I don’t know about you but there are some things that are crucial to a family’s happiness. Things you take for granted until you can’t find them. In our family these three items are vital. Every day, every day, one or more of my children colors and the coloring items of choice are crayons. Call me crazy but I have a definite opinion on crayons—they are not all created equal. There are Crayola crayons and then there are paltry wax imitations of Crayola that smear and smudge across the page and fingers and clothes and...you see why I have a definite opinion here? But for some odd reason I cannot find Crayola crayons here (I’ve found markers and colored pencils of that brand but, alas, no crayons). However, I do not despair because I know of at least one person who has successfully found them here and so I press on; and I will not rest till I find every box this country has to offer and buy them up so I will never have to search again—perhaps this is going too far? But honestly it’s the little things sometimes…and while I’m on a rant (call it culture stress, whatever) what does this place have against black beans???? I mean, I can find every other legume known to man, canned or dried, but black beans hardly! I guess that’s not fair because I finally located them at a store in the capital city that caters to ex-pats and I stopped myself after I put 4 or 5 cans in the cart, but I’ll be back…The only shining part of this rant comes with the third hard to find item: tortillas. I’m sure I need hardly explain the role of tortillas in our diet after you read about the black beans. But necessity is the mother of invention and here is something I can put some effort into and produce myself; and did you know they are totally worth the trouble of making? I kid you not, go to www.food.com look up the homemade tortilla recipe and give it a whirl they are awesome (I used butter instead of shortening and I think they were all the better for it!). There, I feel better now—think I’ll go have some ice cream, here at least we have suffered no losses! =)
