Here There and Everywhere

Price Moans

This is for my stateside and European friends who have no idea what we are paying for food. Remember those Nestle chocolate chip rolls you can buy and keep in your fridge for those emergency times when your kids come home and remind you that they have to bring cookies to school the next day? Remember when they were expensive – like three dollars or something for a little roll, but you bought them anyway because they are such a Godsend when you are desperate?

I reached for them as I was shopping the other day, and then stopped myself:

Look at the price. That is not dollars. To get dollars, you multiply by about four. (The dollar is sinking in Kuwait, too.) TWELVE dollars for a roll of instant cookies. I can’t do it. I can’t make myself pay that. There are some things I will buy and never even look at the price, but instant chocolate chip cookies? I can’t do it.

I sent my Qatar friends a couple rolls of freezer paper, plentiful in the stores in Kuwait, but non-existent in Qatar. I’ve asked my husband to look for Parchment paper / baking paper, because it used to exist in Kuwait – and it is nowhere to be found. (You bake meringue cookies on it, or you use a paper bag – when was the last time you saw a paper bag in Kuwait?)

I am not complaining. I can find most things I need and even things I don’t need. Some of the shortages, when they hit, are just a hoot!

April 4, 2008 Posted by intlxpatr | Cooking, ExPat Life, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Qatar, Shopping | supply and demand, supply chain | 6 Comments