American grocery items in Cairo

Yeah, try Saudi market on rd 9 or Kimo market in maadi also sells the stuff you're after.

For the buttermilk one, at least, unless you use a lot of it, you may find it easier and cheaper to make your own. For each cup of buttermilk in your recipe, use 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar, then add enough regular milk to make a cup. (I'm not chiming in on where to find stuff because I don't know, other than the suggestions above.) Good luck!

I'm an American diplomat's wife, so I have access to the commissary. (Sorry, I wish I could share, but I can't.)

I'm sorry, I don't know. My husband works in IT, and neither of us know any of the consular officers. I'm new to the whole diplomat thing--this is our first post--and I really don't know how things work at the embassy, since I don't work there and rarely go there.

Unfortunately I think it's that way with any government bureaucracy anywhere. But I'm sorry you had a bad experience; hopefully you won't have to go back or, if you do, will have a better experience next time.

Isn't buttermilk the same as labneh, in Arabic. I'm English and we don't really use buttermilk, but many of the American cake recipes I use call far buttermilk and I use labneh, which is available in all supermarkets. Miriam market has a lot of imported American foodstuffs, by the way.
Denise

Actually, I just looked it up -- labneh is strained yogurt, not buttermilk, but it would probably work.  I added lemon juice to whole milk when I made a cake the other day that called for buttermilk.  It worked fine.

Kimo Market in Midan Victoria in Maadi. They have all those items.