Friends in high places – When Canadians share food
I live for food.
When I go out, it’s for the food. When I travel, I can’t wait to try the foods. When I meet up with friends, there’s guaranteed to be food involved. When I meet someone online from a different country, I want to hear about the food.
Food, food, food. So anybody that knows me, knows that food is the way to woo me.
Which is why back last year when I made a trip to Canada, I was sent home with a box full of food to try. And I received another box in the mail of other tidbits. Sauces, spices, snacks. The works.
Now I’m finally sharing with you, too, so you can see all the goodies I got to try out. They’re not all “Canadian-only” things, of course, but a lot of them I didn’t have access to where I was living or were different brands to try out, etc.
The O Dor Rooibos Marabout tea – I actually had one heck of a time hunting this down currently because I can’t really find it online any more. I eventually called my sister to pull the tin out of the cupboard and read me the bottom label (thanks again!). And when I looked it up after to try to find a description, even the main The O Dor site gives a very little…..intentionally saying that it won’t tell anything about it, ha. Anyway, it’s caramel and apple flavored with chunks of dried apple chips and toffee bits. Translate this Hebrew site for an awesome bit of sorcery. Tastes like Harry Potter! :P
Shahi Garam Masala – Indian spice mix
Saffron
Instant Miso Soup – Strangely good, by the way. I wasn’t expecting it to be decent prepackaged compared to restaurants.
Cadbury Mini-Eggs “Popping” – Pop rocks meet chocolate mini eggs. Awesome.
Wasabi peas – Weird, but strangely good. 2 out of 3 girls liked them and the other thought they were too hot.
Chiquilin hot paprika – The picture on the right is actually more orange-y than it really is, but it’s still a completely different color than the paprika I use at home.
Tamari soy sauce – Nicely protected in a sock, woot
Tim Horton’s coffee that says “OMG! tastes like Canada” – I don’t even drink coffee, but Time Horton’s is quite iconic for Canada
Miso gravy (awesome on potatoes and stir fries, by the way) and Cholula hot sauce (awesome on everything and because B’s new favorite sauce for a long while).
Some other things in the pictures that I didn’t have individual pictures of and I’m not sure you can tell from these:
- Balsamic vinegar,
- Hollandaise sauce mix
- Turbinado (I couldn’t find it locally and wanted to try it out for N’s sensitivities)
- Cadbury crème eggs for the girls to try
- Poach pods – Little green cups to poach eggs in
- Cooking magazine
- Almond flavored Pocky
- Wasabi paste and nori (seaweed) sheets so I could make my own sushi
- Various rices to try
Some of these were gone in no time, but some I babied and savored to the point that I even still have some of them a year later. I should probably finish them off eventually, huh? Hehe.
Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring ring banana phone! – Er, apples and bananas?
Ding, dong, ding dong, ding, banana phone!
Er.
Actually, here, have some lyrics. Watch the videos. Sing along. Have a blast for a couple minutes. Invite the kids over. Giggle lots.
Here’s the sped up version that you should’ve seen across the webs somewhere in the last few years.
Banana Phone LyricsBoo-ba-doo-ba-doop!Boo-ba-doo-ba-doop!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
I've got this feeling, so appealing,
for us to get together and sing. Sing!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone
Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding donana phone
It grows in bunches, I've got my hunches,
It's the best! Beats the rest!
Cellular, modular, interactivodular!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone
Boop-boo-ba-doo-ba-doop!
Ping pong ping pong ping pong ping panana phone
It's no baloney, it ain't a p(h)ony
My cellular bananular phone!
Don't need quarters, don't need dimes,
to call a friend of mine!
Don't need computer or TV,
to have a real good time!
I'll call for pizza. I'll call my cat.
I'll call the white house, have a chat!
I'll place a call around the world, operator get me Beijing-jing-jing-jing!
(Soprano Sax Solo)
Yeah!
Play that thing!
(Piano Solo)
Whooo Hooo!
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
Boop-boo-ba-doo-ba-doop
Ying yang ying yang ying yang ying yonana phone
It's a real live mama and papa phone,
a brother and sister and a dogaphone,
a grandpa phone and a grammophone too! Oh yeah!
My cellular, bananular phone!
Banana phone, ring ring ring!
(It's a phone with a peel!)
Banana phone, ring ring ring!
(Now you can have your phone and eat it too!)
Banana phone, ring ring ring!
(This song drives me bananas!)
Is Banana Phone not your style? Well then how about Apples and Bananas instead? I like to eat, eat, eat…
Now this brings back memories of Barney. I used to babysit a little girl who loved this song and it wasn’t uncommon for me to slow it down to sing her to sleep with it….or for me to speed it up and catch myself singing it while I worked at the library. Yeah, I was weird back then, too. ><
And you can thank the lovely Meaghan at Edible Eats for featuring Jill’s banana and apple phone picture at the top of this post. I couldn’t help but sing banana phone when I first saw it….and then as I was posting, realized it’s technically an apple *and* banana.
Maybe I could combine the two? *sings* Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat…..apple banana phone!
Hello Kitty tortilla pizzas
You know Hello Kitty, right? If not, you should probably leave the internet now and never come back. :P 
Pretty close, yeah? I used olives for the eyes and whiskers, sesame seeds for the nose, and pepperoni for the bow. Oh right, and a mozzarella cheese base, of course.
The girls had been watching me carefully cut the tortillas and once they finally guessed what I was making, they were so excited. It’s not even that I have any Hello Kitty fans, so much as it was that they loved being able to recognize what I was creating.
They were each slightly different, too. The bows weren’t quite right, so I kept fiddling. Some were fatter, some had higher whispers, etc. Some had funky ears.
Because they’re used to having tomato sauce with pizza-esque items, we had some red Hello Kitties, too, hehe.
I thought it was really funny how they each ate theirs, too. Instead of starting at one point and eating straight through to another (or requesting I cut it into pizza sliced triangles like they usually want), they each eat around the face in one way or another:
When I’d been cutting the tortillas, a couple of them were too kitty like and not cartoon Hello Kitty enough, so I pushed them to the side. With a little altering, though, they were still usable. My little sister came through and turned them into Pretty Kitties instead:
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