Exploring, Retail Style

When one of my Scottish friends found out we were being posted to Dubai, she exclaimed, "You'll love it there, they're building a Spinney's" I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had no idea what a Spinney's was. Turns out, it's a western-style grocery store. The kind of market where you can get Vegemite, Marmite AND Peanut Butter.

If you have to ask what any of those food products are, then you have not lived expat. Seems like the things I hear folks complain about missing most all come in jars.

While camping out in my empty house, I'm trying to do some home cooking--with a set of rental pots and pans. There have been what I like to call 'usefulness gaps' in the rental kit. Like they don't provide a knife. Apparently, when you are cooking using rental stuff, you're opening cans and dumping it into saucepans. Warming up stuff.

In my attempts to get what I needed to cook, without spending a lot, because REALLY I own all this stuff, it's in my household goods shipment, right? I have found Spinney's, and Choithram's and today the Ramla Hypermarket.

The Hypermarket is close to our home and appears to be well planned. There is underground parking (which is exceptionally good in this heat) and elevators and escalators up through the three levels. The grocery is on the main level and they tout 50,000 square meters of fashion shops on the upper deck. I don't know because I didn't go all the way up. This trip was to the grocery. Ramla was a great store, kind of a WalMart type experience. A little bit of housewares, some beauty and health products, cleaning supplies and a big grocery. We found almost everything we needed. They do not cater to westerners, so no recognizable brands. If I want Hellman's Mayonnaise, I'll have to go to Choithram's or Spinney's. Most of the brands made it easy on me. One side of the label is in Arabic, one side in English.

I think I could have wandered the aisles for hours. Obviously, they cater to the imported workers. Lots of Indonesian and other eastern brands. If you want to cook Tiki Masala or any curry recipe, this place is ideal. All the spices, all the variety you could ever want. Most of the stuff had some English on the labeling, so I wasn't just blindly buying can goods, like I did in Tunisia.

I'm enjoying the adventure of finding places to do my daily and weekly marketing. Seems like I'll be able to stay pretty close to home and find everything I could possibly need.

Except pinto beans. They have all the dried beans and peas in the world. Dozens that I've never seen before. But none of the stores has dried pinto beans. I guess I'll give the Heinz Beanz a try. The label says that they have the exciting essence of Mexican spices. I'm as taken with the spelling of 'beanz' as I am by the exciting Mexican spices. In lieu of Ranch Style Beans, I'm going to give these a try. My other choice is to take white kidney beans and cooking them into cowboy beans. Not quite what I'm hankering for, but it will have to do.

--Sandee Wagner