When we first stepped foot in Korea 19 months ago, the kids and I wanted something familiar. I knew exactly what they needed to feel a little piece of home--chocolate chip cookies! The problem was, or so I thought, was that I couldn't find chocolate chips. We bought a couple chocolate bars and chopped them up. Violá!
Except that wasn't actually the problem. When the cookies came out of the oven they were very flat and crispy. It took me several tries to realize the real issue was not my oven. It was the butter. For some reason Korean butter does not bake well. It tastes fine, but a good cookie it does not make.
In came Costco to save the day! The nearest Costco is almost two hours away. Does that stop us? No! It does, however, stop the frequency of our trips. I posted some Costco pictures way back in January of 2020 if you want to see what a Korean Costco looks like.
Back to my butter. Once I realized that Costco butter made cookies like we are used to, life was bliss. Fast forward to three weeks ago. There are always three staples I get when I go to Costco: hamburger, chocolate chips, and butter. This trip they were out of Costco butter! I thought it was just bad timing. But my friend said a week ago someone actually grabbed the butter straight out of her cart; when she went back to get more there was none left!
No need to panic. I jumped on a local shopping site called Coupang that carries a lot of American brands, much of which comes from Costco. I found Coscto butter and put it in my cart but didn't buy it. The Busan store was the one that didn't have any, so when another friend went to the Daegu store the next week I asked her to grab me some butter.
THERE WAS NONE. Holy butter, folks. What if Costco is no longer carrying their butter in Korea?!? I ran to my computer and pulled up Coupang (you have to do it on the computer to get autotranslate). You will not believe this, but the butter in my cart was sold out. I don't want to sound dramatic, but I was shifting to panic mode. I did some searching and found another vendor. There were only 5 boxes left. So you can guess what I did.
That's right. I bought all the Costco butter in Korea! All five boxes. Over $100 of butter in one shot.
Today Zeke came home from school and said, "We have a heavy box delivered outside our door." My butter arrived!
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