A dash of vinegar...

I never considered that the biggest concern of living in a different country would be food. You see, I'm not fanatical about eating. That doesn't mean I don't love food, I do, but I don't make it my only concern of the day. We have a loose kind of weekly menu, but we're certainly not a couple who discusses in great length what to have for supper while clearing away lunch on just filled bellies. There's something a bit sad about that. However, practical cooking combined with healthy is important, especially for the children, and I make sure all my family meals are cooked from scratch and are fresh, wholesome and tasty.

But I digress. What I wanted to mention was the food I crave, the food I never thought I'd give a second thought to. The variety of groceries in Turkey is large enough and centers around home cooking. TV dinners and microwave cooking still hasn't caught on much - a good thing in my opinion. But, for me, there's a lot else missing. Through the 18 years I have been here I've missed things like HP sauce (available now), Worcestershire sauce, pickled onions, gravy, custard, Skips, proper Kitkat (they only have the thick single bar kind here - no crunch whatsoever) and dozens of others too much to list. Oh, Picallili and Branston - amongst the staples of any good British larder.

I've recently found a good supplier of British crisps, biscuits, chocolates and tea on Ebay UK with next to nothing in postage costs. I'd been annoyed previously by those horrendous 'foodforexpats' websites who charge a ridiculous postage of £50 for a pack of six crisps. 'On yer bike' was my initial reaction...

So, after 18 years - and 18 years of making my parents lug jars and bottles through customs each time they visit from the UK - I have struck gold.

The supermarket chain of Kipa has been around for some time, yet I've never managed to live close to one and there are very few branches. Surprisingly, they hardly promote themselves as aggressively as the others, so it wasn't a total oversight on our part that there has been a Kipa store just half an hour away from us for a couple of years now. Kipa is part-owned by Tesco. That's right.

So, the first time we went I was delighted to find everything bar Walkers crisps and several baked beans brands. Not to mention my favourite mint and cranberry sauces, guacomole dips, etc. The prices are good, it carries all of the Tesco brand homeware lines and we now do our large monthly grocery shopping there. We also saw they had fresh blueberries but at the grossly inflated price of £6 for a handful.

The added benefit is that it's part of a small shopping centre with children's rides and activities so my little son really enjoys it. And last Saturday, I had tears in my eyes when I found they'd just stocked bottles of... authentic malt vinegar! Yep, 18 years of making do with weak grape vinegar has finally come to an end.

A taste of home...