Commissary Privileges
[One of our privileges (for an annual membership fee of $60 USD) as United States government contractors in Tbilisi is shopping the commissary on the grounds of our embassy, which carries American-brand groceries and certain products (brown sugar, barbecue sauce, black beans) that are not available in Georgian markets. I had not yet paid my dues or shopped the commissary, so when a friend invited me to join her last week, I accepted with thanks.]
“Is there anything special you want from the commissary?” I asked Jim on Tuesday morning. “If you see any Cherry Garcia . . .” he replied, and we both laughed. “Yeah, right,” I said.
My friend collects me promptly at 4:15 PM from the Abashidze Avenue entrance to Vake Park, just around the corner and down the hill from my home. She swings by in her silver Subaru, I hop in, and we’re off into Tbilisi rush-hour traffic, which is just like the traffic at any time of day, only more so. We chat about her day teaching English at the French International School while she navigates our way out of town with skill and the finely calibrated mix of caution and assertiveness required when driving among Georgians. I admire her calm and determination; I have not gotten behind the wheel of our enormous Ford and am not sure I have the necessary sang-froid. She also tells me some of the commissary ground rules: the purchase limit is three of any single item, and only cash, USD or GEL, is accepted.
Twenty minutes later we arrive at the United States Embassy in Digomi, a suburb of Tbilisi. We enter and surrender our cell phones and diplomatic service cards; in return we receive visitors’ passes and an escort who walks us across an open courtyard to the next building, where we exchange our visitors’ passes for new visitors’ passes (the first ones apparently granting access only from one building to the next). We keep the same escort, who leads us down a corridor and into the commissary, a tight little store with narrow aisles, like a New York bodega of the 1970s.
I meet the store manager, who will help me with the membership paperwork, but before making the commitment to pay my fee I wander the aisles, considering the shelves filled with Pop-Tarts and Pringles, Froot Loops, Doritos, Campbell’s soup, and French’s mustard. I’m not sure this privilege is worth $60 to me. We don’t eat this stuff, and even the Kashi products aren’t so tempting; I can buy organic oatmeal and other whole grain products at the big supermarket in town. Real Domino’s brown sugar would be nice to have when I bake cookies for Jim’s office, but I’ve been substituting raw sugar and it’s worked well enough. I’ve almost decided the commissary is not for me when my friend sings out from the far aisle, “There are refrigerators and freezers in the back, too.”
The first refrigerator is packed with Pillsbury refrigerated biscuits and frozen hot dogs; the second fridge is nearly empty, but its freezer contains . . . six pints of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. I hear a choir of angels and am nearly blinded by a flash of white light. I close the freezer door, open it again just to be sure, and announce, “I’m in! Where do I sign?”
In the end I left with many things I could easily do without (brown sugar, black beans, organic blue corn tortilla chips, salsa,) and quite a few that we really don’t need to eat (a frozen brisket, a slab of baby back ribs, three pints of Cherry Garcia, Nestle chocolate chips), but I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit that a little taste of home is comforting sometimes. I had a great time baking classic Toll House chocolate chip cookies for the team at Jim’s office, and Cherry Garcia ice cream is still one of the best American inventions ever.