When you’re living on the opposite side of a country from the rest of your family, unless it’s Lichtenstein, you tend to miss the things that you can’t get.  When moving to Seattle I was horrified the first week I was here to realize that the only orange juice I’d be drinking would be the half-gallon that had made it across the country with me in a cooler.  Why?  As I’ve said before, my stomach hates me, so I have to drink low-acid orange juice.  Only one company markets that – and it’s Tropicana.  As I found out, only one supermarket chain carries it out here – and that’s QFC.  Everyone carries every other bleeding variety except low acid.  Thanks QFC for caring about us folks with stomachs which are hateful.

As a big plus to Seattle, it’s solved one of my other problems.  I haven’t had a cup of coffee in a decade.  That’s no exaggeration.  In my college days at some point I started getting sick everyday.  My stomach would turn and twist and be quite unhappy.  I subsisted on orange juice and coffee in those days.  Like, it’s all I drank.  Sometimes all I ate, really.  I never drink soda, ever.  Sometimes it’s all I ate too.  Not much on nutrition back then.  But when you’re 19 you can live on coffee and cigarettes.  Not so much these days.  So that was it.  One day I just drank water, and I wasn’t sick.  First time in months and months.  Didn’t take long to make the connection.  Turns out that’s when my stomach organized its own revolt.  I was able to find low acid orange juice, and that made my world livable again.  And I moved onto being a tea fanatic.  Which is great, I love hot tea and I drink gallons of it.  But I always miss coffee.  Always.  Sad story.  Moving to Seattle I’ve found acid neutralized coffee.  I know, I know, low acid coffee’s are around – but they usually taste like dirt.  Not interested.  I found something out here which actually approximates real coffee.  Thank you Seattle and your horrid coffee addiction!

As a native Rhode Islander living “abroad” one of the other things I miss is coffee syrup.  Chances are if you’re not from Rhode Island you’re looking at your screen like I’ve said I miss herpes.  Not so much.  You’ll have to look up some Autocrat Coffee Syrup, there’s a wiki for you.  You don’t know what you’re missing.  Come my Christmas return home, I’ll be bringing back a gallon or two to tide me over.  Asking about coffee syrup out here brings you to an aisle of flavored products that are added to coffee – flavor shots.  Boo.  Go figure, Seattle.

What I did get was a tidy little box in the mail.  I had no idea what was inside, but I knew it would be good, no matter what.  What I got was a happy reminder of home.  I’ve  yet to find a good wine biscuit out here.  While there are countless good bakeries and folks that show up at the farmers’ market with great baked items – the elusive wine biscuit has never been among the things I can find.  I ate almost a bag full the first night.  Yum indeed.  And there’s a second reserve bag for reinforcement.

Also in there is a bag of egg biscuits.  With icing.  Also quite tasty.  Also something I’ve not found a happy replacement for since I’ve been out here.  So happy to have something nice to snack on I didn’t have to slave over.  Yay! for care packages.  Yay for thoughtful moms!