2 Texans Down Under

People everywhere, even those of us who enjoy travel and find ourselves able to adjust well to living in countries other than the one in which we were born, long for “the comforts of home.”

Being near family and friends is at the top of the list of what we miss.  Knowing one’s way around and speaking the most-common language, is up there, too.

But sometimes what we expatriates miss is  “comfort food” or, at least, food we’re accustomed to buying and eating.

Friends of ours from Amsterdam were missing “pindakaas” until they found a Dutch food store not far from where they live now in Brisbane.  That Dutch word means “peanut cheese,” which is what we call peanut butter.

Odd though “peanut cheese” may be to our ears, it is just about as logical as our term (in your Skippy’s jar, there is, literally, neither cheese nor butter), and, having tasted the Dutch version of peanut butter, I can tell you that it is almost addictive.  Very good!  No wonder Jannique and Bjorn miss it so much.

An on-line discussion I’m reading these days is for Americans in Brisbane, and lately the talk there has turned to restaurants that US folk here miss, including Dunkin Donuts places and pancake houses.

Kristi and I always managed to “miss” those when were in the States, so there absence in Australia is no loss to us, but the on-line chat has turned to something we do, in fact, miss: corn tortillas.

Yes, there are corn tortillas manufactured in Australia and on sale in grocery stores, but for some odd reason, they all contain wheat.  I’m allergic to wheat and so I read labels carefully.  Otherwise, I would never have imagined anyone would add wheat to corn tortillas.  Grrrr!

So here is one “comfort of home” that we miss greatly.  A staple of our diet is not available to us down under.  Our on-line American friends are trading recipes for making your own corn tortillas from masa (a corn flour).

We have some masa.  Maybe we’ll give it a go, but I tried producing my own corn tortillas once a few years ago and I could never get them thin enough.  I made, a charitable person might say, corn pancakes.

Hey, there’s an idea.  Maybe we should open an “American Corn Pancake House.”  It might become a chain.  We could offer peanut cheese as a side dish. We might become fabulously wealthy.  Or not.

Maybe we’ll just have to put corn tortillas on our list of “special treats” to be sought out the next time we’re back in the United States.