<commit_before>= Stories
:hp-tags: personal

I want a burrito.

I have lived in Finland for two years, and sometimes, even often, I still crave a burrito. And not just any burrito, but the unique blend of cheese, greasy meat, and too-runny, lard-cooked refried beans you can acquire at Mexican-American taquerias almost anywhere in Western United States. 

I can of course make burritos. I learned how to make a mighty fine burrito from my father when I was a child, who  improvised the family burrito recipe after being introduced to a particularly good such taqueria in Madras, Oregon, by coworkers at the wood products company that employed him until he was stricken with esophageal cancer caused by decades of untreated acid reflux disease.

I even, after inheriting a barrel full of pinto beans from a salad kitchen where I was once employed, had learned how to make refried beans from scratch. 

And yet, I was never able to truly reproduce that taqueria experience, nor am I here in Finland fully able to reproduce the hot pork sausage which was the cornerstone of the family burrito recipe either. I have done the best I can here, but even finding the right beans is difficult in Finland. It was only recently that I was easily able to acquire even a suitable cheese for a good burrito, thanks to the Fazer Company putting out a line of pre-grated cheddar and mozzarella tossed with peppers and spices, which serves as a reasonable substitute for the pepper jack cheese that was the family favorite. At home I have more often of late stuck with Tex-Mex styled tacos and fajitas, owing to the greater easy of reproducing the experience.

I just want to go down to a local burrito joint and buy one of those big burritos the size of my head and devour it. And as long as I am here, I cannot.

***

I bought a packet of cigarettes today, Lucky Strike Reds, the local version of an old favorite.

It is the first such pack I've purchased in some time, not since a particularly rough patch in the summer of last year, which ended after only a couple of months at the most. Part of my decision to terminate their use was because my wife was quite upset at the prospect of my taking on the habit again, but partly it was because they just aren't the same here. 

I was initially elated to discover that so many of my most favorite brands were sold here, even my beloved Chesterfield cigarettes, a brand long dead in America, and which I had not smoked in maybe 15 years. The last place I knew of to find them was a particular Safeway store in Redmond, Oregon, where I'm told they were pretty much only bought by a handful of retirees. 

Sadly, I would be disappointed to discover that despite the brand names, they were not at all the same recipes I remembered, and were more or less unidentifiable by taste as any cigarette I had ever smoked abroad. It turns out, for one thing, that there are laws in Finland regarding the manufacture of cigarettes. Their nicotine content is tightly controlled and broken into categories, and they're required to be impregnated with chemicals that make them self-extinguishing, so that Finland's great forests aren't set ablaze by stray butts like so many of America's are. The result is that almost every cigarette I have ever smoked in Finland has tasted and smoked exactly the same.
<commit_msg>Update 2015-07-30-Stories.adoc<commit_after>= Stories
:hp-tags: personal

I want a burrito.

I have lived in Finland for two years, and sometimes, even often, I still crave a burrito. And not just any burrito, but the unique blend of cheese, greasy meat, and too-runny, lard-cooked refried beans you can acquire at Mexican-American taquerias almost anywhere in the Western United States. 

I can of course make burritos. I learned how to make a mighty fine burrito from my father when I was a child, who  improvised the family burrito recipe after being introduced to a particularly good such taqueria in Madras, Oregon, by coworkers at the wood products company that employed him until he was stricken with esophageal cancer caused by decades of untreated acid reflux disease.

I even, after inheriting a barrel full of pinto beans from a salad kitchen where I was once employed, had learned how to make refried beans from scratch. 

And yet, I was never able to truly reproduce that taqueria experience, nor am I here in Finland fully able to reproduce the hot pork sausage which was the cornerstone of the family burrito recipe either. I have done the best I can here, but even finding the right beans is difficult in Finland. It was only recently that I was easily able to acquire even a suitable cheese for a good burrito, thanks to the Fazer Company putting out a line of pre-grated cheddar and mozzarella tossed with peppers and spices, which serves as a reasonable substitute for the pepper jack cheese that was the family favorite. At home I have more often of late stuck with Tex-Mex styled tacos and fajitas, owing to the greater easy of reproducing the experience.

I just want to go down to a local burrito joint and buy one of those big burritos the size of my head and devour it. And as long as I am here, I cannot.

***

I bought a packet of cigarettes today, Lucky Strike Reds, the local version of an old favorite.

It is the first such pack I've purchased in some time, not since a particularly rough patch in the summer of last year, which ended after only a couple of months at the most. Part of my decision to terminate their use was because my wife was quite upset at the prospect of my taking on the habit again, but partly it was because they just aren't the same here. 

I was initially elated to discover that so many of my most favorite brands were sold here, even my beloved Chesterfield cigarettes, a brand long dead in America, and which I had not smoked in maybe 15 years. The last place I knew of to find them was a particular Safeway store in Redmond, Oregon, where I'm told they were pretty much only bought by a handful of retirees. 

Sadly, I would be disappointed to discover that despite the brand names, they were not at all the same recipes I remembered, and were more or less unidentifiable by taste as any cigarette I had ever smoked abroad. It turns out, for one thing, that there are laws in Finland regarding the manufacture of cigarettes. Their nicotine content is tightly controlled and broken into categories, and they're required to be impregnated with chemicals that make them self-extinguishing, so that Finland's great forests aren't set ablaze by stray butts like so many of America's are. The result is that almost every cigarette I have ever smoked in Finland has tasted and smoked exactly the same.

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