For any of you who have lived in a country where they do not have very many cows you know the longing feeling for that nice rich white stuff that tastes like health. That feeling you get when you go camping for a few too many weeks at a time during the summer, or that feeling you get after you've eaten too many sweets (especially oreos), or that feeling that you just don't feel good because you've been eating at restaurants for far too many nights...Yeah, I know this feeling all-too-well. Not as much because of the aforementioned reasons, but more because in Dominica you can't just go to the grocery store and buy milk.
This is not the first time in my life I have lived somewhere where milk was not a staple and what you COULD find at the store was so over-processed that it certainly did not represent what I have known as milk for my lifetime. Ghana was the same way, and I made it through my time there unscathed, but still craving milk. I used to walk down to the end of our 'road' (i say 'road' because I'm not sure you can call a dirt trail with a big river running through the middle of it when it rains and the grand canyon of gullies when the rain stops a road, but the taxi's drove on it if you paid them enough, so i guess it was considered a road) to the convenience store whenever I needed a 'treat'. My 'treat' was a juice box of milk...not the milk you're all thinking of, but over-processed, strawberry flavored, creamy goodness that they called milk. It was delicious, but it certainly was not Milk.
I may not have been born in Wisconsin, but if you looked at my cheese and milk consumption over the past 5-10 years you would have thought I was raised on a dairy farm. I do not, however, know how to milk a cow or really anything else there has to do with raising a cow, so I will not be purchasing my own anytime soon (although that IS a good idea). However, yesterday I found milk, REAL 2% Reduced Fat Cows Milk (yes, I do like 1% better, but this is what they had so that's what I got), and I could NOT have been happier. With the opening of the IGA grocery store recently (small by US-city standards, but it kind of looks like the grocery store at the cabin) a LOT of things are becoming more readily available (deli meat, a variety of cheeses (other than the staple white and yellow chedder), yogurts, ice cream, meats, etc.) but it was not until this week that the milk arrived. Okay sure, it expires today and I just got it yesterday, but who are we kidding, I don't need more than 2 days to finish a half gallon of milk, so it worked out just fine. Here's to hoping that the next shipment of milk from IGA is on its way right now, but until then I will finish this half-gallon with my dinner tonight and savor every last drop!
