OK, so Mike's birthday was last week. He was out of town but when he got back I wanted to surprise him with his favorite, carrot cake. Well, I didn't realize what an undertaking this would be.
1. Our local Ole supermarket didn't have carrots. I can't imagine any store in the states not having carrots.
2. I couldn't find baking soda.
3. My oven doesn't work, so I had to bake it at my neighbor's house
4. No powdered sugar to be found at the local Ole
5. No fancy powered food processor to shred the carrots, so I had to get one of the old fashioned 4 sided graters and hope I only grated the carrots.
So the day he came home I ventured out to look for my final ingredients. I was tempted to visit Savino in the kitchen over at the Highlands, surely he had what I would need (maybe not the powdered sugar). It was a holiday here so I thought he might not even be there. I headed into downtown Boca Chica. I knew of a little fruit and veggie stand and maybe they would have carrots. So I get there and there are some small shriveled up carrots with gnats all over them. One of the workers assured me that they were coming. Or at least that is what I thought he said by watching his body language as he pointed to the SUV that had just pulled up filled to the gills with fresh produce. So I waited. This was what I was looking at while I waited. I even get skeeved out by the packaged chicken in the store here that is refrigerated, but this REALLY skeeved me out. Are we just super sensitive in the states about temperature of meat and where we store it? I am not sure, but I know I can barely get past the feet....yuck!
While I was waiting I walked next door to the little store. They call them colmados. They are pretty small, sometimes attached to someone's house. You can buy all sorts of staples there. So I headed over with my sheet of paper with some google translated words and a photo from my cell phone of baking soda. The young man behind the counter reaches down under one of the shelving units and pulls out a box with all sorts of packets in it and hands me bicarbonato, which I think is what I need. Then he asks me how much. Well I needed 2 teaspoons full so I asked for 3 packets hoping that was enough. The label says God's Blessing in Spanish, super! Then I hoped I didn't get pulled over and and arrested for drug possession. Thankfully each packet was 1 teaspoon, so I have one teaspoon left over for another day!
As I made my way back to the fruit and veggie stand they handed me the bag of carrots. The biggest carrots I have ever seen!! Now the bananas are a little on the small side, but still!!
So I returned pretty proud of myself that I got what I needed. The kids helped me and Noemi watched. I never did find confectioner's sugar but I bought a jar of white frosting and just added cream cheese to it. If I had the time to venture to San Pedro or to Santo Domingo I would probably find it. I didn't want to risk all that time and not find the sugar. The frosting turned out pretty good. I even had electric beaters to use to mix it. Cream cheese is also pretty readily available here.
So grocery shopping has been challenging for me here. We have an Ole grocery store pretty close by. It is limited to what sells so there is a whole isle dedicated to rice and oil and powdered milk. I don't eat many carbs (my body sleeps after carbs instead of being fueled) so it is challenging for me to find my normal staples. You can buy boneless, skinless chicken but sometimes it looks yucky. It always smells yucky to me, but it seems to be the packaging. Once the plastic wrapper is removed and the chicken is rinsed the smell goes away. I haven't really found a great place for meat. So we just see what we can find, cook a ton of it and freeze it for future use. We eat chicken salad for lunch most days, so we cut it up before we freeze it to have it ready when needed (we eat it without bread).
When we go to church in Santo Domingo we usually do our shopping there. There is a store called Pricemart and it is like a BJ's or Sam's. It is expensive, but you can get many things there that we are used to using. Food in general is probably double the cost of what I spent in the states. This in part is because of what our family likes to eat. Dominicans can make a little go a long way and eat a ton of rice. When we first got here I was eating what they ate and couldn't understand why I was so lethargic and tired all the time. When the groups left and we weren't eating at the cafeteria at the Highlands and I was cooking for myself I figured out the problem. Two summers ago when we came for the 10 day mission trip, I swore that I ate more carbs in that week than I had eaten in my whole life prior to that (pasta, rice, potatoes). Carbs are cheap, but my body doesn't like them that much.
The crazyest things I have seen here food wise are as follows:
1. Eggs are not refrigerated, they come like this. If you google
eggs you will find that if you don't remove the bloom then they don't need to be refrigerated. In the states we process them so much that it washes off that coating that keeps them fresher longer. So I keep mine out on my counter, and don't bother taking up room in the fridge. I do want to see if I can find an egg tree to store them.
2. Milk is powdered and you mix it with water and store it in a container in the fridge, or make it as needed if you don't have refrigeration.
3. Rice is sold in bulk in a big wooden box in the produce section. The first time I noticed this a woman was running her hands through the rice as she was waiting to get some stuff weighed. That along with it being open to the air where dust and who knows what could get in skeeved me out. So I just buy my rice bagged. I miss my 10 min boil in the bag rice. I haven't mastered cooking rice yet. I just let my friend Noemi make it for me :)
4. In the frozen food section you can buy chicken nuggets and fries and other fried things in bulk, loose packed and also open to the air in a freezer case. Yuck!
5. In the small neighborhoods they have "butcher shops" and you see cuts of meat hanging from an open air store with no refrigeration. No thanks. You will usually find a dog sitting right in front licking his chops awaiting a free hand out. Two summers ago I did see a house with a cow head hanging outside signaling to everyone that he had some beef for sale. Sorry I didn't get a picture :)
6. You may see someone on a motorcycle riding down by the beach holding up a fish for sale, again no refrigeration. I was told check the eyes, if they are clear, it is safe. You also see people on the side of the highway selling lobsters and fish. The highway is right along the ocean so they could be pretty fresh.
7. In the capital you can find many things we use in the states. I can't find ranch dip which is a staple, guacamole dip packets, or canned chicken (I hear you can sometimes find this but I never have). I finally found cottage cheese which is good because Grace loves it.
8. I love ginger ale, actually the little cans of Canada Dry to be exact. No baby gingies, but I did find the regular cans in a couple of places.
9. No Swedish Fish have been found so far on the island. Many people (especially my Mom) know my love of fishies and I stock up when I am home. Needless to say, I have eaten more Swedish Fish than humanly necessary in the last 7 months.
I think that is about it for food here, or at least what I can think of right now. Now I am hungry!! Be blessed the next time you venture out to the grocery store and all the amazing treats at your fingertips!
In order to budget better, I do want to start shopping more locally. Pick up trucks are filled to almost overflowing with all sorts of fruits and veggies and other staples like eggs and sometimes chickens and drive through the streets blasting the specials of the day over a loud speaker. Pretty cool that the food comes right to you!! And there are stands all over where you can buy produce. I need to do this more. When we have in the past, I can't believe how reasonable avocados, tomatoes, bananas and apples are at these stands vs. Ole or the stores in the capital. I also would rather support my neighbors than the big corporations. I have learned a lot about how to make food last a long time from my friend Noemi by spending some time in the kitchen with her. Number one we eat a LOT compared to them. One night she made chicken for the 4 of us and herself and her husband and the amount she made for all of us was about what Mike would usually eat himself. They counter this by eating a lot of rice with a little meat. I still have a lot to learn! One day I would love to have chickens and fresh eggs....oh to dream!
In His Grip,
Jodi
