For the first time in 3 weeks our family will be together - ALL together. Mike's been in the States for three weeks attending to medical needs and attending his first seminary class at RTS. I've been in the States with my family as my mom is pretty sick. Madison has been holding down the Pettengill household, and hanging with Caitlin (an intern working in La Ceiba), and our team mate Kathy and her children. Mike arrives home LATE tonight, and tomorrow - Saturday - we will be all together! Woohoo!
On a fun note - when I go to the States I always take the opportunity to bring back things that I miss. What did I bring back?
Instant Yeast
San Francisco Sour Dough bread - hand carried in my carry-on bag the whole way
Chocolate Chips
Kettle Chips - salt and vinegar
cast iron pan
Candy Corn
And most importantly - I bagged/iced/wrapped two bags of fresh cranberries! One of my favorite recipes for Thanksgiving is this amazing orange/cranberry sauce - but not having access to fresh cranberries I haven't enjoyed it for almost 4 years! Can't even wait!
I know...probably not the first things you may have thought of, but these are the things I miss or can't get here. I often wonder what the x-ray guys think, or when my bags get searched (as both my bags were) by Security what they think when they look at my array of things.
4 comments:
I was wondering about that. Was going to ask your team what we could bring you but seeing as all of you made it back to the States this month, I don't know if I need to! So no yeast, huh? What about potato flakes? :)
Yippee for you and your cranberry sauce. Double yippee that your family will all be together again tonight!!!
I'll be in Tegus for Thanksgiving and am considering bringing fresh cranberries for a salad I love to make but am concerned about the customs form...it seems like there is a question that could bring scrutiny and I don't know if I want to bring on the attention.
About 12 years ago I brought a 20 lb. frozen turkey in my carry-on. I definitely got some questions about that in customs. Once they knew it was a turkey, they all laughed and let the crazy gringa through. Now that they are available in Tegus, I just bite the bullet and pay the approximately $50 for one. It is much easier than bringing it.
Enjoy your bounty of treats and being together again as a family.
There is yeast, but only comes in these huge containers, and I'm a stickler for all things fresh when it comes to making bread, bakery goods, etc, so I much prefer the individual packages of yeast. Potato flakes - that's a hit or miss - right now it's a miss. :-)
Cindy - yes, we can get turkeys here in La Ceiba too, at the same costly price - but you are right - WELL worth it! As far as fresh cranberries, I really didn't know how to answer that in the customs form - I'm almost 99% positive that it really refers to things like apples, oranges, that kind of thing that can potentially introduce harmful pests into a foreign country. As cranberries are treated and bagged, I put that in an "other" category in my head. I figured that if they didn't like what they saw they would take them - and as both my bags had an "inspection" tag in them, they didn't take them, so I assume that means they are okay. I definitely would have loved to see immigration inspectors eyes when you had that turkey! Ha!
oh fresh crandberries!!! How lovely! I was trying to think of way to bring back pepperoni when we got to Michigan in December...I think I can make it work!
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