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player ready...If you have never heard of ANZAC Day, it follows that you won’t know where to buy the food with which to commemorate it.
Help is on the way.
ANZAC Day is Australia and New Zealand’s equivalent to Memorial Day. ANZAC is the acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The holiday is celebrated on April 25.
The best local place to find some popular Down Under foods is Kangaroo Connection, The Australian & New Zealand General Store, 1113 W. Webster Ave. (312-248-5499).
Shelves there brim with Vegemite–known as the Australian national food–a yeast extract that is used as a spread for toast (various sizes, from 15 cents for a single serving to $35 for a 5 1/2-pound bucket); dessicated (finely flaked) coconut ($3.80 for 250 grams); Violet Crumble, a honeycomb bar covered with milk chocolate (92 cents for small bar; $1.80 for large). Other items, including cookies, teas and sauces, are sold here too.
Cookbooks let you whip up your own fare. Titles include “Vegemite Cookbook” from Kraft ($10.95) and “Famous Australian Recipes,” by Diana Vasey (Antipodes Design, $5.95). Recipes also are included in the “Little Aussie Fact Book,” by Margaret Nicholson (Penguin, $21).
Kathy Schubert opened the shop nine years ago with her then-husband, Ron Frith, an Australian she met in Sydney. When he followed her to Chicago, he missed his Vegemite, and the store was born. After they divorced, she kept the store and its aisles of food and non-food merchandise, the latter heavily focused on kangaroo, koala bear and crocodile motifs. Schubert also carries music and banners that can be rented to stage a Down Under party. A catalog is available for $1.