Saturday, October 3, 2009

Bork! Bork! Bork!

Speaking Culinary Canadian in Alabama is a little bit like being the Swedish Chef. For instance, the other day I was getting groceries  and it occured to me that I was out of Nutella. A venture into the aisle of jellies, jams and peanut butter did not reveal this staple of a chocoholics pantry to me and so I wandered until I found a stockperson and asked where it might be.

They had no clue what Nutella was.  In fact the conversation went a bit like this:

"Excuse me but I was wondering if you knew where I could find the Nutella."

"The what? "

"Nutella. It's a spread that you put on toast made of chocolate and hazelnuts."

At which point I was given an incredulous  look, to which I had my first "OMG I'm not in DC anymore I'm in Ala-fricken-bama" moment. That's right, it took a lack of Nutella to give me a reality check. In my mind I quickly ran down the ways I might be able to procur Nutella while in school down here; order it online, have friends ship me a monthly supply, give up my morning nutella and banana on toast totally. But then, I walked in a nutella-less haze through the aisles something that would never have happened in DC happened. The same stockwoman came up to me with a jar of Nutella in her hand.


"Thank goodness I found you" she said, " I asked one of the other girls...it was over in the ice cream toppings aisle." 


I love Alabama. :)