A Taste of Home

Until this summer, Albania had no western chain restaurants typically found in most first-world countries.  This summer Tirana got a Cinnabon, and we have enjoyed their sweet sugar bombs on more than one occasion.  (This mom is secretly relieved since Reni has declared cinnamon rolls are his favorite breakfast and this mom has yet to ever make them herself -- dough scares her).

It's kind of charming, in some ways, to live in a land untouched by McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks or a TGI Fridays. (Goodness, even Honduras has had a Burger King for years). But other days, charm means little and it would be really nice to eat something familiar.

We have learned how to make a lot of our favorite foods at home, or adapt our recipes based on what we can find here.  We have learned how to make our own pancake syrup and barbecue sauces (kind of), or how to make Mexican food in a land without black beans or cilantro (or presently, without plain tortilla chips either).  There are some American foods/brands that have broken into this market, but can be difficult to find and sometimes be extremely expensive.  We wait for sales at the bigger supermarkets and stock up our pantry with things like Hellman's mayonnaise, Philadelphia cream cheese, and large bags of nacho-cheese Doritos.

One staple that was usually never a problem to find was Heinz ketchup.  Back in the States, we ate just about any kind of ketchup on the shelf, but here, ketchup (if not Heinz) just tastes different.  Most of the time at restaurants I prefer salt and vinegar on my fries to the pink (yes, pink) stuff they try to pass off as ketchup.

Then last week on the Facebook Expats board someone who had left the country for the summer innocently asked where the Heinz ketchup had gone.  Others saw her question and looked at their local markets and posted that their shops were out of Heinz too!  After a few more inquiries it was discovered that "The Warehouse" which supplies all the grocery stores in this area (if not the country) was completely out.  Soon, folks were combing every back alley convenient store shop buying up bottles of Heinz and reselling them to panicked expats.  

Sunday we found ourselves in Tirana and had to drop some things off at our old apartment.  While there, Nathan ran over to the new little market that opened in our neighborhood this summer to pick up some detergent.  It's on a quiet one-way street, and we sometimes feel like we're the only ones who have found it.  He returned with a victorious smile on his face and four Heinz ketchup bottles in his sack. He said he left four more bottles on the shelf.

When we shared the account with Nathan's Dad later that night Nathan jokingly asked if we should tell anyone about the four bottles we didn't buy.  He then reminded us of 2 Kings 7.
I shared the good news on Facebook. : )