NTKOG #122: The kind of extravagantly whimsical girl who makes a promise in a moment of jest, then moves the earth (or at least incurs some $$ shipping expenses) to make it be so.
I am: always one for cute plans and dreaming up over-the-top gestures.
I am not: organized or sweet enough to actually bother pulling them off.
The Scene: A flashback to February of 2006, reading The Ex’s blog. One of his loyal commentators was a college friend who’d made a big impression on The Ex, but graduated and moved to (his non-native) Japan before I ever got a chance to meet the guy. During a discussion of Easter candies, he lamented the lack of Cadbury Creme Eggs in Japan.
“You should get someone to send you some!” I commented.
“Are you volunteering?” he joked.
Two days later, I bought a few four-packs of Cadbury Eggs, but they sat on The Ex’s desk for a few days before I forgot about the idea and ended up distributing them to the quadful of boys across the hall. And alas, Old College Friend never received his care package.
Now, four years, sixteen Creme Eggs, one awkward letter of explanation, and like $20 in shipping charges later, I have finally made good on my glib promise.
The Verdict: Doing this definitely made me feel extra happy for a couple of days. Not because it was a nice thing to do, but because it was such an off-the-wall thing. It wasn’t an actual act of kindness (it was just some chocolate, and it’s not like he and I were ever friends, so it wasn’t about letting someone know that I love and care about them) — it was truly an act of SHEER WHIMSY. Clearly I need to act on my whimsical thoughts more often. Although I’ll admit I also enjoyed the extremely sweet note of thanks he wrote. And, even better, the joy of indirectly spreading pro-Cadbury love/propaganda to his wife, who has never tasted this most sacred of Easter confections.
Not a thrilling story, kids. BUT, I do have a little question that I’d love for you to weigh in on! While I was putting the package together, I was wracking my brain to think if there was any more American stuff that I might as well include while I was putting together a care package. Something totally American that you’d miss sorely after a few months or years away in a foreign country. My co-worker told me the food she missed most when she was away from America is ice-cold milk; for me, Skippy Super Chunk peanut butter. If someone were sending you an overseas care package, what would you need in it?
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
Well I’m not American but when I was living in Mexico I was dying for English reading material or crossword puzzles or something because my Spanish was so-so and my literacy skills were worse and sometimes I just wanted to take a Spanish break!
Maybe include a novel or two.
Oh man, excellent point. When I lived in Russia I paid like a dollar per page for Hemingway novels. I ended up reading the same seven books ten times each…
When I lived overseas, it was peanut butter M&M’s and Lifesavers spearmints.
When I left I promised that I would send them a care package full of American goodies, and I never did. One thing they particularly wanted was Cheese Whiz, the cheese in a can. They found that concept fascinating :) You’ve given me motivation to actually get it together and send it!
Ooh, and second on the English language reading materials. My sister lives in Spain and she loves it when I send her the American InStyle or any novels in English.
I’m actually Canadian but the food’s pretty much the same right? When I lived in NZ I got my mom and siblings to send me boxes of Kraft Dinner macaroni and cheese, and Fuzzy Peaches candy. Why do we always miss the junk food?
I’ve been living in London for a while, and I gotta say I miss the hell out of American junk food: namely, real (or horribly artificial Kraft-brand) mac n cheese, and poptarts. Oh, poptarts… Pizza bagels and other bite-sized cheesey stuff is missed too.
I second you on Skippy Super Chunk! France does not do peanut butter well, if at all; the best stuff I could find was about 8 dollars and imported from the Netherlands. I also desperately missed the ability to drink coffee on the go, but there wasn’t much a care package could do for that!
MMMMM, I have SUCH a craving for a creme egg right now!
Although I’m not from and have never BEEN to the states, the one item of confectionery I’m a massive fan of are peanut butter cups. Luckily they have started to be a LITTLE more readily available over here (my local shop has them, but if they stop selling them I’ll probably have to resort to online) but anytime any of my friends go to the US, I always ask them to bring me some back just in case – I like the bags of little ones, which you don’t get over here!
Oh man, Reese’s pb cups are amazing! I’m totally with you on the mini-cups — something about the proportion of chocolate to peanut butter is, in my opinion, even better than the full-size cups!
PB Cups are the best. I deploy a lot and always ask for them in care packages.
Dr. Pepper! When I was in Paris for a month, it was the FIRST time I had when I landed in the Detroit airport. Oddly, I don’t even drink soda that often– it was the fact that it was unavailable that made me so upset and reminded me of how much I loved it.
One of my blogger girl friends also missed brown sugar and peanut butter while living in Germany.
Another vote for macaroni and cheese of the Kraft variety. And Reese’s, definitely. When I was in Spain, a friend and I made chocolate peanut butter banana milkshakes and Rice Krispy treats (some of the ingredients of which were available there, the rest were care packaged) and the results were amazing. So, I don’t know how that counts since we actually sort of cooked…
omg, those milkshakes sound AMAZING!
Oreos. I came home from Belgium, after being away a year, and gorged on an entire box.
Reading materials for sure. My mom sent me a box full of books. Send good books that someone has been meaning to read or difficult/long books because this is the one time that they’ll read ANYTHING. I got through Anna Karenina that way. And lincoln by gore vidal, which was great but super long and dry.
Chips. Although they HAVE chips in other countries, the flavors are different. Thanks Belgium but I do not want to eat Ketchup flavored chips, nor BBQ ham. (The Paprika chips on the other hand were amazing)
Anything with my home state’s name on it. My parents sent me a cd with music that was all written about my hometown. Bitchin’.
As someone who’s also lived in Japan, I have to say the things I missed most were Goldfish crackers and CEREAL!! Sometimes, you really just want a bowlful of Cheerios in the morning and Japan has like.. two kinds of cereal at most. And I’m pretty much obsessed with Goldfish.
I personally think sweets are SO much better in Japan than they are in America.. they’ve perfected it to an art form. Plus, you don’t feel like you’re getting a cavity every time you bite into a piece of chocolate. Go to your local Asian mart and try some Meltykiss! Your life will change, I swear.
Oh, you know what? I actually happened to try Japanese chocolate for the first time ever on Thursday. It was a simple milk chocolate (but pretty dark for mass-produced milk — maybe like 40%?) with toasted rice crisps. But the rice crisps were so deeply toasted that it gave the whole chocolate sort of a hazelnut-mocha flavor. Hard to describe, but very, very good. And like you said, less sweet than American chocolate.
Cadbury Creme Eggs are proof enough that Jesus saved us on Easter Sunday.
Is that blasphemy? Anyway, I was living in London back in 2003, and gotta say, I missed the hell out of peanut butter, which you’ve already mentioned. Loved this post!
Oh, God, when I was in England, I was dying for Oreos & Reese’s peanut butter cups like everyone. And Mexican food. I would have killed all my classmates for Mexican food, and Tony Chachere’s seasoning, and jambalaya mix.
Man, I missed so much junk food when I was living in the UK. Sour candy of any type, peanut butter m&ms, flaming hot cheetos, mac n cheese, cheez-its (especially the special flavored ones)…allll junk food I shouldn’t be eating anyway. Also, I missed pretty much everything from Trader Joe’s and even halfway decent Mexican food. Unfortunately, those things are harder to ship.
And now I miss good cheap chocolate and cheese now that I’m back in California!
Amen to missing Mexican food (as so many people have pointed out)! Literally ten minutes into my flight over to live in Moscow for several months, I got a sudden craving for a carnitas burrito that lasted UNTIL I CAME HOME. The craving for Mexican food was so strong that one night I finally convinced my friends to go out and spend $30-40 a head for the worst Mexican food of my life. To give you an idea of how bad it was, they put chopped beets in the tacos!
Wow. As bad Mexican food goes, you can’t beet that.
I’ve eaten three boxes of those damn things… since Friday. My ass is HUGE! I think this is a wonderful post, actually. I mean, you followed through and that’s something a lot of us could stand to do a lot more of, even if it’s just emailing a brother some Easter eggs. Loved this.
When i lived in italy we all missed MEXICAN food! Italy’s idea of nachos is microwaved cheese covered cool ranch Doritos. can’t complain too much though, the ITALIAN food was amazing!
Oh my goodness, and I would have said there’s no way to destroy a sublime/disgusting junk food staple like Cooler Ranch Doritos. Melting cheese over them would do it, though! Ugh…
While you’re in the whimsical mood– I’ve always wanted an Aston Martin Vanquish….
When I was in Guatemala, I complained for two days until I got some McDonald’s. I don’t even like it, I just wanted something that wasn’t black beans and fried chicken. I’m heading back to Guatemala this summer– and I’m filling my suitcase 1/2 with clothes, 1/2 with junk food. Namely, double stuf oreos and Girl Scout Cookies.
Made with real Girl Scouts of course?
Sorry, but it’s Monday AM here, and my mind’s not just in whimsical, but also in black humour mode!
(Not to be poo-ey, because this is a junk food post, but aren’t Cadbury Creme Eggs English, not American? I only say that because there were TONS more available when I lived in London. Seriously, they had them from the end of January until mid April- and Easter was in May! AND they were 3 for £1! Heaven in my mouth!!!!)
Most of my fellow students missed good ole’ mac & cheese, but I really missed Tuna fish from a can. The English have a horrifying, expensive selection of the stuff! When my parents came to visit they packed Tuna in their bags, haha. I also missed certain beers, & Minute Maid Cherry Limeaide. Mmmmmm.
Absolutely true that they’re British! They just also make them in America (I think they’re under license with Hershey — they taste a bit different; the chocolate isn’t as good). I was just being sloppy. They’re something that he misses about America, but of course that doesn’t make them American!
As far as I’m concerned, the Brits absolutely rule the world in chocolate and crisps, and far be it for me to even accidentally diminish their junk-food glory. :-)
Well thank you TKOG!! :D
BEF, Creme Eggs are normally available from some time in January until the last delivery before Easter runs out in the shops, so typically some time in April.
I’m just prepping a package to send to England to a guy I haven’t seen since grade 4 (I’m 33 now). He was looking for some CDs by Lowest of the Low, and I guess the import prices on Canadian indie are outrageous over there. Anywhoooo …. I asked if there was anything else he’d like, anything Canadian as he hasn’t been here since he was 16, and the one thing he requested was Kraft Dinner. Apparently his daughters have never had it. They must feed kids real food over there or something.
Cheese Powder and elbow noodles. How utterly North American.
Oh gosh, love the creme eggs. Whenever my dad goes home to the UK to visit I always make a list of delicious stuff to bring back. #1: Butterscotch Angel Delight. It’s the best, most lovely pudding in the world!
so this is the second time in a week ive been reminded of the fact that i owe a certain five bloggers an AXE MEN’S HAIR KIT! holy hell im a slacker. and now i want cadbury eggs.
i missed burritos, brownies and hash browns the most.
oh, and an old friend recently randomly sent me cookies from this one place in florida, like 2-3 years after being there and eating them with him, and it was the sweetest surprise! so this is a good one.
dude, second the mac and cheese. one of my friends had her parents send her boxes of the stuff and it was heaven!
i also missed regular heinz ketchup (which, admittedly, they have in nz, but it’s no where near as prevalent and they CHARGE you for the packets!), oatmeal cream cookies (which i never ended up getting because the box my dad sent them in took its sweet little time getting overseas), and sausage (went to a denny’s and ordered sausage thinking, ‘it’s an american chain! the food will be the same!’ and wound up with really REALLY gross sausages).
but i did end up satisfying my craving for all things passion fruit while i was abroad (passion fruit fruit leathers! passion fruit yogurt! passion fruit pancakes!) and i discovered an amazing new fruit, the mangosteen (highly recommend if you ever get the chance!).
Third on the mac-n-cheese. Nothing makes my heart skip a beat like the sight of a Kraft Macaroni-n-Cheese box. Mmmm….soul food.
Well done, you goof. What’s so silly about the timing of this is that *I* have not seen Old College Friend since before I *met* TKOG (though we kept in touch, e.g., on the blog), and this care package was sent half a year after TKOG and I broke up. The whole relationship is contained within the period of time between the package being sent and when OCF and I knew each other! The connection is so tenuous.
Hmm… I can’t think of anything American I’d want that could be mailed to me. (Like, I’d want an In N Out burger, but I couldn’t get that. I’m just not that big on shelf foods like candies and cookies.) Reall, the Internet is my America and it’s everywhere. :-)
Oh peanut butter, hell yes!
Also, when I was abroad in college it was in the south pacific and there are no adequate baked goods :(
My mom and stepdad sent me a HUGE container of no-bake cookies (that’s what we call them, those delicious chocolate/pb oatmeal drop cookies, mmmm) and it was the greatest gift ever. Especially since they were still good even after the 2 months (seriously) it took to finally get to me.
I live overseas (spent 4 years in Barcelona and am now beginning at least a year-long stay in Italy), so here are the things I ask for from the US: Hidden Valley ranch dressing packets, because all you have to add is mayo and you get perfectly tolerable ranch dressing; Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (especially the mini ones); red-hot candies (AKA cinnamon non-pareils, I think); almond M&M’s; “fabric” band-aids that actually stay stuck on; antiperspirant deodorant (apparently you can get one or the other here, but not in the same product. Also, people think it’s normal to smell by the end of a day spent working (in an office, not on a construction site!) because their deodorant wears off. ew.); shoes that provide support; sweet pickles/relish (they only make pickles with vinegar in Spain, and no one likes them!); …
Things I can get but that are ridiculously expensive: the same brand of peanut butter I ate as a kid in the US; marshmallows; books and magazines written originally in English; Listerine (seriously, it costs like $7 for a little bottle!); and Heinz ketchup.
Things I *sigh* am learning to live without: my Kitchen Aid stand mixer (I bake, and it’s really hard to cream butter by hand); a full-sized oven (our apartment in Italy came with a large TOASTER OVEN and no real oven, and the oven in our apartment in BCN wasn’t big enough for regular US-sized cookie sheets); fast food other than McDonald’s; and Mexican food (of course). But it doesn’t stop me from missing most of these things.
Also, bonus round! I ask my English friend to send wine gums from the UK, especially if she can get the packs of all purple ones!
ps- sorry about the creative punctuation. I hope you can figure out the meaning behind all those layers of parenthesis!
I’ve been living overseas for the last few years and since shipping here is prohibitively expensive, if anyone comes to visit, I always make a list of requests and number one on that list is always: A ginormous box of Q-Tip brand cotton swabs. Of course there are cotton swabs where I live, but there are no Q-Tips and I can’t live without them.
As for consumables, I miss Dr. Pepper. I can sometimes find a can, but it costs about $3.00 so it’s an indulgance. Most stuff I can find here (even if it’s way over-priced) so I’m lucky in that respect.