May
10
Written by:
David Strickland
5/10/2007 10:33 AM
At 81 days out my wife's family came over from India to see the U.S. They are surprised by a lot of things but one of the most obvious is our waste. As we drove back from the airport my mother and brother in-law wanted coffee. Now before I go to much father I need to point out that there is a fundamental difference in coffe world wide. It was one of those little surprises you never expected. I'm a coffee addict. Coffee to start the day coffee to end it. I drink my coffee black. No milk no sugar. In India however coffee ALWAYS has milk and sugar. To make coffee in India you take a sauce pan put milk into it. Bring it to a boil. Add a couple scoops of coffee grounds and let it boil. When it is dark enough you add several teaspoons of sugar until it's about as sweet as maple syrup. Once done you run the sticky brown milk through a strainer to get the grounds out of it and then put it into small cups about the size of a Texas shot glass. One of the things I missed the most while I worked in India was a simple cup of black coffee.
So when my Mother and Brother asked for coffee I knew we needed to go some place I could get coffee made from milk instead of water. Enter Starbucks. 2 Grand Lattes with LOTS of sugar. Ok Guess I wasn't thinking. considering a Grand Latte is like 24 oz of coffee when they were expecting 2.
Next day I'm out with my Brother in Law and we stop off at a local mexican joint Pancheros. At Pancheros you can get a burrito big enough for dinner. When we sat down with them I remembered a similar scene when I was in India and he brought me a chicken roll. It's the equivallant of an indian burrito but it was just slightly smaller then a Mcdonald's Breakfast burrito. The Pancheros version is probably about 24 to 36 oz. Enough to feed two or three average sized people or one American. As we walked out of the resteraunt after he had tried his best to finish it. I started wondering what his impression of America was so far. I comment on the size of the portions and he agreed they were a little large. I replied "How else did you think us Americans get so fat." He just laughed as we walked to the car.