Nobody told me the tomatoes were bad

It’s going to happen in any country you go to. Whether you’re just one border away from home or continents away, you are going to miss the food you have been used to. It doesn’t matter if you’re a vegetarian or a vegan or a cannibal. You’ll find yourself asking: Dude, where's my food? Of course, unless you’re in some forgotten place in this world, you’ll manage to find basic ingredients for your favorite meals in the local supermarkets. But never all of them. Or the exact ones you’re looking for. Or the ones that taste like home. 

In Madrid I do miss some things from Romania, although I’m really not a big fan of traditional Romanian food. At first, it was hard enough to get by with the food by myself, thinking what I need and what goes were, what’s going to go bad in 2 days unless I freeze it and if I had to wash the rice or not. (Yeah, I didn’t know you have to wash the rice before cooking it. Now I do. Thank you, mom!) 

I had to use my memory and my imagination so I could adapt to grocery-shopping and cooking for one. So I failed at first, but got a bit better with time. I’m still not experimenting very local meals or ingredients, but at least I know what’s good and what’s not and what gets me through the week. Turkey is very popular, but chicken liver – not so much. I see sweets everywhere and people seem to like doughnuts very much – one of their traditional desserts is churros con chocolate and there is a Dunkin’ Coffee at every street corner. I know that the oranges and tangerines are very sweet and tasty, that you can find all types of lint around here and that there is almost no normal yogurt or good, simple, unsweetened drinkable dairy. I also know that 2 Thai chilies are too much for one meal. 

And that the tomatoes here are bad.