Canadutch
Anyone who lives the life of an expat can tell you that sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. Just the smallest piece of home can really make your day.
That’s what it was like for me yesterday. A box I’d ordered with imported American food items arrived and I was in heeeaveeeenn…
KD AND WEINERS, BABY!!! Omfgyummygoodness! With Ketchup! .. and Mountain Dew! Canadian welfare food never tasted so good!!
Let me tell ya, it better be good for 2,50 euros a box (that’s $3.58 Canadian! or $3.41 American!) Highway robbery I tell ya, when I was in Canada I was paying something ridiculous like $0.39 a box.
For the non-Canadians out there, KD is what the cool Canadian kids who are ‘in the know’ call Kraft Dinner, or Kraft Mac&Cheese. It’s cheap and I don’t think there’s a Canadian kid in existence that didn’t grow up on it. Americans eat it too but not as much as we do, I think their KD is those weird Ramen Noodles.
It takes 5 minutes to make, tastes just as good or better nuked up the next day and can be eaten in a variety of ways. I prefer with weiners and ketchup, some eat it plain, some make it runny and my friend Penny told me today that her mom used to make it with tuna and peas in it (omg gross!).
Anyway, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Yesterday I was having a PMS stomp around the house, feeling grumpy and generally in a foul mood. After about 10 minutes I was smiling and filling my face like I was home again. It was GREAT!
Xander hates it. He says it smells disgusting and that everything about it is fake. He refuses to even touch it… but that’s ok, I’ve never been happier to have my husband hate something I cook. More for me!
Now, I must go heat up some lunch. You got it, leftover KD AND WEINERS!
Whenever I go on holiday away from Canada, the first thing I have when I come home is hot dogs and KD!
Strangly enough, looks tasty!
I’m lucky to have Martin on hand to cook up some good old British comfort food, but still miss some food from home you just cant get here. I’d murder for a chinese takeaway.
Breigh said…
Seems like all these import food sites are less than stellar.
I can confidently recommend TuckerBox in Leiden: http://www.tuckerbox.nl/
Their prices are much cheaper than Thomas Green’s and the fellow who runs the shop has to be the sunniest person in NL. Unfortunately they don’t deliver outside the areas of The Hague or Leiden, so you’d have to go there in person.
Breigh – I loooove KD! Awesome!
I never got anything past it’s date. But then again i do not shop online i go and get my stuff directly at the store and always check the date (i am pretty notorious about that anyway).
I need to get some things next week, so maybe instead of doing coffee we can do coffee and food shopping. … will send you email…
Wow – and to think we take stuff like this for granted. I will say that one of my American kids would eat the KD at EVERY meal if she was allowed. Of course, her other preference IS ramen noodles.
A few years back good friends of mine (Americans) were living in the UK. K. planned a wonderful trip to Italy, including renting a villa in Tuscany, for about 15 of us. Knowing how much work that was, I wanted to give her something to say thank you. I asked her then-boyfriend (now husband) if there was anything she really missed from the States.
His response? “You’re gonna laugh, but she really misses Kraft Mac & Cheese. Not the fancy stuff, but the stuff with the powder.”
And that’s the story of how four boxes of Mac & Cheese found their way into my luggage to Italy.
Mac and Cheese is good stuff! We ate it all through college in the States (yes, we ate plenty of Ramen noodles to, usually 5 for $1 as opposed to 2 or 3 for a buck mac and cheese and also not requiring any other ingredients). Some of my favorite ways to kick it up a notch were by adding ground beef and/or velveeta. Velveeta makes it so much creamier and gooier. So what if it’s probably toxic! Any mac and cheese that strayed from the original recipe on the box was referred to by my bunch of friends as “gourmet mac and cheese.”
Breigh, Wassenaar is a suburb of The Hague. It’s also known as “Expat Alley” due to the huge number of expats who make their homes here while working on contract for the embassies, Shell, NATO, Unilever, the military, Mexx, The UN, etc… (Willem-Alexander and Maxima live just outside the village as well.)
The American School is situated here, and the British School is located in the next village, Voorschoten.
Because there is such a high number of expats here, the local C1000 imports various foodstuffs for the international community, including a number of “typically” North American treats – pumpkin pie filling, stove top stuffing, Duncan Hines cakes and frostings, KD, Hershey’s chocolate, marshmallow fluff, cereals, maple syrup, reese’s peanut butter cups, etc…
You won’t find these products at other C1000’s because the manager imports them exclusively for his store.
The Ketchup chips are the Humpty Dumpty variety (along with salt ‘n vinegar) – but they sell out quickly.
BTW, if you’re missing perogies, this place near Wilnis (close to Alsmeer) sells the BEST perogies… They stock every kind you can think of – cottage cheese and potato, onion and cheese, mushroom, cherry, blueberry.
http://www.lowiczanka.nl
They also have a shop in Utrecht.
This “Canucky” themed restaurant just opened up in Losser as well: http://www.bistrothelodge.nl
The website has a lot of grammatical errors, but the menu looks interesting.
Yeah but only the really weird ones put stuff like tuna in it :P
Oh yeah us Americans probably eat it just as much as you Canadians, because it’s cheap and good :) We just call it mac and cheese thought hehe.
Lola – I have no idea where Wassenaar is or how far it is from Rotterdam. We have C1000 here too but I don’t think I’ve ever seen those items there. We have a JUMBO nearby and it has things like Oreos, Duncan Hines mixes/icings, etc but I’ve never seen the other things you mentioned. Are the Ketchup Chips like the ones back home or the Lays Heinz Tomato Ketchup ones? We have those in our locals.
Melissa– Oh my god I haven’t had one of those kraft pizzas in ages, now you got me craving one.
Simone– They were just talking about that Thomas Green shop on my ExpatWomeninHolland group. Apparently a lot of people have gotten stuff from there that is way past their date, like Lola said. Seems like all these import food sites are less than stellar hehe
Yoshi– Someone sent me the microwave KD once and I thought it was GROSS, it wasn’t like normally cooked KD that was reheated, it was blubbery and weird. Blech The kids nowadays have no taste :P
Kimmer– I don’t think the chili is for me but the sour cream sounds good! I’d have to not have ketchup on it though, something tells me sour cream and ketchup wouldn’t make a good KD combo!
We always mixed canned chili with our mac’n’cheese. Another good one is to mix just a touch of sour cream in with the cheese sauce. Yum.
Re. Thomas Green’s – Always check the dates when you purchases anything from there. Twice, I’ve noticed a few packages on the shelves at the shop in The Hague have been well past their due dates.
Actually kids in amaerica probably eat just as much mac and cheese. Practically grow up on it. But kids nowadays are eating Easy Mac, where you can just pop it in the microwave and 2 min. later, you’ve got “real” mac and cheese. (same thing as kraft, they just made a new line)
Oh, and microwave hamburger helper too. I’m not keen on that though. Not sure how the hamburger could possibly be good coming from a box.
You can get all this stuff and much more at the Thomas Green Store in The Hague, check out their website. Prices are not too bad either.
We used to buy KD in the grocery store in Schiphol Airport. Maybe they still carry it– oh and Oreos!
I remember that feeling, of paying ridiculous prices just cause it was something from back home. I paid alot for KD as well and heck I don’t even like it that much. But the veina sausages and Kraft pizza mixes, no one could touch them when I recieved a box of it from back home lol. Glad you enjoyed your KD.
Next time you’re craving KD, and other yummy stuff from home, try the C1000 in Wassenaar. They stock KD, Coffee Crisp Bars, Maple Leaf cookies, Hickory Sticks, Ketchup chips (these sell out quickly), Shake ‘n Bake, chocolate chips, etc.
Eiccholtz at Leidstraat 48 in Amsterdam also carries a good selection of Canucky foodstuffs.
I know the joy in home food at foreign land. The same thing happened with me, when I could order authentic Indian food in New York City.