This week I am in Chicago, enjoying time with friends and family and celebrating the wedding of a dear friend. Expat friends generally agree that trips home are bittersweet. I usually find myself going into sensory overload as I try to take in all of my friends and family, sounds and smells, sights both familiar and new. A simple trip to the grocery store can turn into a mini trip down memory lane as I wander the aisles, greeting familiar foods like old friends. Sometimes it is the most mundane foods which prove to be the most alluring. This time I walked out with chips & salsa.
There is never enough time. We end up running from one visit to another. Monday with the rents, Tuesday with friends, Wednesday morning a visit to gram’s house, Wednesday evening Mexican food with my siblings. Feelings get hurt because we can’t find time for everyone. No matter how you try to organize it, there is never enough time.
This week I am surrounded by family and, even as I drink in their presence, I feel their pending absence even more strongly. People often ask me about my decision to move overseas for love and wonder how I could move so far away from my family. Some even rudely assume that it must mean that we do not have a close relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love my family dearly and we keep in close contact with regular visits, phone calls, and emails. It is because of their love and support that I had the courage to move. It has not always been easy, but 5 years later I am more in love than ever and I would do it all over again.
In the midst of it all I did manage to get in this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Corn Pancakes. Of all the June recipes this is the one I was least excited about, and it turned out to be the one I liked the most. Go figure.
It was also a bit different from what I was expecting. I was expecting fritters, and instead Dorie stays true to the recipe’s name and delivers up pancakes. Like regular pancakes these were insanely quick and easy to throw together. My husband enjoyed his with creme fraiche and lox. I enjoyed mine plain with a side salad. I could absolutely see making these again, maybe even for breakfast.
one expat's life 
Hope that you are enjoying your time spent States-side with family & friends.
I often find that I need a vacation to rest up from my vacations 🙂
Rose, things are so different now in the ways you can keep in touch. As you know, because my dad was in the Navy, I moved to Atsugi, Japan, when I was 5 years-old. We used to record messages on reel-to-reel tapes to send to my grandmother, aunt, and uncle. They would all get together to listen, then record a message to send back to us. As you can imagine, this process took ages in the late 60s. We never felt unloved, or forgotten about.
I think you’re very brave and think it’s too bad that others can’t be happy for you – which is clearly their problem!
Happy 4th of July!
Thanks Susan. I was reading a book recently about families who move in the early 1900s and it was just crazy to think about. They would write letters back and forth which took months to reach their destination and visits were major expeditions whic also took months. I can’t even imagine. I would love to hear more about your own overseas adventures, sounds very interesting.
LOL… thats EXACTLY how our visits back to the States go! And we want to fit in shopping and we just invite ppl to tag along for the most mundane things to fit them in – otherwise they get all upset, but really its never enough time. You know whats funny about the people that either do or dont think you are close friends if you move away, they are impossible to keep in touch with! I have loads of friends on FB and that I write emails to once a month and I think in three years of living overseas, some have NEVER written back and others accuse me of not being “available” on FB or something, and they have to look too far back in their daily history to find my posts. Pssh! You can only carry a friendship so far on your own…
Are you stocking up some stuff that you cant get in Germany? 🙂 We brought loads back!
That would figure though that the one you werent interested in was the one you liked the most! That happened to us both for one recipe rather recently… I just cant recall which one..! Well enjoy the rest of your trip!! 🙂
My brother is actually here right now visiting from Abu Dhabi, so I get a little bit about what you’re saying. He has made many a trip to Target, and the Amazon boxes were piling up before he even got here. Luckily, I’m the only one he knows in this part of the country, but I see the problems of dividing time whenever we go back to Canada.
So you are sweltering away just north of me!!! Enjoy the rest of your time in Chicago. I want to hear what you take back overseas with you 🙂 Glad you took time to make these pancakes….I’d love to try them with fresh sweet corn.
The weather in Chicago was CRAZY! Over 100 on two of the days we were there. After a very mild summer here in Frankfurt it was quite a shock to the system.
I know just what you mean about visits. I haven’t been separated internationally to this point, but every time we do head home, it’s still a mad rush of visits. Moving overseas, the question people ask over and over is, “But aren’t you going to MISS everyone???” Yes, of course I will. These days, being in Italy isn’t any different than being in Texas, if you still only get back to NY once a year, anyway. I guess there’s a bigger psychological distance in their heads.
Hope you are having an amazing time in Brooklyn. Sounds very similar to my trip to Chicago, the mad visits and favorite foods.
I´m glad you could go back and visit friends and family and also it´s great that you followed your feelings. In the end, you should live your life the way you see fit. Your true friends and family will always be there. And nowadays there are a million easy ways to keep in touch.
I, too, enjoyed this pancakes a lot!
I am so glad that you are enjoying your visit with your family and completely understand your bittersweet feelings as that is always the way woth me when I visit my family on the east coast. I’m also glad you enjoyed the corn pancakes.
Rose, We live in such a small world today. It’s so much easier to stay in touch! So glad you are enjoying your visit with family…love always transcends the miles!! So glad you enjoyed the pancakes…they were a hit with us, too!
I don’t know if it is cooler in Germany, but you sure picked a good week weather wise to come
home. Here in Pennsylvania it is very hot, but watching the weather channel, nothing like
where you are in Chicago. Hope you are having fun and enjoying your family. Glad you
liked the corn pancakes, they really were good. Just made this week’s cucumber recipe, and
that is a winner too in our house. Have a safe trip home.
I hope you’re staying cool in Chicago. The heat here is sweltering!
Rose, hope you made it back to Frankfurt by now (safe and sound) – it is nice that you could spend time with family and friends, I cannot believe you found the time to make the corn pancakes, we loved them too. And I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your wonderful comment last week, we are all much better (and healthier) this week!