So I have to make this post cuz Whateley thinks I'm over-reacting, and I think all my readers from California would totally understand:

I had a hankerin' to make curry for our game night tonight. We haven't had curry in awhile, and I was also in the mood to make a rice dish. Anyway, I checked our pantry and found that we had used up the last of the curry mix the last time we cooked, so we needed to get more. I figured we can pick it up when we pick up the carrots, onions, and potatoes anyway, so off we went.

Whateley had to pick up something from Home Depot, so we went to a different H-E-B (the major Texas grocery store) than the one closest to our house. It's a much newer store, in a slightly fancier neighborhood, but it had a Home Depot right next to it. So after I picked up the produce, I went to the "Asian Food" section (which consisted of a shelf) but I couldn't see it. In fact, the main stuff in that section were the popular Thai food kits, like the ones where you just add hot water. There were boxes of fortune cookies, and that was it. Nothing truly Asian, just "white-people's-pseudo-Asian-food." They also had a sushi section which feature more Asian imports, but all they had in terms of curry was Thai curry paste. I asked someone at the store, and they looked at me confused like they've never seen it before. One guy showed me a container of curry powder, but that would require knowing how to make Japanese curry from scratch.

Anyway, that's when I felt really sad. I haven't really been feeling homesick for California lately, especially after we bought our house. But in SoCal, which is the mecca of the Asian-American population, I could go into any of the major grocery stores and find boxes of this stuff:

I mean, I was used to finding tons of brands of these curry kits in the Asian markets. I thought you could only get them from there. But then, in Anaheim, one night I found them at a Vons. And that's when I realized that there was enough of an Asian-American population that major grocery chains would carry them too. So I started taking it for granted that all grocery stores carry these.

So when not only could I not find them at this H-E-B, but the people that worked there had no idea what I was talking about, it really got me down. It was just kinda sad to think that I had to go back to finding these only at Asian markets. And since we live in a suburb of Austin but not in Austin itself, we'd have to drive for 20 minutes to even get to the nearest Asian market.

Whateley told me to relax, that this store was in a pretty white-bread neighborhood, and they were also trying to be an H-E-B plus (which is like Target trying to be a Super Target), and almost a third of their store space was taken up by non-grocery items, which meant that they couldn't get as diverse in their non-best-selling items. So we went to the H-E-B by our house, and again, their "Asian Food" section featured no real Asian grocery items, but Whateley jetted for the sushi section, and lo-and-behold, there was boxed curry. They were smaller boxes than I was used to, and they only carried two brands, but my faith in Texas was renewed after discovering that. This store was also not an H-E-B plus, it was slightly more ghetto (hence, more "ethnic" shoppers), and the sushi section took up an entire corner, which meant they also carried Japanese rice and actual imported goods. I gotta say, I liked the other H-E-B more at first since it was cleaner and newer, but now, I like the one by our house much more, and I will avoid shopping at that other one as much as possible.

Anyway, it did remind me that I took California's diversity for granted. And by diversity, I mean the Asian-American population. One of my concerns when we moved to Texas was the lack of Asian people, but I cared more about being able to afford a house. This was the first time in a long while that I felt a slight pang for California. It's weird how something as stupid as boxed curry can evoke such emotions outta you.

(BTW, the curry was a big hit at game night. Xeowolf, one of our friends who also moved from SoCal, loooooves Japanese curry, and I think he would've eaten the entire batch if other people didn't also have to eat. We've only managed to find one restaurant that sells Japanese curry around here, sadly. Funny enough, it's a sushi/Japanese restaurant that's owned by Koreans.)