Food Shortages?
My friends in Kuwait are complaining about the price of tomatoes. The price of tomatoes in Kuwait?? Can a Kuwaiti cook without tomatoes?? 😉
I remember when suddenly, rice, a reliable cheap staple, suddenly went through the roof, and then, disappeared from the shelves when India announced a shortage and refused to export Indian rice. Kuwait, and other Gulf countries, announced they were buying unused farmland in other countries to insure their food supplies. But tomatoes? I thought everyone in Kuwait grew tomatoes, at least in winter.
And then, today, I saw this article on creeping food shortages:
Another lackluster monthly jobs report took center stage Friday. Stocks rallied, and government bond yields remained at rock-bottom levels as investors anticipate more action soon by the Federal Reserve to drive down interest rates even further.
Reports about how much slack the U.S. economy still needs to work through — like unemployment — understandably get the spotlight. But investors may be overlooking an even bigger story as the developing world stages a sharp rebound: Shortages of items like food and commodities are once again becoming a major concern.
Prices for agricultural commodities spiked so much on Oct. 8 that they triggered daily movement limits on the Chicago exchange. Options markets saw prices for commodities like corn soar more than 13% during the day following reports of supply shortages around the world.
Commodity-oriented exchange-traded funds like the PowerShares DB Agriculture (DBA) leaped as well. The ETF surged almost 10% over the previous week, with more than 6% of the gains registered on Friday alone.
Supply and Demand Discrepancies
A sharp shortfall in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s corn production forecast, due to poor weather patterns, also helped set prices soaring around the world. U.S. corn crop yields would come in 4% short of prior estimates and drop to their lowest levels in 14 years, the Agriculture Department said.
Fears of commodity shortages in the face of surging global demand are leading to export-slashing. Ukraine announced a sharp cutback in the amount of commodities like wheat and barley it would allow to be shipped out of the country. The likelihood of a major discrepancy between supply and demand have led to surging prices worldwide. European wheat prices rallied 10%, with other commodities, such as soybeans and cotton, climbing as well.
Still, investors should be cautious because commodity prices are known to be extremely volatile and difficult to put a price on.
Fundamental Forces
Nevertheless, rising prices are creating alarm about humanitarian concerns. Morgan Stanley (MS) and the U.N. have warned about the prospects of a rerun of the 2007 food crisis that slammed the developing world.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/poor-crops-soaring-demand-currency-wars-a-recipe-for-food-sho/19667693/?icid=sphere_copyright
As we drove across the United States this summer, we saw acres and acres of US farmland, unworked, for sale. Farming is a tough life, and fewer and fewer families are still farming. It’s scary and sad.
Super Target Colorado Springs
With some time on my own in Colorado Springs, I wanted to see what a Super Target looked like, and when I found it, it was with two other stores I really enjoy, one of which was TJMaxx Home. The Target was a target; you can always find what you need at a Target store, but different locations have slightly different merchandise.
One time, I wanted to buy some really cute paper plates, but I was on my way to Seattle and thought I could buy them there. When I got to Seattle, I searched every Target I could find, but they just didn’t carry those paper plates. Location, location . . .
The Super Target was pretty cool, but it has serious competition from Whole Foods, just down the road. When I saw these, however, I just had to laugh. I’ve been giving these as little gifts for years, never never thought I would see them at the Target:
Red Hot and Blue in Colorado Springs
No, No, I didn’t take any photos of my shopping trip yesterday; we don’t have a Macy’s in Pensacola, so I spent some time having fun in one of my favorite stores. It was a great day. I also found Ruth’s Stitchery and spent a lot of time looking at new quilting fabrics and patterns. The problem with Ruth’s is that they also have fabulous cross-stitching materials and patterns, and I am SO tempted to buy them, even though I don’t really cross stitch any more; unless you have really really good light, stitching on linen, which is what I like to do, is a lot more difficult than it used to be.
I picked up AdventureMan and as a special treat to me he took me to Red Hot and Blue, my favorite restaurant in Colorado Springs. He said ‘have you noticed how many of your reviews are BBQ restaurants?” LLOOOLLL! Yes! It’s true! We love BBQ. We do go to other restaurants, but most of the Pensacola restaurants we hang out in I have already reviewed at least once! Out of town, we often explore new BBQ. 🙂
We started with hushpuppies, and these were small, but good:
We tested all the sauces – the hot ones were really HOT!
We couldn’t possibly eat all this food, but we tried it all, and enjoyed it so much there was no room left for dessert:
Red Hot and Blue Chili
Their tangy cole slaw
My pulled chicken and potato salad
AdventureMan’s pulled pork and beans
Wyoming to Colorado Springs
We are eager to get going, but oh, we are shivering, and happy we brought a little fleece with us:
It is a glorious morning, bright sunshine, clear air, a day when we are glad to be alive and on the road.
Across South Dakota and Montana, we saw the huge round rolls of hay that we saw in France and Germany, but across Wyoming, most of the bales are the old fashioned square ones. We are thinking square is easier to store, but there must be some advantage, also, to the round ones, as they seem to be the latest invention. Anyone know why?
We find a rest stop so we can change drivers, and there is a set of sculptures there called The Greeting and the Gift, just as you are exiting Wyoming and entering Colorado:
I love this one. It looks noble. The First Nation (Native American) is offering a pipe of water. When I was a kid, I would have thought it was a peace pipe, but the explanation says otherwise. The Greeting statue I don’t like as much for two reasons – his hands seem out-of-scale large to me, and the hair does not look like a mountain man or explorer (to me) but looks sort of Hellenic. What do you think?
At the end of a very short drive is a city I love, Colorado Springs. I love it because (most of the time) the air seems clear and clean to me. I love it in the winter, when it is cold, and in the summer, when it is hot, it is dry heat, like Kuwait, but not so hot, so it doesn’t bother me. There are a million quilt shops here, all of which I intend to hit today while AdventureMan does some consulting and I drive the gypsy-mobile. There are also Macy’s department stores, which Pensacola doesn’t have, and Sephora, which Pensacola may be getting soon but did not have when I left.
We went to see George Clooney’s new film, The American, which gave us hours of conversation, and on our way to our Marriott home picked up a feast from Whole Foods – all vegetable! Balsamic grilled brussel sprouts, marinated grilled beets, a vegetarian meatloaf that really tasted like meat (!), guacomole, a pico de gallo with some bite, pita bread, sauteed garlic spinach, and some wonderfully tasty olives. AdventureMan picked up a really good bottle of Colorado merlot (yes, it exists, and is called Two Rivers: Chateau Deux Fleuves Vineyards.
Crowning our day was a sunset over Pike’s Peak. I don’t like a lot of drama in my life, but I love a lot of drama in a sunset. I loved this one so much that I am going to show you three different shots, because I can’t choose the one I like the best.
Edmonds Market Day
It’s all rush rush rush but we make time on Saturday morning to go to the Edmonds Market, my very favorite thing to do. First, I wanted to show you how my little home town decorates the street lights with hanging baskets:
Street pots:
And one of my favorite vendors, the Cedar Creek Soap lady. 🙂
(My favorite soaps are Clove, Cinnamon Orange and Safari)
Spokane and the Grill-Creamery
“Hey! AdventureMan said, “how about barbeque?”
“Sounds good to me,” I responded. After years of doing without, we are still vulnerable to the siren sound of barbecue.
On entering the parking lot, we got a clearer view of the sign.
Hmmm. Nope. Not quite what we had in mind.
Not sure where we were going, we drove further into the strip mall and there we found it:
Quirky. Individual. Not your franchise . . . just what we like, something new. It doesn’t always work out, but this one was pretty good. I had the Moussaka, and AdventureMan had the Gyros:
After dinner we hit the Spokane Fred Meyer where I found just exactly the right pants I was looking for – long pants for the Happy Baby, who is now crawling, and very very fast, so fast he gets rug burns on his knees. I always love shopping at Fred Meyers, especially when what I want is on sale, and then they take money off the sale price. Wooo HOOO, it brings out the cave woman in me, bringing home the bargain!
Leaving Spokane, the scenery changes again, back to warm and toasty, with lakes and windmill farms:
As we near Seattle, we see the Cascades, and Mt. Rainier:
The rest of the day wouldn’t interest you. It was hard work. When we opened up our storage locker, I looked at it in dismay . . . how had I let so much stuff accumulate over the last few years? I had survival stuff – laundry detergent, hair shampoo, a back up hair dryer, fingernail polish remover, envelopes, wrapping papers and ribbons, and all kinds of treasures I have brought back with each trip from overseas, to store until we live once again in Seattle. Now, we must get rid of what we can, and take the rest to Pensacola. Oh aargh. It was hard work.
We were rewarded with a beautiful Seattle sunset:
Short Day to Spokane
After breakfast, we hit the road early, stopping after a couple hours for a leg stretch and coffee. The weather is in the 50’s as we hit the road, and we are both ready for a warm-up. I was all set to order my normal ‘short non-fat Mocha, no whip cream,’ when I saw that they already have the fall specials on the menu, and oh, I love Pumpkin Pie Spice Latte . . .
While the roads are nearly empty, just us and an occasional truck, or pickup, the weather has turned ugly, rain coming down in drizzle, or torrents, or sheets, changing by the minute. By the time we stopped for lunch, I was ready to give up the driver’s seat.
Lunch was at the Fat Belly Deli, in Alberton, Montana, where we had Turkey Pastrami and Swiss sandwiches, oh, and ummm. . . . fries. They were having a little trouble getting the fryer hot enough to fry the fries, so I had time to take a couple photos:
On our way in, AdventureMan spotted a huge used book store – like catnip for cats, we could not resist. I found a copy of Elizabeth Warnock Fernea’s book “A View of the Nile.” If you have never read Elizabeth Warnock Fernea (Guests of the Sheikh, A Street in Marrakesh) read her biography in the link above. She was an amazing woman, who shared her insights in a very readable way. A View of the Nile is hard to find. I want it for my lending library. AdventureMan and I both found books. . . Too many books. We had to drag ourselves away.
(Update: AdventureMan reminds me that HE found the Fernea book and asked me if I wanted it. I promised to correct this entry and give him proper credit. 🙂 )
Soon we left soggy Montana to enter an equally soggy Idaho, although the weather cleared by the time we got to Coeur d’Alene:
By the time we hit Spokane, the sun is out and we are starting to feel warm once again. We could go on; we have gained an hour, but we see another Mariott Residence Inn along the road and decide to hit the pool and kick back for the rest of the day, with another short day on the road tomorrow to get us to Seattle, where the hard work will begin. We have accounts to close, a storage locker to clear, rugs to gather and plastic carrier boxes to pack. We are hoping we can get everything into AdventureMan’s Barcelona Red (the name of his Rav4) for the long haul back to Pensacola.
Our reward for good behavior will be a few meals with friends and family before we depart. We are looking forward to that part. 🙂
The Edmonds Market
I made a quick round of the market very early, as I wanted flowers to welcome Mom back. First round – maple bars, flowers, farm grown zucinni and carrots, and some lovely farm-raised lamb chops for dinner.
Later, Mom told me about the wonderful Pear and Gorgonzola pizzas made at the market, and after some grocery shopping, I stopped by and ordered the Pear Gorgonzola and the Pizza Fresca, both vegetarian, and, woo hooo, very thin crusted, and baked right there on the street in a special oven they have created:
Mom was right. The pizzas were really, really good. We also had enough left over to freeze several slices to microwave on a night when she doesn’t feel like a heavy dinner.
While I was waiting for my pizzas, I visited my favorite soap maker. Last year, I asked for clove soap. AdventureMan and I fell in love with clove soap in Zanzibar, and we have used ever sliver and are yearning for more. This year, she had it! And more! Wonderful soaps, but these two are my favorites:
Sorry there is no photo of the gorgeous finished pizzas, but we gobbled them right up. 🙂
Old Spice Man Goes Viral
Today on NPR I listened to a lengthy interview with Ismail Mustafa, the new Old Spice Man, and actor in what has been called the most successful advertising campaign, EVER.
My friends, this is totally hilarious. Old Spice is so old that my father wore it. It is so old that is has been way past unsexy, and this campaign boldly reversed everything.
Not only is it getting hit after hit on YouTube, Old Spice is now flying off the shelf. This is a total hoot!
Really Bad News for USA Olive Oil Lovers
Horrifying. I read the labels. I thought we could trust the labels. Thank God for independent testing. Bring on the Palestinian Olive oil!
Most ‘extra virgin’ olive oil bottles are actually cheaper mix
(See full article from WalletPop
More than two of every three bottles labeled imported extra virgin olive oil are either a cheaper grade of olive oil or adulterated with another type of oil, a University of California at Davis study found.
Top-selling brands including Bertolli, Filippo Berio, Carapelli, Pompeiian, Colavita, Mazola and Carapelli all had bottles that flunked the test — containing instead a cheaper virgin olive oil, the study by the university’s Olive Center found. Even a brand carrying the name of TV host Rachael Ray — who frequently touts her supposedly extra virgin olive oil — flunked the testing on two of three samples.
The chemical analysis did find that 90% of the California-packaged olive oils were indeed what they claimed to be. Two that were exactly what they claimed to be were Walmart’s Great Value brand and Costco’s Kirkland Organic.
“The intent of the study was to provide consumers and retailers with an accurate picture of the quality of olive oils now being marketed through grocery stores and other retail outlets in California,” Dan Flynn, executive director of the Olive Center, said in statement sent to Consumer Ally. “Our hope is that these findings will lead to improved methods for evaluating extra virgin olive oil, and increased consumer confidence that ‘extra virgin’ on the label means extra virgin in the bottle.”
Flynn said the United States is the world’s third-largest consumer of olive oil.
Consumer Ally contacted several of the largest manufacturers cited in the study, but only one immediately responded to the request to comment on the study. A Colavita official wanted to read the study before discussing.
A history of duping consumers believing they’re buying the rich-flavored and often pricey extra virgin olive oil led the federal government to enact more stringent olive oil standards, scheduled to take effect in October. In 2008, Connecticut became the first state to regulate olive oil after finding that some being sold included nut oils or soy oils, which could cause dangerous allergic reactions.
“Before this study, we had anecdotal reports of poor quality olive oil being sold as extra virgin,” Flynn said. “Now there is empirical proof.”
Some of the tests analyzed for problems that would affect flavor — the very essence of extra virgin olive oil. “Many of these oils just did not taste good,” Flynn said.
He cited the following reasons for the oil flunking the tests:
adulteration with cheaper refined olive oil
oxidation due to elevated temperature, light and or aging;
poor-quality oils made from damaged and overripe olives,
processing flaws or improper oil storage.
See full article from WalletPop: http://srph.it/9Svxpx
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