Observations while Shopping...

Having finally made it to the nearest ASDA without the pressure of being at the mercy of a good natured chap who had been up for 12 hours straight, I was finally able to browse the aisle of the UK version of Walmart, at a leisurely pace, and take note of the items available to me for the next four months.

I arrived armed with a list and 80 British Pound; the equivalent of $132 USD. This was the first trip to "stock up" so I was prepared to spend a bit of money on this trip. Micaela and I started by browsing the Health & Beauty department. Bad news: my facial, shower, hair and make-up products are not here! Can it get any worse? Not even under brand names with similar labeling, as many other products are...they simply are not on the shelves. I may need a care package halfway through my stay here.

The choices of brand names and various products are just non-existent here in the UK. There are no Helluva Good Dips - indeed, there are no dips available in the dairy aisle at all. Cracker Barrel cheese is not here either, and blocks of cheddar cheese are expensive. The snack and cookie aisles don't hold familiar products. Pre-bottled juice drinks like Hawaiian Punch and others don't exist. The bottled juices that are here are called, "fruit squash." Powdered drink mixes are not existent. Instead there are liquid bottles of products called "Robinson's Fruits", with emphasis on "No Sugar Added" and these are liquid juice concentrates to which water is added in order to make a glass of fruit drink. Capri Sun is available.

Meats are extremely expensive...it doesn't matter if its ground beef, pork or lamb, chicken, beef, lamb, stew meat... if you want it fresh it is expensive. Better to buy meats frozen. I can guarantee that I won't be eating any ribeyes while here, and since I don't have a BBQ to cook it on anyway I wouldn't bother buying it. There are an abundance of pre-cooked meals, frozen meals, pre-cut fruits and vegetables, prepared and packaged meal selections in both the fresh food aisle and the frozen aisles. Rotisserie chickens are indeed available. Fresh pizza's are also availabe and you can have them made to order. ALL grocery stores sell liquor...not just ciders, ales and wine...but hard liquor too.

Lays potato chips are Walker's Crisps here and one cannot buy a big bag in which you can stick your hand...they are in bags of six pre-sized lunch sizes. I am not sure of the reasoning for this? How would one serve these at a party in a big bowl next to a bowl of dip? The staple item at a Sunday afternoon football viewing in front of a large television.

Macaroni & Cheese is not available in a box, you can however buy it in a can :(, frozen or in a side dish bagged package. :( "Spaghetti O's" are called "Spaghetti Hoops". Gatorade is called "Lucozade". Land-o-Lakes Butter is called Anchor. Pringles come in so many flavors I can't name them all, perhaps the most unique would be "Prawn Cocktail", which would be "Shrimp Cocktail" to us...they are surprisingly quite tasty and have a bit of a bite. Indeed, Walker's crisps come in the same flavor. Salad dressings are not abundant...the only thing remotely familiar to our taste buds at home include Newman's brands and there are only about 4 to choose from. Most things available are called "salad creams" and look more like mayonnaise or sandwich condiments than what one would put on salad. One can find pomegranates...but more amazing, one can purchase a package of pomegranate seeds...already removed from the fruit. If you ask me that removes the fun of eating a pomegranate in the first place!

In my quest to satisfy the items on my list I looked for fair substitutions and, being highly conscious of the exchange rate and doubling every "pound" in my head into dollars, I was quite price conscious of what I was buying. Something I usually am not all too concerned about at home, since I usually have relatively small shopping trips each week or am just buying enough for a week at a time. Having Micaela with me was expensive. She proved to be quite the "impulse" buyer, causing me to stray from the list, and, in an effort to keep her happy, allowing her to buy items that she found appetizing, probably caused me to spend 20 pound more than necessary. Next time she will not come. Finally tally of this trip: 75 British pound....$124.00 USD.

One thing I did find, that I can no longer find in the US, which I loved more than anything, especially at the holidays, was frozen mashed potatoes! Not the OreIda version that I loved with a passion, but still they are frozen mashed! I did not purchase any on this trip (they weren't on the list), but next time I will work the weekly menu around this item!

There is an abundance of Indian jarred curry sauces, pre-cooked and un-cooked rices...Uncle Ben's is here...so my diet may begin to include an abundance of Indian dishes in an effort to satisfy my love of hot and spicy foods; rather than the Mexican foods I would normally eat at home.

It would appear that the British have a fetish with frozen foods - having two chains that "specialize" in selling only frozen foods - Farmland and Iceland. These stores have multiple rows of freezers and have pre-packaged foods ranging from fish, meats, vegetables, frozen chips/potatoes, deserts, ice creams, & pre-cooked foods. There are some dry goods in these markets, but the majority of the goods for sale are frozen. The prices are much less than in the ASDA, so I will probably shop in these stores more often.

Today I am going to attempt to make sauce...it will not be the sauce I am famous for at home, lacking the ingredients and the necessary tools - such as my food processor and a very large pot, but I am going to use freshly chopped garlic and onion, mushrooms and some interesting choices of sausages that I we don't find in the US. The choices in the canned tomato aisle were limiting, so this sauce is a mixture of canned tomatoes, fresh tomatoes and pre-jarred sauce. Not my favorite, but it'll do.

I have also noticed that stores do not stay open late here,although many are open on Sundays. Most shoppes close at 5 or 5:30, with the exceptions of ASDA and stores along those lines. Nightlife will not consist of browsing shoppes...indeed, I'm trying to figure what nightlife will consist of, since as of yet I have not even been to a proper British pub. :( Most take away places in the center of Abergavenny do not open until the supper hour (5/5:30 p.m.) and do not open for lunch. There are many coffee shoppes and I did find a nice hair salon - something most important. A nail salon is next on the list.

Over the weekend we explored the Cyfarthfa shopping center in Merthyr Tydfil. A very small scale version of our Blackstone Valley shoppes. There were many clothing stores here, a pharmacy, a TK Maxx (the UK version of TJ Maxx) and just as hit or miss as our own version, a catalog store - similar to our old catalog store in Auburn, the name escapes me at the moment, and there was a store similar to a Home Depot and a Pizza Hut! Micaela was also happy to see a McDonald's, although it is a good 20 minutes or so, away from our location in Gilwern. The shoppes here had a variety of clothing styles and prices and will offer a good alternative to going into Cardiff, the nearest city. Micaela will be going into Cardiff on Wednesday, hopefully I will have the chance to explore it over this coming weekend and she will able to guide me!

So - that's it ... my first observations about shopping in the UK.