The Price is Right?

Oh, the little things that trigger my homesickness! I don't know what this says about me, but it's usually food that does it. :)

-cereal, popcorn, a rocking chair, ice cream, chocolate, drinking from the tap...

Especially as the fall season starts up, we'll be missing lots of things from home.

As a remedy, Miss A and I took a trip with some of the other Flagship wives to METRO today. Metro is like Costco, but with more Chinese-type items. There were a lot of neat things and items that are hard to find in other supermarkets (mayonnaise, peanut butter, beans, frozen vegetables, BBQ sauce, cocoa...), but the best--

was the

cheese.

We've been living without a single slice of cheese in our home because it is just so, so expensive here. Some of the other more experienced women in our branch (LDS church group in our area) told me that the metro is the place to get cheese. They said it cost less, but was still about $45 (USD).

You can imagine our reaction when the price tag read 95 kuai ($15) for a 5+ pound block of cheddar cheese!  We all grabbed one. How could we pass up a deal like that??

I was quite excited to get home and start planning some cheesy dishes. That is, until we were rung up at the register. 900 kuai for three blocks of cheese and a few others things. Something wasn't right.

I looked at the register and saw that 95 kuai indicated the price per kilogram. Ouch. And the best part, for the life of me I couldn't think of how to ask the checker to take the cheese back.

So, there I was with a 5.6 pound block of cheese that cost--how much do you ask? Forty Dollars.

You can't really see him, but the 29+ week growing baby is the one who really needed the cheese. :)

Was it worth it? The more I try to convince myself think about it, I would say yes. Not only is it oh so delicious, but it helps us feel at home. A comfortable home is our safe haven in the midst of all the change and adaptations.

What do you think? Would you pay seven dollars a pound for cheddar cheese?

We might have already opened it and sprinkled a little on our dinner tonight...

**This made me think about a talk from our church's General Relief Society Meeting a few weeks ago. While the cheese may not be worth the 240 kuai to a non-cheese lover and worth even more to a cheese addict, our "price" never changes. Jesus Christ paid the highest price for each of us and no matter how tattered, dirty, or worn out we are at the moment, we are still of infinite worth. What a wonderful thing to remember when I am feeling down and as I interact with others.