Irrational blaming

[Chris & Mara 0]

I am not sure if America can be blamed for constipation too... Anything else?

Lol Im sure we can rat out a few more.

Sadly I have been back in Aus now for 6 months (the entire length of our engagement sadly) and I have found that I no longer find I fit here, I really do feel like DC is home.

Yes American has chocolate that tastes like powder, but hey I can buy the good stuff online or get my mum to post things. Yes their bread has suger in it, I mean who the hell puts sugar in bread? But you can buy stuff that does actually taste like bread.

I suppose I have come to realise with the help of a certain boy and a very good dancer I ran into on the August forums on VJ that things aren't so bad, you can always find a compromise and when your with the one you love does it really matter if they seem to have more police on one corner then I have ever seen in once place in my life?

[DairyFarmer 1]

We are just across the lake if you really want fresh eggs

[Linda&Dave 0]

This is a great thread because I, unfortunately, recognize myself in many of the responses. I do have a tendency to blame the US for every little frustration that occurs but some of my complaints are fully justified!

1)No gravy granules - what's up with that?

2)Water takes 10 times longer to boil over here......and they don't have electric kettles!!

3)I can't iron a pigging shirt if I don't have a pigging cordless iron.......and I can't find a pigging cordless iron!!

4)What the hell's up with the bread? I miss my Mother's Pride.

5)They don't use cheese sauce in their lasagne but some strange stuff that looks like it was scraped off someone's shoe.

6)Chinese buffets everywhere.......and all are shite (or make me desperate for one soon after).

7)Newspapers are just folders for junk flyers

8)"Call Now!" is a trigger for a psychotic frenzy

9)In Pennsylvania there is a church on every corner but come Black Friday everyone gets possessed by demons

10)America has a secret stash of Pod People - watch any TV commercial and tell me I'm wrong!

11) Er.....that's it.

[*julez* 124]

We have an electric kettle. You can get them in the US.

[StillThePrettiest 3]

great observations... I share some of them but not all

1. I've got gravy granules! admittedly one lot from a UK section of a store, but I've got US as well - just in a packet, not a box

2. I agree with you re stovetop boiling... takes FOREVER

but I've seen kettles here, some even advertised in catalogues... not cheap, but not expensive either

(of course, I brought my UK one, and we've plugged it into our UK powerboard, so we're laughing B) )

3. I've never even heard of a cordless iron! I've always ironed shirts with a normal corded one... why can't you use one? *interested*

4. SO AGREE with the bread; it's a travesty

we got a loaf at a Norwegian Christmas festival and the contrast was insane; I knew the US bread was bad but I hadn't realised how much so til I had the real thing again

5. can't comment... my husband makes lasagne (it's one of his few 'specialties' ) and it tastes the same as it always did, to me

6. yes yes yes

though we look for Thai buffets... they're in shorter supply, but generally a lot better than the Chinese ones

7. I don't buy newspapers, BUT hate the bi-weekly heap of trash in our letterbox which all goes straight into recycling

8.

9. don't live in Pennsylvania

10.

[Linda&Dave 0]

We have an electric kettle. You can get them in the US.

The only one I ever saw was in Wal-Mart. Cost about $9 and took a week to boil water. It did not have an automatic shut-off. Linda binned it after 1 week, convinced that electric kettles are a waste of money.

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Yes American has chocolate that tastes like powder, but hey I can buy the good stuff online or get my mum to post things. Yes their bread has suger in it, I mean who the hell puts sugar in bread? But you can buy stuff that does actually taste like bread.

That is what the yeast needs to consume to make the bread rise. Haven't you ever made bread from scratch?

[Linda&Dave 0]

great observations... I share some of them but not all

Thank you.

3. I've never even heard of a cordless iron! I've always ironed shirts with a normal corded one... why can't you use one? *interested*

I can iron pretty much anything with a corded iron.....but not shirts. I have tried many times but the cord either gets tangled with the shirt, rucks the shirt up or drags it off the ironing board and I invariably end up throwing all me toys out of the pram. Once you have used a cordless iron you can't go back.

5. can't comment... my husband makes lasagne (it's one of his few 'specialties' ) and it tastes the same as it always did, to me

Linda makes lasagne but uses some stuff called terracotta or something. It looks like fossilized sago and smells like an Arizona outhouse - how can people put that stuff in their mouths?

[StillThePrettiest 3]

That is what the yeast needs to consume to make the bread rise. Haven't you ever made bread from scratch?

well, that's true, but to be fair, yeast only needs a tiny pinch of sugar (and in fact CAN work out without any at all, though admittedly not as well)

American bread tastes so much sweeter than the stuff I'm used to, I can't believe they're restricting the sugar to a tiny pinch, just to make the yeast go

anyway, to me the problem with the bread is less the sweet taste - though I don't like that much - but more the texture; there's nothing to it! a slice of American bread is like a piece of foam; getting anything with any texture or grains or anything requires a trip to a speciality store for a loaf of German Sonnenkernbrot, or similar (not a hardship, but then it's expensive, and none of those speciality shops are local, oy vey! )

Linda makes lasagne but uses some stuff called terracotta or something. It looks like fossilized sago and smells like an Arizona outhouse - how can people put that stuff in their mouths?

do you mean ricotta?

it might be your brand... the ricotta we've had has all been lovely

Edited December 12, 2008 by StillThePrettiest

[Welshcookie 17]

When we lived in England my husband had the 'complaining fever'....one day I got so fed up with his whinging I told him to piss off back home .....I thought peace would reign once we got here, but no...he is more homesick for England than me, the roads are too straight and can't go fast enough, the telly sucks a$$ etc etc.....I just can't win

I've concluded he is a professional moaner. I call him Victor Meldrew.

[*julez* 124]

We have an electric kettle. You can get them in the US.

The only one I ever saw was in Wal-Mart. Cost about $9 and took a week to boil water. It did not have an automatic shut-off. Linda binned it after 1 week, convinced that electric kettles are a waste of money.

We got ours at Macy's, it has automatic shutoff and it works very well. It cost us around $40. My husband, the Brit, likes it very much indeed, as do I.

You can also find a few shops online that sell them, including Macy's.

The electric kettle-less existence is one area of life that you don't need to suffer here in the US.

[Dr. Obvious 49]

well, that's true, but to be fair, yeast only needs a tiny pinch of sugar (and in fact CAN work out without any at all, though admittedly not as well)

American bread tastes so much sweeter than the stuff I'm used to, I can't believe they're restricting the sugar to a tiny pinch, just to make the yeast go

anyway, to me the problem with the bread is less the sweet taste - though I don't like that much - but more the texture; there's nothing to it! a slice of American bread is like a piece of foam; getting anything with any texture or grains or anything requires a trip to a speciality store for a loaf of German Sonnenkernbrot, or similar (not a hardship, but then it's expensive, and none of those speciality shops are local, oy vey! )

I dunno, I don't really taste the sweetness unless you are talking about styrofoam Sunbeam white bread or the like. Otherwise, tastes fairly neutral to me. It has no rye sourdough base, if that is what you mean. Most nothern European style breads do. It may cancel out the sweetness, but like I said, I really never tasted the difference except in like pure white bread. I spent three years eating the other stuff like a rock stuff when I lived in Germany and still do now when I get some from IKEA. Eh, I guess if you say so.

Do you bake your own bread?

[StillThePrettiest 3]

not as a standard thing - I don't eat a lot of bread, and Dave is happy with the US stuff he's used to - but I make pizza bases from scratch, and often make bread rolls from a very similar recipe, to eat fresh with dinner and stuff

oh, and no - we never buy the styrofoam stuff

always whole wheat...

I'm sure there's better stuff out there, but with the WALLS of bread available in the supermarkets we go to, I've never once found anything I loved (though of course some are better than others )

[Dr. Obvious 49]

I don't think there is anything comparable here to what you would find in Germany. Maybe from the lack of rye or something. My husband saw some bread at Meijer that was from Germany, but he refuses to eat any bread with an expiration date nearly an entire year in the future. We mostly just eat organic whole wheat or flax seed bread from Auntie Mills outlet. When we are at IKEA, we always pick up a few boxes of their Swedish Rye to bake at home. It is the easiest thing on the planet to make. I am somewhat intimidated by making a sourdough starter. It seems so easy that I failed twice.

[StillThePrettiest 3]

oh, I only used the German bread as an example of something with guts, and which I can at least find here, albeit only in speciality stores for the most part... I like some of it, but some is too dark and heavy for me; I don't like all rye breads

what I'd ideally like is bread that's common in the UK and Australia - just normal sized loaves, bought from the standard bread section of normal supermarkets, that have some whole grains and other additions so they feel and taste like a slice of bread and not a piece of nothing... as I said above: I'm sure such stuff exists SOMEWHERE, and possibly even close to home, but I haven't been able to find any yet