Miss List #6

#6: Real BBQ

THIS is not real BBQing:




As you can see, fire does not at any point, touch meat. To me, this is more like...frying without oil? But this is a public BBQ grill, as the Gold Coast has them all up and down the beachfront parks. I do admit, some home BBQ grills actually grill meat with real fire.

I had a conversation about BBQ the other day and I realized the other thing that's missing from the "BBQ menu" here: smoked meat. They love the smoked salmon here - which is indeed yummy, but smoked BBQ meat is rare, perhaps non-existent. One of my favorite dishes to order in a BBQ restaurant is a (smoked) pulled pork sandwich, smothered in the hottest, spiciest BBQ available - yum! I'd pay a lot of money for one of those right now!

Intermission

That's pretty bad. I disappeared in the middle of a countdown. Sheeesh.

Well, my absence was for a good reason. I accepted the job in Mackay, and since both my new employer and I wanted to start as soon as possible, I've been spending the last 2 weeks frantically searching for a place to live in Mackay and getting paperwork done. It's about an hour north of the Gold Coast/Brisbane by plane, so Theo and I flew up last week to search for an apartment or house. I preferred to get a house, so I can finally get the dog I've been wanting for years, and by a miracle, we found something after two days of searching! I'll update you more on Mackay and the house in future posts. Since I now have a public sector/regulatory job, I won't say much on this blog about the job other than it's a great opportunity, exactly within my field, and exactly along the career goals I had set for myself. So... Yay! Today was my first day on the job, and it was smooth as silk.

The countdown shall resume tomorrow.

Miss List #7

#7: Crab Legs

You'd think in this land of coastal living, there would be crab legs galore! The only crabs I've seen for sale are whole mud crabs and soft shelled crabs. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

There's definitely no shortage of fish and prawns, you can even get fresh calamari... Prawns, by the way, meaning shrimp. I've never been a big fan of shrimp, but the air was definitely let out of my tires when I discovered that no one, and I mean, no one, says "Let's throw some shrimp on the barby!" Barby is definitely universally used, but not shrimp. I have not heard a single person utter this word. It's all prawn, Mate. No shrimps... and no crab legs...

Miss List #8

#8: Idaho Potatoes

I'm a huge fan of carbohydrates in many forms. Potatoes are one of my absolute favorites and we tend to eat them at least once a day in some form. At first, I didn't notice the absence of Idaho potatoes specifically, until I realized that we never have the option of a baked potato when we go out to eat. The form of potato greatly preferred here is hot chips (i.e. french fries). Fish 'n' Chips might as well be melded into a single word. No complaints really about that, but every once in a while, I could really go for a baked potato, which is my side of choice pretty much 99% of the time. I realized this loss one day when we went to steakhouse in Brisbane and the menu boasted baked "Idaho Potato," so you know what I ordered. But that's the only time I've seen it and the other potatoes they grow here just don't stack up!!! You don't what you miss 'till it's gone...

Correction to Miss List #10... I mentioned a new candy bar I enjoy here and mistakenly called it Whitman's, when the correct name is Whittaker's. It's a New Zealand chocolate company and it's divine! Here's a photo for reinforcement... :)

Miss List #9

#9: Naked Juice

I'm not trying to promote any products, but I particularly like this line of juices. I like that nothing is added to them and many of them contain vegetables, which I notoriously don't eat enough of. It made me feel like I was eating something healthy, especially the green machine!! I used to keep them in the fridge at work for snacks, and had graduated to buying the huge jugs for home. Oh naked juice, where are you now?

Leah's Top 10 Miss List Intro/#10

Now that I've been living in Australia for over 6 months, the ice-breaker question of choice has now shifted to something new. It is now... "Do you miss America?" or "What do you miss most about America." I normally have a standard answer to this, which I will not reveal at this time, but I've been thinking about it more lately. Of course there are always family and friends to miss. Other than that, there are a few things that immediately come to mind, mainly foods, since I am food-obsessed.

I decided to present them to you over the next 10 days, David Letterman style, since I always enjoyed watching his Top 10 lists as a kid.

Please don't read this as a "Things Leah Wants People to Mail to Her" list. I think I've done really well adapting to the new land and its ways. I kinda pride myself on my ability to adapt, and hope that I'm honing my Buddhist-like transcendence skills. But in the end, how hard can it be? Aren't all English-speaking industrialized nations pretty similar, especially in this world of globalization?

So this list is just for entertainment's sake. And I've actually found some new favorite things and have been able to substitute cravings or create brand new (usually food) cravings when they arise.

Drum roll please...

I will now reveal Leah's Top 10 Miss List:

#10:

Certain Candy Bars and Snacks

Might as well start off with candy. As of yet, I haven't been able to find one of my favorite candy bars - Crunch. I've loved this one since I was little, and I have my own ritual for systematically eating it. There are plenty of M&Ms here, but I can't find the dark chocolate ones. Another favorite I had for taking to work for snacks was Snyder's sourdough pretzels. I don't think Aussies are big pretzel fans, because I haven't seen many...

There's no shortage of candy in Oz, but it is quite a bit more expensive. It can cost more than $2 for a single candy bar, $1 if you're lucky and it's on sale. Not sure why... Maybe a junk food tax? Maybe they're all imported (this is part of the Cadbury kingdom)? But I guess it doesn't hurt to have a deterrent for my sugar cravings. I used to stock up on Crunch bars when occasionally I got them for 25 cents each, 40 cents on a bad day. That's not going to happen here!

But I am still able to get my hands on dark chocolate Kit Kats, and discovered the creamy pleasures of Whittaker's dark chocolate blocks. Then there's always the Cadbury products, my favorite of which is the Caramel bars... yum!

So stay tuned for the rest of the list!!

My First Winter Birthday

I am clearly a summer person. I have a general theory about this, but it doesn't hold true for everyone. Generally, I've found that if a person was born in summer, they are a summer weather person. Born in winter... winter person. Spring and Fall are wild cards. At any rate, I'm a summer person and I love the heat and I love that my birthday falls in the summer. But not this year. This upside down climate means my birthday is now in winter. Although it's nothing like a Midwest winter - lately we've had highs in the upper 50s, I still find the energy to complain, even though I know I have no right to.

Despite the temperatures, it's been a wonderful birthday. Not really because we've done anything super exciting, but because I've received all kinds of good news this past week. I started the week out on pins and needles, waiting to hear if my last interview was a success or not. I was preparing myself mentally for all kinds of scenarios, one of which being no job offer at all and impending financial doom. So I reevaluated my assets. I still had a car in my mom's driveway to sell. So I asked my family to post another ad on craigslist. It got immediate response and the car was sold in a matter of days. I am glad to have a replenishment of funds in the bank, but I'm also sad to say goodbye to my favorite car I've ever owned... my always-fun-to-drive Subaru WRX.

I was also worried about my house. Our renters' current lease is about to expire, and we didn't know if they planned to renew or not. If they didn't, there was a possibility we'd have to cover the mortgage until our management company found new renters. After pressing the company to get an answer, we finally heard back. They're staying! Yay!




And the week just kept getting better. On Thursday, I was unofficially (until some details are taken care of) offered the job in Mackay! That definitely made my day... week... month, perhaps! I will soon be employed and will do something worthwhile with my time. (It's about time!)

It's also the beginning to my "birthday week." I prefer to celebrate birthday over a span of at least a week. It's much more fun that way, and you always seem to have birthday dinner with this group of people, birthday lunch with that group of people. So you might as well call it a "birthday week." It especially holds true here, where July 3rd is not really my birthday, technically, because of the time zones. So I really have 2 birthdays now.

Friday, we began the festivities by going out with some new friends to our favorite local Japanese joint. It's nothing special, but their sushi is wonderful and not over-priced. I was dying for some hot sake - it's "cold" out, remember. But we get there and realize they're not licensed to sell alcohol, which is pretty common here. However, many places are BYO. Theo rushed to save the day. Although I doubted he could save this day, he surprised me by returning from the bottle shop with a whole bottle of sake!! I hadn't even dreamed the nearby bottle shop would actually carry sake, but they did! It came in the cutest box (see pics all around - each side looks like a scene from a different 1000-piece puzzle), and the ladies at the restaurant even heated it up for us! It was a fantastic finish to a week of happy surprises!