The food we brought home

A day or two before we left the US, I made a trip to WinCo to stock up on a few easily packable favorites that are hard or impossible to get in the UAE (I did this last year, too). When I got to the checkout line, I had a cart full of a bizarre and seemingly random selection of food, in strange amounts: two bottles of peppermint extract, one jar of instant yeast and one jar of regular (I am going to test out my suspicion that UAE yeast is different), a whole bunch of Gushers - like, a WHOLE BUNCH, other kinds of fruit snacks, Goldfish crackers, a few boxes of breakfast cereal, mint Oreos, six little bags of that delicious Hormel turkey pepperoni, and some choice selections from the bulk candy section.

Midway through scanning this odd assortment of items, the cashier gave me a weird look and said, "you are buying a lot of snacks!" I laughed and told her what I was up to. Later, I laughed again because at WinCo, of all places - not exactly known for its organic food selection and highbrow clientele - I triggered a comment from a clerk about the amount of snacks I was buying. It was truly awesome.

In addition to super-snacky stuff, we brought home some great food from Costco. Such as:

Kids' Clif bars

Mountain House freeze-dried camping food, to double as food storage

Nut/trail mixes

Those lovely pre-cooked bacon bits

Tillamook cheese (and how!)

Parmesan cheese

In some ways, it feels like harvest time in our kitchen and pantry. It's a lovely feeling, especially since we are all laid low by jet lag. It won't last forever, but come October when we break out the meager stash of candy corn that I've put aside, it will have been worth the hassle and the "seriously, I am doing this?" doubts I had when I was scooping it into the bag at WinCo in August.