Foods and Chocolate!

Several people have asked me about food items, so here goes!

There are always apples, just like in Oregon. Pears are very common too. Both of these are grown extensively in Ireland. They may have the capabilities to grow more except citrus and tropical fruit, but culturally they just don’t. They import their fruit from Africa so we get really small expensive pineapples, strawberries, and I did see raspberries at the farmers market but again super spendy. During the spring and summer there seams to be more fruits available. The strawberries were about 4 Euro for a container that I know I could get back home 2 for a dollar at Safeway. Raspberries were 5 Euro for a small little container like you see at the store. I have only found frozen strawberries as well, not the plethora of frozen fruit I could find. Oh bananas you can get easily and are good priced (I think Ben could get those all winter as well). You just have to shop around. I have not been able to find a place that has everything, but apparently when the Super Quinn goes into our neighborhood at the end of this year, they will. There are several different types of grocery stores to go to. Spar is like a glorified Plaid Pantry, but what they sell is actually good, even the hot dogs, just expensive. You could do all your basic grocery shopping there if you really needed to. Great if you just need to pick up a loaf of bread since they are found all over. Londis is similar to a Spar just a different chain. Centra is just a small step up from Spar, but it is open later and a little more expensive. SuperValu would be like Winco. Tesco is your standard Thriftway/Safeway. Super Quinn is like a Whole Foods.

Fruits I have seen:
Plums, pears, apples, pineapples, peaches, small oranges, dates, grapefruit, grapes, bananas and kiwis. Not always that good and small, but there. The farmers market has the best stuff so far.

There are TONS of vegetables though, mostly root type stuff at the small local stores, but all you could want there. It is easier to list the veggies that I have not been able to find: Okra, fresh artichokes, and pumpkin.

Other stuff is reasonably priced, if not cheaper. I get the BEST croissants for 37 cent a piece. Great dairy items for super cheap as well. So I guess it still costs about the same to grocery shop, but then almost everything is fresh and organic, which is the part I like! Almost all the meat is free range and the eggs as well, big huge brown eggs. Plus I can get the infamous Black and White Pudding. If you do not know what it is, just come over and try it out! And no, it is not a dessert item, it is meat. When India and Ireland used to belong to the United Kingdom, there were Indians that relocated to Ireland, so there is a lot of good and cheap Indian food. When you go to a Take Away place you can get the standard chips, fried any type of meat/fish and curried chicken.

Oh and the most super duper part is......they have the best sweets! Their chocolate is much better than Hershey chocolate, and you can get all sorts of crazy European stuff for cheap. In the last year they have also started importing Oreos! Tons of biscuits to try, since I love drinking tea. Tea is huge, but coffee is starting to try and rival it. I have seen Starbucks since I have come back, but I have only seen 4 in the whole city. Not very many considering I have seen multiple intersections in the States that have one on each corner. Folgers crystals instant coffee is mostly what you are going to have if you go to someone’s house. I still go for the tea, one lump or two?