Californians Don't Bake...

So, to save money, I figured I could do something that I enjoy doing and isn’t very hard (if a bit time consuming): Bake my own bread. So, when we were moving, I packed dried milk (which is used in my recipe), and figured I could buy flour, yeast, etc. when I got here.

Well, I went to the grocery store and into the “baking” section. A sadder sight I may never see. The only flour is in 5 or 10 lb bags, and, at the first couple stores I tried, they didn’t have the higher gluten bread flour. Yeast? Nearly impossible to find a decent size for a decent price. Oh, they had yeast—the little envelopes were 3 for about $3.50, and the little glass jars were nearly eight dollars! Nowhere to be found were the larger yeast bags that I could get back home for less than the glass jars! (Lucky for me, my mom was able to send me some, so saved some $$$ there!) Also befuddling was the lack of baking powder! They have one smaller size of the name brand, and were charging three dollars for it! Lucky for me, I was able to find a generic brand at WalMart for around a dollar (and the name brand there wasn’t much more). Baking soda is also fairly rare. One size, Arm and Hammer brand only. (Maybe they only use it to freshen their fridges?) Another thing I had a hard time finding was dried buttermilk. Okay, so this isn’t as common, but still. I need it for my pancakes!!!!

Probably the oddest thing to have trouble finding was... bouillon. We looked everywhere! We even asked one person at a store and he gave us a blank look. “What?” “Bouillon. It’s like a powdered broth? Sometimes comes in cubes?” He still had no clue what we meant, and suggested the same aisles we’d already checked. When we were about to give up and call home for a “shipment,” I finally had an idea—the Latino aisle at WalMart. We went down there, and, sure enough... Bouillon. Sure, it says “Caldo de pollo,” but it’s the same thing. HOORAY! (We rejoiced greatly.) Then, the next time we were in another store, we checked to see if they had it the same place, but they didn’t. Crazy stuff!

So, I decided from my adventures that Californians must not bake—at least not the way Utahans think of baking!

As a side note, an aisle that made me laugh was one marked “food storage.” Out of curiosity, I peeked down it... and saw Tupperware. I guess that’s food storage... just not what I’m used to!