B made it safely out of Bangkok yesterday. He actually did end up getting "evacuated". Not quite as dramatic as it sounds, I assure you. This trip has worked out well for him! He picked it up for extra work and was supposed to be gone from last Sunday to this Saturday. They altered it though, so he didn't have to go until Tuesday and he'll be home Friday night. Not a bad deal. For him or for me.

G picked out a bag of chocolate wafer cookies from the grocery a few days ago. I normally do not cave into this stuff but she was cute saying she had tried them before (where??) and they were so good. So I said ok. Cheapest cookies in the aisle of treats. Totally local brand called Garden Ltd. They have a factory here in Hong Kong where they make their bread, cookies, crackers, etc and then distribute them. I am all about buying local even though I am learning that's not always the best idea for food around here...

Anyway I didn't intend on even reading the packaging because I didn't want to know. But of course today when I brought them out I couldn't resist taking a peek. Especially after I had one and was surprised that it didn't taste so super sweet in that simultaneously gross and yummy way that store bought cookies tend to taste. Get ready food friends.

First ingredient: whole wheat flour. Wow. Who would have thought I'd see anything other than enriched/modified flour? No hydrogenated oil at all, just palm oil and good old coconut oil. No HFCS. It said "sugar". And it also said "cocoa powder". And about 3 other things that I could pronounce. No sodium benzoate or BHT or any of that crap and I would have bet money in this climate those chemicals would have been present... I was really pleasantly surprised. Not that I want to add chocolate wafer cookies to my weekly shopping list but it's just good to know that I need to branch out and start reading labels on brands I have been totally turning my nose up at since I have been here.

B and I went for Thai food last weekend. You don't get automatically get a side of rice with your order. Isn't that weird?

We bought some new-to-us kind of white fish last week that I can't remember the name of... It looked like Tilapia or Grouper or anything else we've ever eaten. It looked good at the store, smelled fine and all that. It was the grossest, toughest, rubberiest fish we could ever remember eating. What the heck was it? And for those of you who may be thinking that maybe it was overcooked or something, you don't know B. He is a Fish Master. And he comes from a long line of Fish Masters. I was just kind of grossed out and worried about still being hungry. I think he was troubled and completely perplexed as to how he could have not known this fish would be gross.

I needed ground pork for a recipe last week too. I had a choice between imported Australian ground pork for $50hkd a pound ($6.40usd) or local ground pork from China for $16hkd a pound ($2usd). I went with the Australian. The stuff from Australia looked 3 times better so I figured the price was about right. Jeez. I don't want to gross anyone out with talk of meat. I could not imagine walking up and thinking the Chinese stuff was a good idea for my nice dinner for my family that I like. I prefer to think all the restaurants around here are going with the better stuff too. Yeah right. But I'll eat it from them. I am just not going to buy it when I have the choice.

Sour cream is hard to come by over here. I prefer Daisy brand. It has a really short list of ingredients and all of them are things that should be in sour cream. Like cream. No gelatin or guar gum or whatever else Big Food can think of to throw in there. Anyway, anytime I come across sour cream over here, it definitely not the quality I would have bought before. I had been wanting to switch from sour cream to plain Greek yogurt (Fage) anyway but just hadn't done it so I figured now was the time. Holy cow that stuff is good! It is different than sour cream but strangely I like it even better. I have been using it in tons of recipes and am so glad that I knew that was an option. I can find Fage at any store any day of the week. So I never have to worry about not being able to find it.

Speaking of not being able to find things, here's a list of things on my shopping list that I couldn't find just in the past week: chocolate chips, canned black beans, organic eggs, my normal brand of chicken broth, my favorite brand of club soda... I know there's more. Every week there is a list like this but it's always got different things on it. If I was a normal person it would probably drive me crazy.