Grocery Notes Part 2

I should hope it is.

Cheese, Tasty.  So much tasty cheese here!  It's just what they call a mild cheddar here.  I found a funny article where an Australian moved to the United States and couldn't find their Tasty Cheese anymore.  The thread led to Australians making generalizations about Americans eating low-quality mass-produced cheese, which made me feel a little indignant.

Dear Australia, you're missing a G.  Sincerely, G.

An excess of canned beetroot.  It amazes me how much shelf space is devoted to canned beets in the super.  Was it like this in the US but I never noticed?  I can't really remember ever looking for canned beets in the US.  (Also, always beetroot rather than beets - was it like that as well?  Again, I never noticed.)  Anyway, it seems that they like their beets down here.  I have never seen a burger come with sliced beetroot in the US.  Maybe a gastropub, sure, but Burger King?  Apparently you can get beetroot on your burgers at Hungry Jack's, which is the equivalent.  (Have not been myself to verify this claim.)  So it seems to be a bit common down here.  And speaking of, they like putting all sorts of other things on their burgers as well.  The regular burger I ordered at the Top Pub in Uralla had pineapple, beetroot (of course) and fried egg among the fixings.  I was a little surprised.

Local fruits: Pears, bananas, passion fruit, lime, lemon.  Not pictured: pineapple.

Finally, an important update!  We found black beans.  Of all places, you can buy them at the Fruit Market.  (Besides fruit, they have a small selection of dried goods.)  Imported from the USA--could be from Michigan, as far as we know.  They're a bit pricey at approximately $3.50/lb... so needless to say we will not be eating as many as before.  Not as good a price as free lamb from Uncle Darryl, who is now officially my favorite Australian non-uncle Uncle.  Anyway, we bought the beans and we'll be having some special occasion burritos later this week.

On a other somewhat food-related topic, we* recently heard on the radio that Australia is the last haven for bees.  The colony collapse that has been happening everywhere else in the world hasn't hit here yet.  (Though it has in New Zealand, so it's only a matter of time.)  Australia exports a lot of healthy bees so we Americans can thank this lonely continent for keeping our food supply going.  I tried to look into this on the internet a little bit but couldn't find a whole lot of current information.

*by "we" I mean Reid heard it and told me about it.  We still don't have a radio in our apartment.

Today is our second official anniversary.  This month is also our ten year anniversary.  Probably (certainly) did not think back in May 2004 that we would be in a different continent together come ten years later.