Food

Unsurprisingly, food is a big issue in a new country. Several things are just different. Why should butter taste different? The children don't want toast anymore because the butter tastes 'funny'. For that matter, so does the bread (Americans add a lot of sugar/honey/high fructose corn syrup to their bread - even the organic wholemeal stuff). Being electric, we didn't bring over our breadmaker, although, of course, I can still make bread without one. But then, what's the point when butter tastes so funny? There are legions of other foods that are just different. And then there is my quest for local and organic food.

I have finally made a trip to the Whole Foods Supermarket. I'd read about them in the UK, and seemed to remember mostly that they'd been nicknamed 'Whole Wallet" Markets because they were so expensive. Yeah, well, who among us is is surprised that organic food can be more expensive? Our Whole Foods is in neighbouring Fort Collins - about 30 minutes away - and it is amazing. Imagine a completely organic Waitrose and you have the picture. I was flabberghasted at the quantity and quality of the produce along with fish, meat, cheese, bakery and deli counters. Then toss in aisles and aisles of all the other stuff that you get in grocery stores. Just wonderful, and yes, probably more expensive.

I've no great longing to shop there regularly though, as my local grocery store is terrific for organic produce, and I can get just about anything I want. On more than one occasion, strawberries have been on sale, and the organic are offered, side by side, at the same price. (More about food miles later) This week I bought some organic zucchini (courgettes) for 88c/lb. I suppose a quarter of the produce display is organic, and the variety is comparable to the non-organic.

Having conducted my share of workshops on the subject of food miles, I find, none-the-less, that I don't seem to blanch overmuch when I see that the strawberries come from Mexico. That doesn't seem so very far away to me. Have I had an American distance head shift perception change? Probably.

Organic vegetable box schemes as we know them don't exist here. Instead they operate something called Community Supported Agriculture schemes, CSAs. You pay a fee upfront - something in the region of $300-600, and then get a box each week - only during the growing season - of whatever is harvested, and if the harvest is ruined by frost or hail, then there is nothing. I shall investigate further as the growing season approaches.

And we haven't even touched milk, cheese, meat, and dry goods...

The Laundry

Who'd've thought something so mundane would feature as a transition topic? I mean, if I'd moved to a third world country and had no washing machine, maybe one could see it, but it's just silly how different doing the laundry has been here, and how, every week I still feel like I'm embarking on something out of the ordinary. (OK, OK, maybe it just takes me a pathetically long time to get used to things.)

For starters, the washing machine we bought (second hand)- although a perfectly normal American Whirlpool - is GIGANTIC. I have washed my king sized duvet in it with room to spare, and every week I put all the whites for the four of us in and feel guilty because, as often as not, the machine isn't full.

Then there's the water. We live in a mountain desert - it's absurdly arid, but it does snow in the mountains in the winter, and our water source is melted snow. It is very, very soft and a huge contrast to Kent water. I bought a new electric kettle in September. Six months on the interior looks exactly as it did the day we bought it. There are no water deposits. If you leave a glass to drain by the side of the sink, it will dry quickly and spotlessly. What this means in terms of washing is that, in theory, one should need very little in the way of detergent. The bulk of a box of detergent consists of water softeners, which is why you're instructed to add more in hard water areas. I'm told our water is so soft that we really should only need 1/4 cup (2oz) detergent per load. All well and good, but....

....The machine only washes for a scant 8 minutes on a 'normal' cycle, and I find that things I wouldn't have thought twice about in England (most commonly tea slurped down the front of my shirt) don't come clean here! My AEG in the UK used to wash for 25 minutes with it's 'normal' cycle. So I find that if I select a 'heavy duty' cycle that provides an 18 minute wash, and if I spot treat everything, I generally get satisfying results. So why do Europeans get longer washes? I expect the average American would tell you that it's because they're dirtier and don't wash their clothes as often. H'mmmmm.

The worst thing of all is that I don't yet have a clothes line outside (although I do have one in the garage), but I do have a dryer. And so I end up throwing much of the laundry in the dryer, which is energy anathema to me - but I still do it (electric drying makes clothes really soft, and eliminates the need for ironing. {which, those of you who know me well, was never a real worry for me as I used to 'save electricity' by not using my iron}). At least our HOA (Home Owners Association) doesn't forbid hanging laundry out to dry - as apparently many of them do (although a little cursory research tells me that it is illegal for HOAs to prohibit this harmless and ecologically sound practice). Again, it is so dry here that even in the depths of winter you could hang clothes out to dry, and if they didn't freeze, they'd be dry by nightfall. So the acquisition of a clothes line is high on the agenda.

Laundry. Turns out it's on the "Odd To Be Here" list.