April Snows!

I woke up this morning (23 April for crying out loud) to this unwelcome sight, and the wrenching realization that I’d left my fuchsia and euphorbia outside last night. Fortunately, they have both survived and will recover the cold damage suffered. The snow had melted by 10am, and so we must think of it as nothing more than sorely needed precipitation. I prefer rain.

I’ve just been listening to a podcast of The Food Programme which always serves to add to my ambivalence about the food differences between the USA and UK.

On the one hand, I have been buying organic apples and pears for $1/lb or less since January. I have also discovered a local ‘re-store’ that stocks food that is minutes away from its sell-by date at significantly reduced prices. You never know what you will find on the shelves, but can be assured that you will find new and interesting products that you wouldn’t ordinarily buy, but they are inexpensive enough that you are happy to give it a try.

Who knows where they get this stuff (actually a brief conversation with the owner confirms that there are international brokers for this kind of food – who knew?). In any event, last week saw Lyon’s digestive biscuits – both chocolate and normal – on the shelves at .99c and $1.29 respectively, and now I have something like 20 packets of each stored in my garage. Digestive biscuits are not something we even miss that much, but it’s nice to have access to them for just a taste of home. We also found some thin rice cakes – something we miss enormously, but hadn’t otherwise been able to find, which led to an internet search of the brand and a purchase of a case from Amazon no less.

On the other hand I wanted to buy some crème fraiche yesterday only to discover that it is stocked only in the deli section for a mere $7 for 4oz!!!!. (I bought some cream and buttermilk to make my own - 8 oz for $3) Cream is not an item commonly bought in the USA. The only cream available is ‘heavy whipping cream’. No single or double. It is always ‘ultra-pasteurized’ – even the organic varieties. Sigh. Americans are so very happy to lie down and accept whatever big business sells them. This is not to say that Farmers Markets don’t exist, nor that you can’t find small producers who do produce quality food, just that they are harder to find, and that their prices are more like I use to pay in the UK, and when you convert that UK price to dollars, the number seems horrific.

The UK consumer seems to have more influence than their American counter-part. It might be because they are better informed – who knows? I do know that if I ever start spouting off about GMO foods here, people’s eyes glaze over, and they look bewildered that I should be concerned