I mean, why is it so hard to find pears and celery and avocados?? And then because I have been to way too many different grocery stores than I care to admit, I am looking for things that I may have found in another store but can't remember. It just gets so frustrating!! So nine times out of ten I leave a store without everything on my list. I really feel like I spend all of my time at the grocery store - or in the kitchen. We have noticed that they don't have sandwich stores or diners here - it's just sit-down restaurants. Which is fine if we want to go out to dinner, but it creates a bit of a problem when we are short on time and want to grab a quick brunch or a sandwich. We really miss being able to run to Morton's or Donnybrook Fair in Dublin on the weekends, to grab sandwiches, scones or pre-made salads on our way out on a busy weekend.  Or stopping into Hobart's on a lazy Sunday morning for some scrambled eggs and pancakes. The closest eating-on-the-run food item I have seen is this sort-of-pizza-on-a-sub called a zapiekanka -they sell them on the street or in bodegas around the city.

 I haven't tried one yet because it's not on our eating program, but it looks pretty tasty aside from the ketchup on top - but there is no way our kids would ever eat this. Someone suggested we try a Subway sandwich shop, I think I saw one at one of the malls, but again our kids won't eat those either. So I am forced to cook/prepare/stress over 3 meals a day, 7 days a week - unless we go out to dinner- and I am getting burnt out! Am I just being a whiner? Does everyone usually cook that much? Maybe I was just lazy and ate out too much before, but it's really hard to do that now. Time to become a master chef I guess!! I know in reality this is a good thing because at least Mike and I are eating really healthy, homemade food now (for the most part), but the kids need a bit more of a selection because I am running out of options for them.

The food is a little different here too - the kids won't drink milk anymore and Ava gave up on yogurt and ham so no more ham and cheese sandwiches. They don't sell those convenient little pots of organic plain yogurt that we used to buy in Dublin, so now Jack has switched to some Danonino flavored ones for kids which I am sure are loaded with sugar. At least he is getting some calcium I guess. None of us really like the chicken either, I am still grossed out by the smell of getting a few bad packages of it, but Mike and the kids say it tastes different. To mix things up a bit I tried making some kielbasa the other night and it looked really good, but it just tasted different - too creamy or something, like we had just killed a pig in the backyard, threw it on the table and started eating it. Yuck! I've made burgers using ground beef and ground turkey and Ava is a huge fan - the turkey is pinker than I am used to, it doesn't really change color and turn greyish when you cook it like it does in the US, so I end up overcooking it to be safe. And I mentioned the issue with getting fresh fish here so unless we want to eat red meat every single night I am thinking that we have to become vegetarians. Which really isn't going to go over well with my kids that's for sure. I am happy to say that Mike has eaten a lot of the meals on our program that I never thought he would eat (Chickpea Curry, Bean Bolognese with Quinoa instead of pasta, hummus and red pepper sandwiches) so at least I have options for us, but again I just don't know what to do with the kids. Even the chicken nuggets taste different, and fish fingers are filled grey fish mashed with who-knows-what-else-because-I-am-too-lazy-to-translate-the-tiny-letters-on-the-package. I remember complaining that shopping in Dublin was so hard, but what I wouldn't give to run into a Marks and Spencers right now, or a Tesco where everything is in English. We are going back to Dublin for a visit in a few weeks and I already have a big list of things to buy while I'm there.

On one trip to the store I was looking for ground cinnamon. After spending way too much time looking for it I finally gave up and asked someone - not sure if she spoke English but I had found a stick of cinnamon so I showed that to her and started shaking it and she figured out what I wanted. She brought me to an aisle with all these packets in it, I am sure I walked by it about 5 times because I was not expecting to see it like this.

On another visit while the kids were in camp, I had extra time to spend browsing aisles that I hadn't spent much time in before. And that's when I found some wheat germ!

And yesterday when I was annoyed because I couldn't find pears, celery and avocados I stopped by this cute produce stand near our house and luckily they had all three. The things that make me happy these days!