The Secret Ingredient

Thanks to everyone who gave me a guess (both in comments and directly by email), as to the identity of the missing food product I haven't found. I'll eliminate the suspense... it is chocolate chips.

I don't know what is so hard about chocolate chips. Why haven't they gone worldwide? They are little pieces of chocolate in a bag... what could be more obvious than that?

I have seen them in one place; as one of the available mix-ins in the local outlet of Cold Stone Creamery. Yes, we do have that. It is mostly the same as the ones back home. The Americans here are obsessed with Cold Stone. Quite ironic that we find it here, considering that the original store is literally in our old neighborhood in Tempe, Arizona.

Anticipating this potential disaster, we brought a couple dozen bags of chocolate chips. Several of our suitcases were a few pounds light, and chocolate chips come in convientent one pound bags. They got added as ballast, as it were.

Tomorrow Lee and a friend are going to the other side of town to a store called Metro. It is sort of a Costco, I guess. It is members only, and to be a member you have to be part of a corporate account under your employer. Apparently it has a lot of high quality western goods, and around here the expats, starved for familiar comfort foods, speak of it in almost reverent tones. It is like it is Shangri-La or something. I have a Dutch girl in one of my classes who, when she realized I hadn't been there yet, acted like I lived in Orlando and hadn't ever been to Disney World. She has asked me literally every day since then, "have you been to Metro yet?

Maybe Lee will spot the rare and elusive chocolate chip there.