When Rich and I first started coming to France hot things were off the menu – unless you cooked them yourself. So we would come with our car loaded with curry sauces, and chilli powder for our Mexican’s, and don’t forget the Cayenne pepper! But over time it has got better and the French seem to have got the taste for ‘something hotter’.

In addition the crisps (or potato chips for my American and Canadian readers) were weird flavours (In fact they still are!) You could get bolognaise flavour, and creme flavour, and paprika, and then just onion! But could you get good old cheese and onion (a favourite with the English) could you bugger!!

So imagine our surprise when we ‘found’ a packet of cheese and onion crisps in a tiny little mini mart the year we first moved over here; sadly we were so excited and nommed them as we drove along in the car nom, nom, nom. Then, before you knew it, they were everywhere, ridged varieties, non-ridged varieties, ‘yey’! We thought we can have them with our cheese sandwiches.

In the same way Mexican has taken off in a big way and you can buy Chilli powder and Cayenne powder and curry powder and even Tandoori chicken powder. On top of that you could find sweet chilli sauce (which I adore) just about anywhere in varying heats. You could even find it in Lidl when they had asian week. We was happy!!!

But suddenly this year the Cheese and Onion crisps started to disappear off the shelves and where they could once be found everywhere now they cannot be found anywhere. We have searched – “Don’t worry I told Karen when she visited in August – you can get Cheese and Onion crisps just like English crisps.”

MI lied, literally, or as it seemed. overnight they had gone. Nada, nothing none!! We are back to looking at dodgy salt and vinegar and weird pizza flavour.

But on top of that, at about the same time, the Sweet Chilli Sauce also started to disappear. In our small mini mart to start with, then the nearest supermarket, then the hyper-market and finally LeClerc, the Supermarket that  I thought that I could always rely on. Where Action (a Belgian Shop) sold it last year in the BBQ season it did not appear this year; and Lidl no longer have it as part of their Asian week. I was distraught as I have it with my Mexican’s as a sauce and I also use it to cook one particular dish. Have the French taken exception to it? Do they think we should not be eating eat. It is just plain Weird!

That is part of living in France, you find something, you like something and suddenly it ain’t here no more. Perhaps the Cheese and Onion crisps are something to do with Brexit and they’re not allowed in the country anymore!!

But I will not be beaten. I made my own!!!

It is so easy I don’t know why I didn’t do it before!! Sod French Bureaucracy if you want to stop people eating sweet Chilli sauce some people will make their own!! Shame about the Cheese and Onion Crisps though!

I am not called the Witchy Poo Cook for nothing; look out for my recipe – coming soon with my recipe for Mexican Chicken.

Have a good Saturday and look out for my post tomorrow – it is all about our new venture, we are going with Dad’s advice.

Moisy