Moving to the Midwest has been an interesting experience. I have never been so cold in my life (well except for that -20 day skiing in Vermont). It is so windy sometimes I have trouble walking. On the flip side, the summers are hot hot hot. The city is bustling and vibrant. There are museums, planetariums, and did I mention a gigantic lake? I think things will be much better when we move to Chicago proper, because there will be more diversity and therefore we won't feel like we stick out like a sore thumb. Food is my main issue. Unless I go to Whole Foods (which I only do on Mondays, since it is near my knitting place) we are in a pickle. I can't bring myself to buy meat at any of the stores nearby (no organic). I tried to ask the dude at Jewel Osco for rhubarb the other day and he looked at me like I had three heads! Dude it's not that hard!! It is a vegetable. Last night we made the mistake of trying to find falafel mix at Target. That was a no go. We hoofed it over to Jewel Osco and found one teeny box in the kosher food section, which itself was only a foot wide. Ground up chickpeas people- its not like I was looking for morels or quinoa or something. Seems that a lot of the food that I think is normal is not consumed by the good people of the midwest. If it is not a tomato, iceberg lettuce, or a chicken nugget, well... they just might not have it.
I really hope there is a Whole Foods near our next apartment :-)
28 February 2008
We just don't belong here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
People in the midwest know what rhubarb is, I promise. I can't account for what people in the suburbs of Chicago do and do not know though. A lot of my family members have big rhubarb patches somewhere in their garden, so I grew up with rhubarb crunch every spring. What are you making? The funny thing is I didn't know what falafel mix was, but I do know what morels and quinoa are. (We also used to go mushroom hunting out in the woods at my grandpa's for morels.) If it makes you feel better, I don't belong here either.
I hear TEXAS has diverse culinary cuisine!
You poor thing, you and the Captain really do need to be in the city. But then we'll be lost without you! If it weren't for my local Indo-Pak grocery and eateries, I would be lost. I don't do "midwest food" all that often. You can smell the spices from the street.
Oh, I can understand you so well! On my exchange year to the US I spent a year in Kansas (and not in Kansas City, but proper, rural Kansas). I guess that says it all about my food experience in the States. ;-) But last year I spent my holidays on the West coast and loved it all - the landscape, the cuisine and the people. You live in a great and diverse country where you usually can get everything you want, it just depends how far you want to drive to do your grocery shopping.
Post a Comment