Monday, March 31, 2014

You Can't Get Good ________ in Australia

  • iced coffee: See previous posts about coffee-flavored milk. I think they just don't get the concept. It doesn't help that all their coffee is based on espresso, so anything that works better with a milder drip brew simply doesn't happen.
  • weather forecasts: I grew up in a place where the local Public Radio features a 20-minute weather discussion, and it's riveting. When I look up the weather for Australia, I literally get the weather for Australia. Can you narrow it to maybe one time zone?
  • bread and baked goods: No idea why, when most of the food is so good. They're all spongy. I finally found a good loaf of sourdough in Melbourne, but it was a rarity.
  • Mexican and Latin food: I can't pretend to be mystified on this one, but I didn't think about how much Latin flavors add to American cuisine until they weren't there: hot sauce, tortillas, cheap late-night burritos, etc. I had a mojito last night and I was like, it's nice that you tried. Speaking of which:
  • cocktails: Not part of the culture, generally. Australia doesn't have any "native" distilled spirits like American bourbon, while beer and wine are huge, so they don't bother. They do, however, have piles of canned and bottled "cocktail drinks," like pre-mixed Jack and Coke or vodka and lemonade. They look vile.
  • baked beans: I don't normally go for these, but I'm doing a lot camping, and it's no fun sleeping in a plastic envelope unless you've had a good dose of beans. Australians eat British-style beans, which I find watery and tomato-y compared to bacon-y, molasses-y Boston-style beans.
  • incandescent light bulbs: Screw you, planet. Compact fluorescents are flickery, buzzy, and mad unflattering.

1 comment:

  1. Surprising about weather news. You can't just go on Weather Channel? What kind of camera did you get? I was surprised how good the camera on my I-pad is, especially in the HD mode. Did they want your old camera? If not, don't toss it. I think I fixed it once before. Do Australians eat a lot of meat? Sheep, cattle, whatever. Odd about the bread, though. I was surprised how like the whitetails the kangaroos are, in coloration at least.

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