Things I miss from home

I have been meaning to blog about this almost since we got here. I had forgotten how awful the paper products are here and I am not sure why. One of the first things we did is buy soft toilet paper. The standard stuff in Swedish homes is some sort of public bathroom paper towel like product. Too rough for my sensitive bum! LOL! Even the tissues for my nose are ... weird. Maybe Fredrik bought some cheap Kleenex but the stuff is very stiff and almost like really thin paper that you can write on!

There are other items that I have missed while I am here. Salad in a bag. Either pre-washed or the stuff that comes with dressing and other condiments. Swedes eat their salad with their meal so they don't usually have dressing or anything but lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. I also sometimes miss going to Starbucks for a mocha or latte. There is always coffee here but it is VERY strong.

Another food challenge was finding a formula that Linnea liked. What Swedish babies her age drink here is called Välling. It is some sort of oat and grain based formula with some milk in it too. She hated it so we gave what we bought to Cattis since Ebbe still loves drinking it. We did find some version of the formula that she drinks now. It is the same brand and obviously similar to the one we drink at home since she drinks it with no problems. Even all the baby foods are quite different here. Potatoes and fish ... meatballs and pasta ... Sausage Stroganoff ... potato, carrots and leeks ... taco ... etc. The fruit ones are more similar so those have been the ones we stick with. Linnea doesn't like carrots and she hasn't been too crazy about other meat dishes either.

I also miss how easy it is to find Japanese rice and low sodium soy sauce. Asian foods must not be popular here because the selection is so small and there isn't many options to choose from. We are making Teriyaki Chicken by request from Irene and the ingredients are very simple but finding good soy sauce and rice is more challenging. Anyway, I better get back to cooking.

Happy New Year!!