Tastes of home

Last night I had a delicious dream. I found a special Cereal Grocery Store, with a wide and glorious selection of cereals. They didn't stock brands from the U.S. but instead made home-made versions of familiar cereals- they even featured Pretzel Cereal, an oft-discussed but still theoretical invention of Greggie's. Then I woke up and returned to the sight of the store, only to realize that the cereal bounty had been a dream. Luckily, the friendly shop owner pulled out a dusty box of cereal and suggested I try it; it didn't look promising but we enjoyed a bowl together. Sure enough it was delicious, and I was content.

Then I woke up from that dream.

It's not that the cereal here isn't good, it's just not widely consumed, there's only a few very basic options, and it comes in tiny bags, so whenever I buy some it lasts me about 2 days only. How I could go for a box of Post Great Grains: Crunchy Pecans. Yum.

I don't miss too much about the U.S., friends and family excluded. I do frequently miss familiar foods, like cereal and home-made cookies and the entirety of Trader Joe's products. To combat this, last week Lauren and I made chocolate chip cookies:


They were delicious, although turned out kind of funny-looking due to the fact that we have a gas oven and no way of ascertaining the temperature. Also they turned out very dark brown because instead of brown sugar, I found only (apparently similar ?) black sugar. Nevertheless, delicious.

Upcoming in Important Food Events: Thanksgiving Day. This is likely to be a traumatic event for me, being the first Thanksgiving I can remember being away from home for (with the exception of one year in Florida, which I can barely remember). What will I do without Nani's turkey??? How will I survive???

We are going to host a Thanksgiving dinner, as is tradition among the WM students here. Which is a little bit of an intimidating feat considering that the most I've ever contributed in the past was a pumpkin pie one year (at least I know I can make that, though!) So I would like to conclude this brief blog post with a plea: please send me any recipes you use, family secrets, tips on not setting the turkey on fire, etc. Hopefully our Argentine Día de Accion de Gracias will be a success!