Regarding grocery frustrations

I know that I may have given voice to certain issues regarding the grocery stores in previous posts, but I'd really like to broach this subject in greater detail right now. The other night I was going to cook for someone. So, as any self-respecting person would, I wanted to cook something I was familiar with, good at, and that seemed stylish, sophisticated, while not being overly complicated. This is actually rather sticky to begin with as I am a cook who likes to try new recipes all the time, and I don't have a particular set arsenal that I turn to when trying to impress. You, my moroccan hound compatriates, should know, as we always experiment and if something doesn't work out, whatever. But I would like to think that I am a capable cook.
However, first I need the goddamn ingredients!!!
Haha. So this dilemma is further complicated by Hungarian grocery stores which either don't carry what I am looking for, or you have to go to some combination of 3 or 4 stores to get everything (and I either don't have the time or don't know the proper combination), or even if they have it---good luck reading the label in Hungarian.
For example, I went through some possibilities:
Fish--not possible, as there is no fresh fish to be found in Hungary, the country is landlocked. Theoretically I could buy a family size pack of frozen mystery fish and choke on it for the next month but I don't think our freezer even has room for this.
Meat--The grand market closes at 5 (6 some days). If you have class before then, you're out of luck. I have yet to even see beef in a normal grocery store, and they're often out of chicken other than some chicken legs. Pork is plentiful, all there is is effin' pork, haha.
Green beans (for our fave, gujerati style)--I found some in a Match, but when I went on my grocery expedition on Monday, to a SPAR which my roommates recommended as the one place I might find a larger selection or variety of products, there were some kind of yellow beans? but no green ones. SPAR did turn out to be the one place I have found goat cheese, although questionably sealed, and also parmesan cheese (oh, how i have missed thee). Usually, the cheese selection is rather limited--the usual, kind of bland, Hungarian cheese is called Trappista and that you can find anywhere. Upon occasion I have come across emmentaler, gouda and camembert. And although this SPAR did have the 'gourmet' presence of carrying goat cheese, they did not have risotto (which I have seen somewhere else, dammit!). So the risotto idea i had was out.

Finally I settled upon pasta carbonara. After all, it was getting late and this is an easy plus damn tasty meal. Eggs check, pasta check, parmesan check, black pepper check...ummm...cream? I looked all over the dairy aisle, proceeded to text three different people for them to look up the word in hungarian, only to ultimately find it some other place entirely. Apparently I was this close to buying sour cream.

Given some perspective, I must say that I am glad to be in a place near eastern european food as I can't find any in LA (and it's too much of a pain to drive to the Valley). However, for my daily diet I really don't buy kapusta and herring much, and some wider variety would be SOOOOOO appreciated.
Anyways, consider yourselves all very lucky that you can buy and cook ANYTHING you want whenever.
Oh, there are plenty of 'poppy seed cakes' here, minus the raisins and nuts, and I love that! And there are the chocolate croissant style pastries, similar to the Israeli rugelach, and they sell those in bakeries right inside the metro so every time I ride it I have the hardest time walking straight by.
Basically, I'm going to have to look up some hungarian cookbook and learn to really, really love paprika as my only seasoning.

Other news:

Last night there was another esn party at the Irish Cat but I got bored (same people, same music, blah blah) so I figured I'd rather try my chances on skype to see if any of my friends around the world were around (success!! so glad I caught you, Kate!). On the way home, however, I waited for the bus, and then it just rode straight past. Rather unfortunate. Another woman who was waiting, who was hungarian with a crazy floppy hat, got pretty flustered, but so we both ended up walking home together. This was kind of amusing as I walked faster than her but I wasn't sure about the etiquette and whether I was allowed to completely leave her behind so I'd periodically slow down until my new companion and I parted ways.
Also, someone recently turned me on to Ben Harper and I have to express amazement at this horrible lapse in my musical awareness! I have a feeling that BH may turn out to be my next great love after Stevie Wonder :-D
In my Decision Methods class today we did one of those 'personality' quizzes, "are you a maximizer or a satisficer?" I am smack dab in the middle, baby, adapting my behavior case by case. Twas funny though, one of the questions was: you treat relationships like clothing, expecting to try many before you find the perfect fit. Do I?...anyways, rhetorical, don't answer that.