I don’t why I always end up circling back to food when I write, but I do.

I really love food and it is one of my great delights to try lots of new foods. I can’t always say that these ventures are successful – sometimes I end up like Dean Winchester in the image above where a lizard is a lizard and cannot be improved upon – but I will at least try everything once. If I don’t like it, sorry, I probably won’t eat it again.

All that to say, I was thinking about food today because I recently went to the grocery store to restock my bare cupboard. As I walked down the aisles, I saw the familiar packaging for Tim Tams. If ya’ll don’t know what Tim Tams are, they are a-ma-zing Australian cookies that sandwich yummy chocolatey filling. My personal favorite flavor is the dark chocolate one – put those in the fridge for a few hours, then bring ’em out and enjoy them with a cold glass of milk, it’s just the best!

So, needless to say, a package of those goodies ended up in my cart and, later that night, in my belly, because I had gone the entire summer without so much as catching a glimpse of them.

I know that’s not a terribly long time, but it reminded me of how excited I was to come home and have some of my brother-in-law’s amazing green enchiladas, a luxury I had been without for a year and a half because there’s just not the same ingredients available out here.

Just thinking about both of these small things that bring me joy made me think about how grateful I am to live in a country that imports a lot of the food that I like. Honestly, I can find many of the same ingredients and things to make the food I like, which made adjusting to life in Malaysia so much easier.

But…there’s still things that I can’t find either consistently or at all.

And that’s a joy in a different way.

It’s a joy because it creates scarcity….like how in the US, you can only get certain foods or drinks during specific holidays, like Eggnog during Christmas or Pumpkin Spice Lattes in the fall (though why anyone wants to get a drink that tastes like potpourri, I don’t know, but I digress…). The anticipation that scarcity creates makes everything taste better, in my opinion. The longing for those familiar flavors after a period of being without makes the delight of consuming them exponentially greater.

So, even though I miss certain foods no matter where I find myself, I kind of like that globalization and trade hasn’t made everything available everywhere. Because the delight of eating something after waiting diligently for weeks, months, years, makes my appreciation for that particular treat grow even more.

Guess what? For those who are interested or prefer audio format over script, I’ve made my posts available on Spotify! I’m currently in the process of recording previous posts, so not all of them are available yet, but most of the delights, including today’s, are hosted there now. Check out the link below to listen to my not-quite-podcast-worthy narrations!