Living in another country can really make you appreciate the little things from back home. This morning I was late for work, so I grabbed a piece of toast and prepared to run out the door with it hanging out of my mouth, anime style. I reached for the peanut butter and saw that I was almost out, so I stood there scooping every precious bit from the bottom of the jar to put on my toast. American peanut butter is one of those things I’ve really come to appreciate since coming to Japan, because no matter how long I live here I just can’t learn to like the overly-sweet “peanuts butter” the locals eat. (Certain words like peanuts, suits, sports and buckets are always used in their plural forms for phonetic reasons, even if you’re discussing just one.) Other items I didn’t value enough until I couldn’t find them easily included Vlassic pickles, really fine craft beer of the kind that my hometown of San Diego has become famous for, a good selection of cheese and of course all manner of Mexican food. Root beer is another item that can be difficult to find in Japan, except for Okinawa where it’s a local favorite, presumably a remnant of the years when it was a U.S. territory. In our refrigerator right now there’s a single can of root beer, which my family of four is going to divide up tonight as root beer floats because we only have one can.
I love toast, don’t you? Mmm, toast.
