Friday, August 1, 2008

It's a Fiesta!

For the most part, we have been eating well and can find the same foods here as in the U.S. It's funny, though, how you sort of forget everything when your life goes upside down. I remember walking through the grocery store here for the first time and I couldn't think what to buy. For the life of me, I couldn't think of a single meal idea besides sandwiches. And we have never been big sandwich eaters!

But as time has gone by, we've gotten the hang of shopping and have had more variety. We eat pasta, fresh fruits and veggies, some sausages (though our grill is still waiting to be shipped to Germany), etc. I do believe we have seen the first and last batch of smoked eel in the Merley household, though! The dishwasher still smells like fish! Yuck!

Now, neither Aaron nor I have any claim to Hispanic heritage but we both really love Mexican food (authentic and otherwise). Tacos, burritos and quesadillas were standard fare for us back in Kalamazoo. On our first shopping trip together we tried to find flour tortillas. We found them in the "Ethnic Specialty" section of the store for almost 4 Euros for a package of eight! Whoa! We're a long way from Mexico, I guess! We bought them and had a version of tacos on the 4th of July! Hooray for American independence! Ha!

The next time we went shopping (different store) we were excited to see tortillas for only 2 Euro. Alas, when we got home and opened them, there were only THREE in the package! So, imagine our suprise and delight when we walked into our usual grocery store on Monday to find a big special on Mexican food items! We were nearly giddy as we piled six packages of tortillas, flour and corn, into our cart. Further down the aisle we found jars of taco sauce (turns out to be like salsa) and jalapeno peppers! In the next aisle, there were jalapeno flavored tortilla chips, like Doritos! As we unloaded our cart to check out, we had to supress our laughter. I'm sure it screamed, "Not from around here!" But we were happy and had some delicious tacos this week!

After the eel experience we needed something familiar and tasty but don't worry, we are still having lots of new authentic German experiences!

Auf Wiedersehen!

2 comments:

MOM said...

Ole! Ole!!! Nothing like the good old taste of Mexico!

Unknown said...

Here's a franchise idea that will make millions of euros:

***Eel Tacos***

Suggested names for the restaurant:
Eel Jimadore
Los Eelmigos

This sure-fire money maker can be yours for a mere 10% of the profits :-)