The Food
Since I am located next to a more traditionally ‘normal’ grocery, I thought I’d blog a bit about the food supplies in CR.
Aside from the weird meat products in this country, I’ll say that Czechs love yogurt. I mean really fucking love yogurt. The dairy section at Albert is insane. By my sub-standard measurements, I’d say the yogurt aisle is approx 20+ feet long. No shit. The prices are really reasonable (I just bought some individual containers for 5.90Kc) and come in a variety of flavors. Catering to the Czech national palate of loving all things sweet, there is also a plethora of chocolate and coconut flavored yogurts on the market, too. They are delicious. The Euro yogurts are made with glorious full-fat dairy products and it’s quite evident in the taste. I’ll say they have done well in this area.
The produce department…. This is something that is lacking in comparison to American grocery counterparts. The selection is limited and it’s strange to see many items not refrigerated. Generally speaking, the array of products here is less than in the U.S. which is to be expected but also the supplies of many products are usually around the 50% mark. In other words, the shelves are not always stocked. *An additional note on refrigeration… Ok, here the milk here comes in cartons. No, not like the American cartons. These are more like boxes. Anyway, some milk is kept chilled and some others are not. They just sit in a big pile waiting to be purchased. I can’t figure out the difference in this area. I’m thinking maybe the chilled stuff is ‘real’ whereas the room temperature stuff is some kind of powdered milk variety that never goes bad.
The meat/fish department….. Apparently turkey is non-existent here as Frank can attest that in his time here, he has never seen a turkey in any form, anywhere, ever. Pork is the big seller here and there seems to be a limitless supply of various cuts available. Chicken is also big and it’s no problem to find. Beef isn’t as plentiful but certainly present. The fish… fresh cuts of fish are expensive. I don’t recall what a fresh piece of tuna runs but it’s up there. There is an abundance of fake crab (which I love) as well as fake lobster that I suppose is commonplace as this is a landlocked country so it’s an appropriate substitution.
Random grocery stuff….. if you buy brand name laundry detergent, it’s super expensive. I can’t figure that one out. Also, here’s something that is going to freak me out soon unless I can find the proper measures…. applicator tampons. Where are they? Rosie informed me that they are difficult to procure. Boo. I guess Czech women prefer the maxi variety and to my trained Tampax brain, that is wrong wrong wrong. I just simply cannot do that. I’m not 13 and this ain’t my first rodeo.I was craving some American-style food the other day so I whipped up a nice little breakfast. Fried potatoes and onions with tomatoes, scrambled eggs, Euro bacon and some toast with cream cheese. Outside of Bohemia Bagel, I haven’t seen a bagel for purchase so I had to wing it with the bread. All in all, it was good and although the stove takes a while to heat up, it worked just fine. My kitchen appliances are thousands of miles away and I miss them. Did I mention this flat doesn’t even have a microwave? While mine in the U.S. was complete shit, at least it was an option. Gotta go old school at this new crib.
I snapped some good pics this week from one of the Charles Bridge Towers (and a few other places) this week but I need to run them through Photoshop to reduce the size and do minor tweaking. Oh, and that’s another minor glitch here in Europe…. I only have one adapter. I have far too many electrical things to work simultaneously. So, my Photoshop is on an external drive but since that requires use of the adapter, I can’t keep this machine at full juice while running PS off the external drive. It just makes things more complicated. Yes, I could buy more adapters but apparently they run around 25 USD here. Sucks. I know I’ll break down and get more eventually.
