Living in America 2014

[rootypig]

Shiny new thread. After an epic visa fuck up we are starting out (again!) in LA in a few weeks. I am English, DH is American (from southern California), DD is 21mo. I am going back to work after several unintentional years out and terrified. No clue what I want to do, which doesn't help.

Come chat about all things American!

sykadelic the bacon got me down too - and the bread, and the butter. But now I've adopted a truly LA lifestyle and rarely eat meat or bread anymore so no longer miss it.

First breakfast on any return visit to the UK is a full on bacon butty though

I sent you a PM but don't know if you got it because my connection wasn't great. I was very lucky to audit a radiology company and got to learn a lot about the systems and processes used by most of these companies. It certainly helped too that I made the finance person think that they were not going to get paid unless they did this for me!

If I were in charge of reforming healthcare one of the first things I would do is simplify billing. In the UK I would also send a bill to every household at the end of the year so people saw how much the care they received cost. The NHS isn't free it drives me crazy when people talk of it in those terms.

No i didn't get the PM. I'd love to pick your brain about it! I'll explain my field in the PM, not here as it would totally out me to friends!

Oh yes returning home is GREAT and bad at the same time. It's almost as though I plan my trip around meals! Haha!

Mmmmmmm...

Sorry. Got distracted thinking about all the goodies. Carry on :)

Resent!

I do the same. My Dad lives opposite a Toby and I go in for a meal at least once. I am not ashamed to admit I love that place and my old dinner lady from school works there. I also get a loaf of Warburtons bread....

My Dad has chickens and our neighbour is a dairy farmer. Nothing as good as fresh eggs and proper milk. Hmmmmmm........ Will say that costco eggs here in NJ are not bad at all (I get the two packs of 18 eggs from a farm in PA incase anyone from NYC area is wondering!).

Hello rooty and others! Thanks for all the advice...well we're here and decided to go the official route (also on advice from lawyers) so I'm here for a 60 day visit then I will return to uk for a visit (stock up on nappy sacks, kids toothpaste and such ) and hopefully in that time have a visa approval which will allow me to return.

Hey Dharma, that's what we did - and having an early trip home helps psychologically too, I think. Good luck!

Dharma I'm so pleased! Good luck!

Can I join you?
I am in the Chicago area and have been since the last days of the Reagan administration, so neither today nor yesterday...

I am lucky here to have a lot of Irish shops and Italian and Polish ones too, so the supply of blackcurrant items and Irish Odlums wholemeal flour and other essentials is assured. Living in such a big city full of different immigrant groups means there are lots of imported foods available. I've really enjoyed widening my culinary horizons though I regularly commiserate with Russian, Polish and Irish friends (never Americans ) about the general tastelessness of American meat, eggs, fruit and veg, and how unpalatable the cheese is generally.

I love Fage yogurt but I also buy a middle eastern brand called Zdan that's a bit runnier than Fage but tastes authentic. I have a bread machine and I love it.

I shop all over the place, though mostly at Aldi and small local grocery stores that do choice beef, and there's a local chain that carries a lot of imported foods that I like too. If there's one thing I would say to try it's ethnic supermarkets. I have been really disappointed in the sameness of the likes of Target (except for their bread machine yeast, which for some reason tends to be cheaper than elsewhere), Safeway, Kroger, etc,. and Costco/Sam's Club, and the cost of WholeCheckMarket is really offputting. Trader Joe's is nice but I find everything there to be sort of snacky and too expensive to make it a reasonable long term proposition as grocery store of choice for a family with 5 DCs.

For preschool I used my local RC parish school and also the YMCA -- these options are probably more widely available in the Great Lakes and North east and older urban areas than the south.

Dollar stores have small wastepaper bin liners that come in a roll of hundreds, for about $1 or $2 that are ideal for nappy bags. They are usually in the broom/bin liner/garbage stuff/mop section in the dollar places near me.

To whoever was thinking of traveling around Thanksgiving -- don't. Places to see and to eat in close for the day, hotels fill up and raise prices, airports are jam packed before and immediately after, roads around cities are full of people hitting the Thanksgiving sales.

I was never offered any anti nausea medicine -- just had a recommendation to take 50mgs of vitamin B-6. My doctors and midwives (experienced both) always spent time poking and measuring me at visits.

Hello mathanxiety! I've seen you around on MN plenty, but never clocked that you were in the US. The name should have been a giveaway really...

I've been musing on the tasteless grocery-chain fruit recently. Before we moved here DS adored strawberries, but hasn't been so keen since. I didn't realise why until we were back in London last month and I bought a punnet from Marks & Spencer for the children to share. When I open the plastic film I was hit by the delicious aroma and I noticed what we'd been missing; the strawberries we've been buying here don't smell of anything!!! You might get a faint whiff if you hold one right against your nose, but nowhere near as pungent as UK strawberries.

DD was weaned here so doesn't know any better, and I don't like the texture so I never eat them anyway, but DS is a sensitive soul and is obviously put off by odorless berries. I'm going to try and find a farmers market and see if non-pre-packaged ones are anymore fragrant so I can rekindle his love. He's a fussy little monkey as it is, I need to be able to get some fruit into him!

So I officially lost it yesterday and called everyone using my conference function to get the move done. DH is away Mon-Thurs next week so it will be me, myself and I moving us into our new home. If we don't close Friday AM it will be Monday AM and I will have everything delivered in the PM. I have the washer dryer being installed Tuesday PM.

Welcome mathanxiety! Totally hear you on ethnic supermarkets. Here in NJ there is a place on Rt 10 that is awesome. It is owned by a Chinese family I think and you can get very good fruit a veg for next to nothing.

MrsFrumble You need to grow your own stawberries. The one thing that came with us was our strawberry plants! They are in a tray in the bathtub and I hope they survive until we move. I grow them in containers because in summer it is too warm and winter too cold to keep them outside.

The DCs licked their plates last time we were in Dublin (where I'm from) and commented on how appetising the food was. They all remarked on how each meat had its own flavour -- it didn't all 'taste like chicken'.

I took Hamburger Helper back to show my family once... it was awful. I've had it myself here in the U.S and it's really not bad here. Not gourmet, but not bad.

At home it was horrific. The meat is so different the taste was really off. Not even my dad, who could eat anything, wanted to eat it. Mum eventually did, only because it was a lot of meat, and she had to drown it in BBQ sauce. Made me a little sad because I'm "banned" from bringing candy home after the last few times I tried. Waste of money!

My mum used to do mince with some sort of packet of powder added (was it 'Savoury Mince'?) on days when she lost the will to live ran out of dinner inspiration.

Hi math! so nice to have you here. I too have seen you around MN but didn't realise you're in the US.

Want2b you must be so desperate to get it done! fix on the thought of your new washer, that would keep me going through a LOT

Continuing my food obsessions:

I am currently hoping an illicit package of Kallo stock cubes that's in the post makes it to me this broth stuff is so expensive and slightly odd, and I always end up throwing two thirds of it away.

I went to Sprouts yesterday, and really liked it. Bulk bin herbs and spices were better value than most I've seen, and the bulk flour and so on, now I just need to get jars and tins before I stock up. The produce was cheaper than a lot of places too, with the weekly offers.

I have also just been given a tiny 'garden' (a miniature allotment) in our apartment complex, it's only about 10 foot square, but I'm going to grow herbs. It currently looks somewhat post apocalyptic, the earth is SO dry. This drought is scary

sykadelic bring them peanut butter m&ms!

Ooh, is Sprouts a Nationwide thing? I thought it was just Oklahoma. I love them; cheaper than Wholefoods!

I like the idea of growing strawberries. It was such a revelation to see DS scoffing them again in London - complete with juice all down his chin and look of ecstasy on his face - after turning his nose up for more than a year over here. Now I've noticed that packaged raspberries here don't smell either How the heck do they manage it?

I know this thread is about food, but can someone reassure me that driving gets easier!? I've just been for a practice drive on the garden parkway and nearly killed the whole family. Absolutely horrible experience! I've still got the shakes! I parked mid-lane coming into a toll booth and Dh had to take over. How does anyone exit the interstate in this country?? Any tips?

Also discovered Sprouts this week. It was like shopping in heaven compared to everywhere else round these parts!
On the subject of shopping, what toilet paper do you buy? It's all so luxuriously thick that it blocks up our toilet. There has to be a better solution than the plunger left by the landlord!

Ha ha! I don't think this thread is really supposed to be all about food! The difference between grocery shopping here and in the UK had been a real shock for me and I'm obviously not alone.

Dharma you're braver than me! I keep putting off learning because I'm scared, but being carless in OKC is so hard. I know the kiddos and I miss out on so much stuff because we can't get to it, so I need to pull myself together. I forgot where you are; can you get your DH to drive you somewhere very quiet so you can practice and find your nerve?

Dharma, it gets easier. I promise. The first few times I went out I didn't have a clue but I quite enjoy it now.
This part of South Texas is very big on turnarounds. It is impossible to turn left anywhere, the idea instead is that you carry on to a 'turnaround' and do a u-turn. I found this so confusing that the first few times I went to Walmart (a 5 minute drive down a straight road), I ended up on the interstate on the way home without a clue how to exit. On one occasion it was nighttime and dark. When I did finally exit, I ended up in a country park with no lighting and lots of big men fishing. I didn't have a working phone at the time, had no idea how to get out of the park and started wondering how long it would take the police to discover my dismembered body. It was so scary but I got home eventually.
We were given a Highway Code equivalent for Texas which has been quite useful.
Sorry, not much practical advice there but please do be assured that it gets easier. I found it less stressful to go out in the car by myself a few times to practise. No DH and no kids made me much calmer! Good luck.

An almost food question..... Why is that that no-one packs their own groceries round here? If there isn't a packer available, they stand round and watch it all being scanned, then watch the poor cashier pack it all up. Yes, I'm talking to you, mum and teenage son eating popcorn at the till the other day while you watched the cashier put your monthly shop into 200 bags and we all queued. It was as much as I could do not to help him....

Yep, driving gets easier. I quite enjoy it (when the traffic is moving). I can now get on a freeway and cross 7 or 8 lanes of traffic in one go (when the traffic is moving!)

This life hack is a good tip for preparing for exits. It may well be something everyone already knew, but it was a revelation for DH when he realised after months of driving here.

Dharma the thread is not supposed to be about food, it just consumes my thoughts is one of the most noticeable differences, I suppose.

I LOATHE driving on the freeways. Loathe it. The exits come up so fast, are on different sides of the road and people over and undertake like bloody LOONS. So I just wanted to extend my sympathy and say you are not alone. But it does get easier.
(Mrsf that life hack helped me too, though it leads me to another whinge about the roads, which is how cluttered with different varieties of sign they are!)

Have you taken a US test? I found studying for it, the written test, quite helpful.

butterflies that is truly impressive! I can barely cross one lane of the 405 without becoming a whimpering wreck.

City driving is fine though.

Rooty pig: plant some everbearing strawberries in a self watering container. One of the larger tough types will mean a continual, though tiny, supply, for your little on.

www.plowhearth.com/phsearch.htmtSearch=Self%20watering%20container

Gardening in california is a different schedule, dont plant in spring, everything will die over summer. Plant NOW. Despite the facts that the garden centers dont have much available for planting. It is stupid that all the major garden nurseries are located and SoCal, and grow stuff on timetables to ship everywhere else, but not much suitable for the planting schedule in the southwest.