Moments associated with living in the USA - 2

Also when I was here on holiday earlier in the year, I was shopping for cornflour..... the crucial secret ingredient in my pavlova recipe.... I find corn everything - corn meal, corn bread, candy corn, corn muffin mix, corn pancakes, and more.... six 'stores' later and some phone calls (thanks Jeremy) I discover that cornSTARCH is cornflour. I had a similar issue recently looking for icing sugar (powdered sugar).

Last week I was reassured to find that the other shopping "issues" I have had relating to the fact there is no fine desiccated coconut (resulting in chunky-looking lamingtons with large strands of coconut stuck on!), no golden syrup, and finding custard powder took me to three different stores (but with eventual success) are normal! This web-site explains all http://www.heartwindow.com/abroad/foodhints/ - see the sections on 'different names and labels' and 'same name but it's strange'. They also give some very useful hints about buying things and I could SO relate to the section about the size of the supermarket! It seems to take me so long to even go up the road to the smaller supermarket that I found and get 10-12 items. I really find the big supermarkets (imagine K-Mart and Foodtown/Woolworths all combined into one huge shop) so overwhelming. I think it's all the lights, sounds, colours, combined with the fact that most things look quite different so I can't just go and get something off a shelf, I have to read the label on each item that I pass to work out what it in the bottle. It's amazing how alike detergent, laundry liquid, fabric spray, stain remover, toilet cleaner and air freshener look and how there can be about 17 varieties of each!