Thursday, September 25, 2008

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

I can barely control myself.

As I went through the aisles this morning of my favorite grocery store, looking for pimentos which, hello? I don't even know what they are, I stumbled across the holy grail of my grocery list.


Kraft Catalina Salad Dressing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I know!! Can you control your excitement??!?!???!!! (Did you notice I made the words the color of the dressing? Well, as close as I could get. That's how excited I am. )

There were six bottles on the shelf. Not wanting to be greedy or anything, I took 4. I thought about taking 5, but decided to be magnanimous. I'm just like that. Snort!

Now why would Catalina dressing excite me so? Well, beside the fact that Hubby likes it when I marinate chicken in it and then bake it, it's the dressing for my ultra-yummy, favorite meal of all time Taco Salad. Which I've only made once (once!!!) since being here because I had to make my own Catalina dressing, which isn't hard, but it's a pain.

So you'd better believe that I'm going to be making Taco Salad at some point in the next week. That's IF I can find Doritos. They seem to have disappeared from the shelves lately. Sigh...

On a more somber note, I also had a little unhappy moment from my grocery shopping trip. We are having guests this weekend from the local military base. My friend's nephew is over here on a tour of duty and he's coming over and bringing a couple of friends. I'm planning on making Apple Enchiladas for dessert that night and it's just oh-so-yummy with vanilla ice cream on it. So the only vanilla ice cream I could find was a brand I'd never heard of before, but, hey, it's all the same thing, right?

Now, you have to realize that pricing over here is hit or miss. Some things are labeled, most are not. I just knew that the most expensive ice cream brands are your Baskin-Robbins and that other American brand that I can't remember, but it's in the black cartons. You know what I mean. They run about 35 riyals a carton. That's about $7-8. I rarely shell out for that, mainly because I don't like ice cream and the rest of the family doesn't really care about the brand. So I figured this is probably a regional brand and they run about 20 riyals.

Imagine my shock and horror when I got in the car and looked at my receipt and saw that the ice cream cost 60 riyals!!! That's a $15 box of ice cream, people!! And it was small, maybe half the size of a half-gallon box. It dang well better be the best ice cream I've ever eaten and maybe it should even get up and clean my bathrooms for me!

7 comments:

Nancy M. said...

I'm glad you found your salad dressing you love. I can't believe the ice cream was $15! I am upset when I have to pay $6, but I do love me some ice cream.

tammi said...

YIKES! You're not kidding! I'm glad you found some Catalina dressing though. That IS exciting!!! (you can so totally tell we're moms, eh?!)

Anonymous said...

WOW - I've never heard of ice cream that expensive! I'm with you on the cleaning bathrooms!

I've never tried Catalina but I've seen tons of recipes that use it. Guess I better go try it!

Unknown said...

$15???

As in, FIFTEEN DOLLARS???

I do believe I would have marched right back into that store and returned it.

Unless of course it was in a gold (and I do mean 24 karat) box!

Joy Junktion said...

Enjoy every mouth watering bite of that indulgent ice cream!

And...on your previous post of fall in Doha...I fell the same way about falls arrival in Phoenix, AZ. Today is Sept. 25 and supposed to reach 103 degree F.

Life!!!

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'm not sure what is more unfair...that you have to pay $15 for a carton of ice cream or that you can get Baskin Robbins w/o visiting an actual Baskin Robbins store and I cannot. I LOVE the peanut butter and chocolate. Seriously. I can eat a quart by myself in one sitting.

Erica said...

For future reference: I like London Dairy ice cream. It's in the mid-range of ice cream prices here (as in, it's about 20 Riyal for a quart.) It's very creamy and it's made in the UAE so I figure it has less time to thaw and refreeze before it gets here. What brand did you buy?

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