Food

I have received a question from the audience: My niece (Darci's daughter) wants to know "Is there anything you are going to miss food wise here? What is the food like there?" . Food is an interesting subject here. Very little in the grocery stores is local, just about everything is imported. What items are Venezuelan are pretty gross according to Braedon and Weston (Kris and I would have to agree but the stuff is edible so of course we eat it). One of the local juice companies is called "Yukery" and it's pretty yucky. It is the consistency of snot...slimy, thick and tasteless. We have been buying Watts juice which is imported from Chile and it is by far our favorite. The really excellent snacks are all imported and we have found a lot of yummy snacks from Brazil and Chile. Venezuela has these little cracker/cookies called "Marias" which are decent. Nestle does have a factory here and they have some good snacks so we have been enjoying those. I bought these wafers called "Cocosette", coconut flavored wafer cookies, which Kris and I like but the boys don't as you can see from their reaction.

Chocolate...hmmmm...we still haven't been blown away. We've tried quite a bit of it. I think it's over priced, not the best consistency but as far as flavor it's better than Hersheys (that's not too difficult to pull off) but I wouldn't rave about it. I love dark chocolate and the taste of what I've tried here is good but it's gritty. I've tried a few brands and had the same result with all. Then again, I'm just someone who enjoys chocolate, I am not an expert.

Speaking of chocolate, Mom, Darci, Traci and Kyra...guess what they have here?

Yea I wish I could find those! Well, these are still straight from Brazil and while they aren't as good as the Garoto Serenata de Amor chocolates we love, these taste pretty darn close:




Ok, healthy food...Lots of crazy looking fruits that we still need to try. We have 2 passion fruits chilling in the fridge right now that we are going to have tonight. We try and have Weston and Braedon sample a new fruit every day.

We have been introduced to a restaurant here called "Casa de Llano" which means House of the Plain (as in prarie plains) if you want a direct translation. It serves authentic Venezuelan food. One of the signature dishes is pabellon (say pa -as in part be -as in bent and llon -as in yon with a long 'o'). It is our favorite Venezuelan dish so far. If you have ever had Cuban ropa vieja, it is a lot like that. It is shredded stewed beef in tomato based sauce with peppers and onions. Served with rice, black beans, fried ripe plantains and a white soft cheese called queso guayanesa...yum! You also get arepas, which are grilled corn flour hockey pucks. Cachapas are sweet corn batter pancake like things you slather with this cheese butter stuff and those are ok too, they are growing on us but Weston already loves them. Arepas and cachapas are what the waiters bring out as apetizers.

What food do we miss? Weston and Braedon miss slurpees, hot dogs that don't have chewy thick casings, cheddar cheese and Costco wheat bread. Kris misses Turkey Hill Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream! I will have to second that. All of the ice cream here is made from powdered milk. You can get Hagen Das but it is $20 a pint right now...yea, I don't miss it THAT much!

There is lots and lots of Coca-Cola Light here but no Coca-Cola Light con Lima so I have to do it the old fashioned way:

And this is how I feel about THAT!