"it puts a rose in every cheek"

We had a mini Australia Day celebration at my Wednesday small group when a couple of Aussie girls were nice enough to bring us some of their national cuisine.

Cuisine may be the wrong word when you're talking about a tube of Vegemite, but nevertheless...

I had heard the 1954 jingle for Vegemite years ago. My friend Alyssa played it for me on her parents' computer... I'm not sure why we were listening to it, actually. I remember little kids who sounded like they'd been sucking on helium, singing their love for the stuff.

Bernice made Vegemite grilled cheese sandwiches, but not before making me and Mariela try some Vegemite by itself. She squeezed the dark, tarlike paste onto our fingertips. We looked at it. We sniffed it. Gingerly, we tasted it.

She told us some people squeeze it straight into their mouths, the way some people in the U.S. do with Easy Cheese. (Coincidentally, both of these horrifying substances are made by Kraft. Hmm.)

Anyway, it tasted like a concentrated paste of salt, yeast, beer, and bread. But on a grilled cheese sandwich it was OK.

I also had Weet-Bix for the second time. It's a cereal bar with the look and consistency of plywood. It's a delight, however, when mixed with fruit and yogurt.