Everything we ate was great - I remember that, but everywhere - meat, lots and lots of meat (and mayonnaise in weird squeezy bottles like udders) - and perogi - fried dumplings. Oh and beer so cheap and so strong I needed to have a lie down after 2 cans.More then anything, I've realised a cultural shift. Every supermarket around us has a polish section, and we've two polish mini markets in walking distance. Before now they held a vague, foreign, almost sophisticated allure - I'm so cool I'm buying stuff I can't even pronounce and no idea how to cook - looks at my quasi alternative lifestyle (we used to do the same in Liverpool with the Chinese supermarkets). But now have knowledge- I know how things should be cooked, I know what things should and shouldn't have meat in, I understand flavours and I know what I'm looking for, so if something is cheap in the 'eat me before I die section' of a supermarket - where the sad things no one else lives goes to die I can do something with it.
I can't be alone in incorporating the occasional eastern European meal into a regular rotation can I?