This isn't the first, or the last, time you will hear me say this! SERIOUSLY!??! I finally taught myself how to cook real food, good food, not hamburger helper or a frozen meal from a bag and now I can't buy 1/2 of the ingredients I want to cook with! There are 2 other commissaries within a half hour of me that have a little bit better selection but I'm specifically talking about the one right where I live. Their vinaigrette selection consists of 2 and one of them I don't even count as a real vinaigrette. There's no fresh bread (guess it's time to invest in a bread maker and learn to make bread). Cheese?!?! We LOVE cheese in this house! Here? No Gouda, no Asiago. These aren't super exotic cheeses or anything people! Come on! The produce? Don't even get me started on the produce...UGH! What they do have is typically way past it's prime and ridiculously expensive (I paid $1.77 for a TINY, starting to wrinkle green pepper today!). Green beans are my favorite veggie right now and I guess I'll learn to love them out of a can/frozen. We've been here a month and I haven't seen good green beans here at all. No shallots?!?!?! I bought a box of baking soda that was a solid rock, and so was the bag of brown sugar I bought. GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! I was so excited that the fresh herbs looked good so I bought some basil to make bruschetta (they do have good, cheap tomatoes here). Then I got home and opened it and found this:
I'm pretty sure this guy isn't supposed to be in there!
Jason tried to explain to me that they have to order in bulk so some of the shelf stable stuff has been around a while. I know it's not the commissary's fault that stuff has to come so fat, but I don't have to like it! I will adjust, I'm sure, but it's really frustrating not being able to do what I love the way I want to. I'm going to request the stuff I use regularly but we'll see what they say. There isn't much room to add anything there.
While I'm on the subject (kind of), we don't have an ice machine in our fridge. No biggie, I can totally deal with that. What I don't get is the fact that none of the 3 commissaries/2 PX's around us sell and ice storage bucket thing. You know the one that you empty your ice trays into and it holds all your ice cubes in the freezer? Yeah, can't find one around here anywhere so right now I have a Rubbermaid storage container in my freezer holding my ice cubes.
I know the Lord will provide what I need and I'm just being a greedy American but man do I miss me some Walmart right about now ha ha!
Today was Jason's 1st day back to work and it's almost 7:30 pm and he isn't home....I hope this doesn't become the norm...
On a happier note, we got internet in our building today =) Yay for not having to
steal borrow internet from the one unsecured network in the neighborhood!
I'm off to make
this yummy recipe for dinner (with out the andouille sausage because my commissary SUCKS).
It's funny, because I had the a similar issue- except with ice cube trays. For some reason I left all but two at our old house. It took forever to find more, and the ones I have suck! Luckily I had my storage bucket though. It is strange what you will have a hard time finding here, one prepared enough! Yokota has an awesome commissary- of course you have to travel forever! As for bread- check out the Japanese bakeries- yummy!! I did bust out my bread machine after years of not using it though...
ReplyDeleteIt does suck not being able to find what you want. I am going to go nuts when I move back stateside with all the groceries I will be able to buy!
We do have a vin. selection...but the produce here is awful too. When I think about it, the produce has really been awful in every commissary that I've been in. I've been thinking about just shopping at Walmart...as much as I HATE walmart...
ReplyDeleteOur PX doesn't have ice cube buckets either. We've been looking for one for a while now. We run out of ice so fast!
ReplyDeleteSorry that the selection at the Commissary is so crappy! I think our produce here is really hit or miss. Some days everything looks ragged and other days it looks great. Just depends on when they get stuff in, I guess.
I had a similar experience when I lived in New Zealand! The pathetic cheese selection killed me!! And btw, the produce at our Commissary here in DC isn't much better. I stick to Farmer's Markets and Whole Foods.
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