A Little Piece of Home...But For a Price

With the holidays coming up, I have been planning the glorious feasts I get to cook. Yes, you heard me, *get* to cook. Living so far away from anything even resembling family, I get to be hostess for all of our holiday meals this year and I'm quite excited about it. I've been making lists and menus and planning when/where I need to buy all of my ingredients. The problem is, there is no Thanksgiving here so the shelves at my local supermarkets are NOT stocked with a few of the essential items like pumpkin (canned or otherwise, they stopped selling pumpkins the day after Halloween or I'd just buy one and make my own puree), marshmallow fluff (for fudge of course!), cake mixes (specifically spice cake mix for pumpkin cookies) and several other items that would make holiday cooking much easier.

Now don't get me wrong, I fully intend on attempting many traditional English recipes for Christmas but I NEED some of my tried and true ingredients. So I asked a few American ladies at church and was directed to this website. Holy Moly! Jackpot! I found Libby's pumpkin, Duncan Hines cake mixes (*the* best cake mixes, btw), Crisco, marshmallow fluff, and tons of other stuff. AND the shipping is really affordable especially if you spend more than £50, then it's free. The problem is everything is so expensive that it was way too easy to spend £50+. I could have spent hundreds. They carry so many of our "favorite" things but I restrained myself. Do I *really* need to spend £4 for a tiny jar of Jiff? Or £11 (which to put in perspective is $18) for a 12 pack of A&W? Or £4 for a box of Kraft Mac N' Cheese? The answer to all of these questions is NO! I was willing to pay ridiculous prices for items that I *have* to have for holiday baking/cooking and a few one time treats but that's it. I'm going to attempt to only order from this website a couple of times a year and only in baking related emergencies.

I'm really excited to get my shipment though because not only will I be able to cook some of our holiday favorites, it was nice to see products I'm familiar with. Have you ever gone on a vacation out of the country and had to buy food from a local grocery store and all of the products and brands were totally foreign and new and you weren't sure if they'd even be what you were looking for? Well that's me, on a pretty constant basis. Luckily, we've lived here long enough and the food is pretty good (generally speaking) so I've been able to pick out a set of "regular" items and brands that I know won't fail me but sometimes I think the labels might as well be in Turkish because I have NO clue what I'm looking at.

So in conclusion: americansweets.co.uk is a lifesaver even though it made me miss home a little bit more and it's really expensive.

...at least the shipping was free.