One thing I really miss from my life in Canada is my gas barbeque. Here in Mexico, gas barbeques are expensive and hard to find. Anyways, about a year ago, I bought a portable bbq from Canadian Tire and brought it down to Mexico. I was so excited thinking about how easy it will be to fire up the grill and enjoy some home made burgers, only to realize I didn’t buy a large tank adapter hose. Oh no! You would think something like this can be simply solved by a quick trip to the local hardware store. How wrong you are. You see, a portable BBQ has a small connector coming out of the unit and since they don’t carry gas BBQs it was nearly impossible to find one locally.

The people at the hardware store, as well as most Mexicans, are quite ingenious and adaptable. They suggested that I go find a plumber, show him my BBQ and he’ll probably be able to make an adapter for me. Hopeful of this, I went searching for a plumber. To make a long story short, no can do lady. I resigned myself to waiting for my next trip back to Canada to pick up the adapter hose at Canadian Tire.

I finally got my adapter and today was the day we would christen our BBQ. Husband hooked up the adapter and it WOULD NOT FIT the gas tank we owned. Are you kidding me? What the heck? Apparently, some safety agency decided several years ago to change all the L.P. tanks and my six years old tank is a different size! Darn it, I really want to BBQ. Packed up the kids, took the adapter with me and off to the hardware store.

Fortunately, the hardware store had a tank and it fits the hose. Stop by at the L.P. Gas station on the way home and filled this baby up. Five hours later, the boys and I enjoyed our first BBQ meal of hamburgers and corndogs (from Costco) in our beautiful backyard. Life is grand and that’s about how much this first meal cost, in pesos that is.

If you were to move to a foreign country, what food would you miss if it was not available locally?