Posts Tagged ‘Sugared nuts’

The Sugared Nut Financial Indicator

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March 19th, 2012

I can tell when I’m feeling rich!

Every Saturday the downtown mall in our city holds an arts and crafts fair. In addition to the usual arts and crafts many other stalls set up shop and offer a variety of wares. Popular items in the ‘non-art’ area are olives and home squeezed olive oils, cheeses – usually delicious goat-milk cheeses, spice stalls, strawberries and other fruits, and nuts. My regular Saturday morning visit to the mall is to buy the newspaper. I buy it only for the crossword it features, not the American kind one gets in the Herald Tribune, but an English cryptic crossword that I like doing. I have to weave through the throngs of shoppers and gazers from the foot of the escalator to the book store where the papers are sold. And therein lies a problem.

The nut counter

Halfway in my dash to get to newsagent quickly is a large counter dealing in nuts. What’s the problem? The sugared nuts. They have a piece of equipment that looks rather like a concrete mixer and into this goes almonds, peanuts, pecans, cashews, sugar and water. Out come the most delicious sugared nuts. “Don’t you dare!” said my wife the first time this kiosk opened for business. I was there on Saturday, as usual, fighting my way through the crowd when I spotted the nuts. I bought a bowl of mixed sugared nuts. “Do you want an explanation of how to store these so that they last?” asked the storekeeper. He looked at me and laughed, “You mean they won’t even last as far as your apartment!”

The sugared nuts

The sugared nuts are delicious. What’s more one cannot stop eating them until the bowl is empty. The sugared nuts are also expensive, a small bowl costing about $6. We don’t usually buy them although the salad maker in the family likes to sprinkle them on a green salad, “making it much more interesting”. Lately I have been buying them when I have ‘spare’ money. I notice that the nuts have become a sort of indicator of our personal financial situation on Saturdays. If I am not feeling financially strapped, we buy and the buying acts as an on/off switch. Buy the nuts and everything’s fine. Things don’t feel so great – no nuts.

Economic indicators

Economic indicators are a subject all on their own and range from the ridiculous to the sophisticated. One of the best known is the Economist’s Big Mac index which tries to make the theory of exchange-rates easier to understand. It is based on MacDonald’s Big Mac hamburger which is sold in many countries of the world. The prices of the Big Mac in various countries are listed, converted into dollars, mixed with the earning power of the local currency, minced and spat out as a ‘purchasing power parity’, a direct comparison of currencies.

The Big Mac Index

Interestingly, we always complain about how much the Big Mac costs here but according to the latest Big Mac table, what costs $3.54 in the US costs $4.24 here. My nut indicator is easier – either I’m feeling rich or I’m not!

Tags: Arts and Crafts fairs, Financial indicators, Sugared nuts, The Big Mac Index
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