The Ingredient Smuggler
Welcome to same-same but different.
You are receiving this because of your subscription to Test Drive Life, which we previously hosted on Substack. Thank you for continuing to follow us here!
The changes are recapped at the bottom, a refresher from the last dispatch.
How's life in Costa Rica, you ask?
Continuing apace.
Anders, in his second semester of 3rd grade, continues to acclimate well.
As do we, to the tune of finding that setting our AC below 26 degrees Celsius makes us chilly.
Gesina has figured out how to pay local taxes, get the car's oil changed, and buy rice.
Not just any rice, of course. Non-Costa Rican rice. You might laugh, but of all the imports we were happy to find, Gesina's successful tracking of Japanese rice tops the list. Costa Rican rice is good, but Japanese rice is better.
Years ago there was a competition show on The Food Network to identify the next network star. The internet says this was 2009. We have little recollection of the competition, but one of the concluding episodes included the limited taping of a show concept for each finalist. One of the contestant's show concept was called 'The Ingredient Smuggler.' We found this hilarious. We find this hilarious. We will snicker at the ingredient smuggler when we are in our 70s. The ingredient smuggler did not win the show, but he won a slice of the snarky part of our brain, which one could argue is tremendous consolation. I would.
Expat life outside of the US is the ingredient smuggler come to life. Most places in the world have 90% of what we have in America, but the 10% missing is WHAT YOU NEED RIGHT NOW. You don't need it, and not right now, but once you notice the gap, the desire burrows in and festers. You need to find a source (ideally, not smuggled, but you get the point).
Japanese style rice was one of those. It was not really hard to find once we figured out who to ask (other expats that might be inclined to want Japanese style rice). But it still felt like a victory. Anders's satisfaction in the first at-home production of the imported rice was, itself, satisfying.
World wide, the most frequent missing ingredient was serviceable pizza (or frozen pizza). Costa Rica does not suffer here. Frozen peas were similarly hit or miss in availability as we progressed through countries. Within Costa Rica they are still hit or miss, a pop-up item in the grocery store according to a star sign we've yet to translate.
Almost every standard spice or seasoning is available except mustard. As previously mentioned, ingredients for green bean casserole, should you desire (and you should!), including canned green beans, Campbell's condensed mushroom soup and French's fried onions, required special importation (checked luggage).
As I fly to San Jose for the weekend, I am 'smuggling' ingredients for Anders's upcoming birthday party. Ninja plates and related party favors. 90% of birthday themes can be accommodated by Costa Rican party stores, but ninjas are a tough search.
The other thing in today's luggage? Lay's potato chips, specifically Limon flavored. Are there Limon chips in Costa Rica. Many. So many. And limon plantain chips. Many limon snacks. All pale in the taste-bud evisceration provided by Lay's. That's what Anders loves. Thus I have a factory-sealed bag of Lay's to bring to my very-much-not-chip-deprived baby boy (Frito-Lay products are everywhere in Costa Rica, this is fan service of the worst order).
Gesina has also been working through the backlog of unprocessed photos from Adventure Year and capturing Costa Rica. She has cultivated a more narrow collection for viewing, organized by location. Take a look and enjoy. Many of these now adorn our walls.
If you missed our last note on the change of format, we've pasted it below once more.
Short version:
This newsletter is moving to a platform called Buttondown (versus Substack) - that's this, that you are currently reading right now.
Your very free participation as a subscriber will continue, the only change being a slightly different look and feel.
This newsletter will shift focus to our life outside of the US and pursuit of other investment and living options outside of the US.
You will always have the ability to opt out at any time.
I also plan to begin a second newsletter, focused on work/career/professional stories and opinions, which will also be based on Buttondown, and will include a mix of free and paywalled content, for which a link will later be provided if you want to sign up (it will not hurt my feelings if you do not).
Long version:
Path 1: Evolution of Test Drive Life.
We’ve enjoyed writing about our adventure year of travel and our thoughts, observations, and learnings along the way. The content has meandered, the structure varied, but the target audience has remained ‘people who probably know us in some capacity and find at least some of this interesting’.
However, as we’ve settled down after our adventure year, we’ve decided we do not want to continuously write about living in Costa Rica. We will, of course, at times, still write about this. But to do it exclusively feels forced, both in activity and outcome.
What we’re really interested in is the ongoing exercise to tailor our lives and lifestyle to create a hybrid life between the US and elsewhere. This includes a continued examination of different investment and living options in the United States, Costa Rica, and beyond (the latter two being the focus).
The goal will be once a week, on Tuesdays, oriented around what is described above…except of course when we meander. But what it will not include is…
Path 2: Writing about things related to work/career/professional stories.
Which is a thing I’ve occasionally done over the last year and a half. It is content that sneaks in without prior intent, largely when a memory has fired in my brain unexpectedly. Based on unsolicited feedback, some of you find this interesting. Based on unsolicited feedback, some of you do not.
As it turns out, I think I like writing about this. My career has, in my estimation, been both an inspiring and cautionary tale; like our adventure year writing, I find writing about it cathartic.
For professional reasons, I want to get these stories, and my opinions, in text. But I appreciate you might not care about having that text sent to you. A second newsletter will be created, entirely on an opt-in basis, for those that want to follow along. Important note: I plan to paywall a majority of the content that will be developed for this newsletter (the reasons for this are less about the value of the content and more about what else I intend to do with the content in the future).
I will later provide information on how to sign up, but I will not move anyone from this distribution to that distribution. It will be entirely opt-in, at a point in time in the future.
In conclusion…
Thank you for continuing to follow along as we endeavor to maintain momentum.