more glossary entries

Today has been a day of learning...

purse=wallet
handbag=purse

What we call a purse at home is a handbag here. A wallet at home is either a wallet (if it's like a guy's wallet and just folds over) or a purse (if it's like a girl's wallet and has a zip pocket and is fatter.

paw paw = papaya

MOLASSES!
I love my gingerbread. But you need molasses to make gingerbread. I had an inkling that something was up when I saw a recipe for gingerbread that included golden syrup. What the heck is that? Then my second clue that something was different was when I asked my co-worker about molasses, her look was priceless. "What do you want horse food for?", she asked. I tried to explain what I meant, but it's really hard when you're used to one word for something and they are used to another. It's like a different language or something. :)

This is what I've discerned so far...I've bought some treacle to try at home tonight, and we'll see if it's molasses. (I think treacle is dark molasses and golden syrup is light molasses). I think they are all essentially the same things - sugar treated different ways.

golden syrup = molasses
treacle = molasses
molasses = horse food


PUMPKIN!


My goodness... The last time I thought this much about pumpkin was... well, I don't know that I ever have. I've always let Linus do the worrying about the "Great Pumpkin". Ha Ha. Bad joke, I know.

But, since Thanksgiving is this Thursday, I've decided to make a pumpkin pie for my new colleagues. Only problem is, they don't have canned (tinned) pumpkin. In fact, when I've asked for it, no one can even understand what I'm asking for. They look at me like I've got three heads. Not kidding. And they can't get their head wrapped around the fact that we DON'T use pumpkin for much else besides pumpkin pie. It's a very common squash here, and they roast it, make soup out of it, in general, eat it a lot more than we do. It's like sweet potatoes I guess - eaten in more ways than just pie.

So, for my pumpkin pie on Thursday, I'm going to be making it from scratch. with a butternut pumpkin (which I'm told is the sweetest of the three we saw in the store (butternut, Queensland Grey (or Queensland Blue), and the Jap (or Kent)).

What we call pumpkins at home (the traditional round orange) are competition pumpkins here, grown just for show.

Seriously - my head is spinning. And I'm a little bit hungry.

(But that's no surprise really.)