Dressed-Up Breakfast

     A few days ago at the grocery store around the corner I found 4 smallish Philippine mangoes marked down to $HK 5 ($US .65) because they were looking a little wrinkly and soft.  Appearance is really important to Chinese consumers, which means that there are sometimes bargains on produce for less-choosy shoppers like me.  I've been enjoying the mangoes for breakfast the last few days and have one left for tomorrow morning, a delicious going-away treat.
     My usual Hong Kong breakfast is a microwaved porridge of coarse rye and oatmeal flakes with some cinnamon, and a cup of green tea.  The mango and a splash of milk have almost made my breakfast into dessert the last few days.
     We've been buying a local brand of milk, Trappist Dairy, which is available in a little glass bottle besides a standard paper carton.  This milk used to be produced by a Trappist monastery on Lantau Island just west of Hong Kong Island from the 1960's until the 1980's.  Lantau Island is where the new Hong Kong airport opened in 1998, replacing the old Kai Tak airport in crowded Kowloon.  The dairy most likely moved to its present location in the New Territories when airport construction began.  I had been under the impression that this was one of the few local Hong Kong food products a person can buy.  But now I've read that Trappist Dairy products come from cows in Guangdong province in southern China, although the milk is processed and packaged in the Hong Kong New Territories.  Ever increasing land prices make it more and more unlikely that food will be grown in Hong Kong.
     Dairy products are expensive here relative to MN prices.  A 946 ml carton of milk (about a quart--the largest size in the dairy case) is around $HK 20, or $US 2.60, but since I use a only a bit on my breakfast grains and Terry uses it only to doctor his Nescafe, we don't go through much.
     Terry's breakfast was dressed-up by a treat this morning, too.  While in Shanghai a couple days ago he found some fresh coffee beans that brewed a great cup of coffee, much-savored after mostly drinking instant stuff lately.  He said the bag of multi-colored beans reminded him of Bruegger's everything bagel, kind of a "sweep up all the odds and ends and sell it" concept.  Just as good as Dunn Brothers and less expensive, too, a surprising find in Shanghai.