cereal killer

Some of you may remember the saga of the $8.00 box of Cheerios, and if you are one of those people you will not be surprised to hear that for this latest trip back to Mumbai I filled my suitcase with boxes of various cereals, granola bars, soy jerky, etc., in order to help me get through these 6 weeks without having to take out a second mortgage on my house and/or start wolfing down mutton tikka masala out of sheer calorie-deprived desperation. One of the cereals I brought along and really liked and wish I'd brought more of is something called Special K Red Berries.

We went to HyperCity yesterday, which I have deduced must be owned by the British grocery chain Waitrose, since they have a lot of Waitrose house brand products. I was excited to notice that while HyperCity does not carry Special K Red Berries (or any other version of Special K, for that matter), they did have a Waitrose brand product called Special Choice with Raspberries, Strawberries, and Cherries. It is clearly a knock-off of the other cereal and I got extremely excited about it.

And then I looked at the price (at least I've learned that much). One box cost 575 rupees. At today's exchange rate, that is $14.46. This was not a Costco 8-pack, this was not a 10-gallon bucket...no, my friends, this was a standard size box of cereal. It turns out it isn't vegan anyway (it has milk powder), so the point became moot, but JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER ALREADY.

the price is not right

I need to start looking at price tags and remembering that the foods I think of as normal, reasonably priced vegan staples are considered insane Western luxuries over here. For example, I bought 4 packages of tofu today, tofu that costs me 99 cents at Richmond May Wah near my house in San Francisco. Here? $3.48. EACH. AND I BOUGHT FOUR OF THEM. I AM AN IDIOT. Add to that the $6.95 jar of Bonne Maman strawberry preserves, the $2.86 cans of chickpeas, the $4.42 box of couscous, the $8.00 box of whole grain Cheerios, etc., and we're talking about some major grocery bills. I mean, I figured these things wouldn't be quite as cheap as at home, but I did not consider that they would be so expensive that I'd be better off buying lunch in a restaurant for four people than buying a box of cereal. I guess I will start cooking my chickpeas from scratch...because I have tons of time I want to spend at the stove every night just to get some goddamn legumes to be edible.

On the other hand, I got 6 lbs of Basmati rice for $2.50 and a big jar of turmeric for 50 cents. Biryani, anyone?