So today Genie and I went on a little outing to the Lady Di's British Store and Tea house in Lake Oswego. I was pretty excited to see what they had in the store and a few days ago I called ahead to see if they had Easter eggs. Apparently they did, so I was planning to get one for Cory.
Easter eggs like we have in the UK aren't a thing here, infact I haven't seen them anywhere. You can get the Cadbury creme eggs, but they are slightly different, but none of the usual hollow eggs. So I was determined to find one for Cory. I also read a few reviews this morning that said they sometimes have bacon... real back bacon! I couldn't help but get excited, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too high.
Anyway, we headed out of Mac and up to Lake Oswego - it's a pretty drive and a really nice area. We found the store up on Second Street - It had a big Union Jack flying outside, it was hard to miss.
In we go and the first thing we see is all the Easter eggs (YES!) and then a bunch of familiar pantry items. It was wonderful. They have bisto gravy, curry paste, chocolates from home, Jacobs cream crackers, porridge oats, Robinson's orange squash... They have so many things, and a pretty large selection of Tea too.
As I was looking round at the Easter eggs I spotted the freezer... Ooooh, maybe I was in luck! I peered in and there it was, yummy bacon! It was galtee bacon which is Irish, but I was just so surprised to see any bacon from home. They had 2 packages... Hummmmm
So, we decided to have lunch first and then come and do our shopping afterwards... So we sat down in the Tea house part of the store and had a look at the menu.
Moya (an expat herself) came and took our order for tea while we decided what to have for lunch. I opted for soup and a sandwich (cheese and tomato) and Genie had the same, except she went for the cream cheese & cucumber! YUM!
It was Heinz tomato soup, I could tell instantly. I didn't really realise how much of a difference there was between that and the soup we buy but I guess my taste buds had just adapted to the new flavour.
After finishing our delicious lunch we went back to shopping. I settled on a Crunchie Easter egg for Cory, I thought he'd like the honeycomb centre and that it wasn't all chocolate, and I picked out a Flake one for me. I also got some Bisto gravy and both packages of bacon. I wrestled with the bacon, since it was $8.50 a package and there was only 6 slices per pack I was planning on just getting the one package, but Cory knew how much I missed bacon from back home so he persuaded me to get both packages, and we could freeze one.
We'll be having bacon for dinner tonight! :)
I know it's pretty sad that I miss foodstuffs from home so much, but it's what I was brought up on, it's embedded into who I am, so it's hard when there are some things that are so different here from back in the UK & Ireland.
I think Easter eggs will have to be a yearly tradition in the Fast household from now on. Next year I plan on pouring my own, but we'll see what happens between now and then, it's a long way off.
To celebrate we made a 'full English breakfast' meal for dinner, and I made a Red Velvet Cake for desert - since it's our green card birthday, we had to have cake... right?
