A new supply of bagels?

Here are some good news for the hungry expat I am. I recently met for the first one of my colleagues from Montreal, basically he is more or less in the company my opposite number on the other side of the pond. Of course, as a fellow Montrealer, I asked him if he was more Fairmount or St-Viateur when it came to choose bagels. He was Fairmount, darnit. Well, nobody is perfect. But nevertheless, he was nice enough to offer me to bring some bagels from St-Viateur next time he is here! Which is likely to be April. I will ask for a dozen of them. I was lucky last time I bought a dozen bagels at their café on Mont-Royal Avenue: when I got home, I discovered that I had fifteen bagels! I call this fair accounting. Anyway, thanks to this generous way of counting, I still have a fair stock of bagels, now I know I can have a supply in April. I am happy.

Food for the hungry expat

My English readers will have recognised on the picture on the left a sheperd's pie/cottage pie. It is, but not quite. In fact, it is a pâté chinois (literally a Chinese pie), the Québec version of the dish. And no, it is not the same. Seriously, it is not. The single difference is that we add sweet corn (creamed corn in this case, which I prefer, the other corn imakes it too dry). I said single difference, but the creamed corn is the little thing that makes ALL the difference here, it turns the pie from a borrowed English dish into something Quebecker, and quite different in terms of taste.. On the side, we have beetroots, to add to the exotism (well, to my non-Quebec readers, the exotism, for Quebeckers there is nothing more plain than a pâté chinois).

So I had this on my first supper in Chicoutimi. With a slice of chocolate cake. I don't think I ever ate one that was that good. When you are homesick, this is what I dream of. And tonightwe eat tourtière. I will blog more about it, and the experience.

A shop for the hungry expat

Nealry three years ago, I found some websites that were specialised shipping Canadian food to hungry expat. I was ready to order some, I even emailled the websites to learn more about them and their services, but for some reason it never went further than this. Maybe because I was unemployed at that time and thought I should not spend a fortune for peanut butter, I don't know. But then I discovered through Google the existence of this shop in London. It doesn't only sell food from Canada, but also from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The colonies, in fact. And I was happy to discover that they have Kraft peanut butter! (I guess it is no big surprise, but it's still good news). They sell lots of things I don't care about. But they have Kraft peanut butter! Just when my stocks have run out. And the price is not even prohibitive. More expensive than at home, but not nearly as expensive as getting it shipped from mum or from an online company. I just have to order online and it will travel here from... London.

A solution for the hungry nostalgic expat

I found this site, this other site and that one which are supposed to provide products for the Canadian living abroad (such as Map-O-Spread, Grenache spread, Laura Secord chocolates and so on). I don't know if I can order anything to be sent here in England (I guess abroad is abroad), but it would be nice to get some Kraft peanut butter. I will have to see first about how expensive it is.