Lazens Abroad

I was commiserating with some other ex-pats about how difficult it is to find certain items here.

For instance, you cannot obtain cornmeal here, this in a country where even the meat is made of corn. Sponges are only sold on the black market. And something called lemonade is everywhere. But God help you if you need a lemon.

Oddest of all is the dubious quality of products that ought to originate in Latin America. Like chocolate. And coffee.

It was desperation for a decent sample of the latter that drove me at last into the Starbucks next to the Jardin.

A journey of 500 miles across the Texas border would not have taken me to a more distant world than that one step over Starbucks’ threshold.

All was as it would be in any branch of the franchise, whether in New York or Oshkosh. The lowslung comfy chairs. The faux hipsters. The brand-managed music. And the over-roasted, over-packaged, over-priced coffee. Which never in its history tasted as good as it did at that moment.

“And you know what?”, I marveled to the friend with whom I spoke, “they had half & half there! They must ship it in! I’ve been looking for it everywhere.”

My friend stared for a long time. I could see her recalibrating every nuance of her previous estimation of me.

“Perhaps,” she said, “they make it themselves.”

You can not imagine the shattering impact of the dawning that occurred that moment in my psyche.

It’s called half & half for a reason. It does not come from special cows.

Ah, Mexico, land of ingenuity. Here, they make half & half one half at a time.

From scratch.

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