What to Take to a War Zone

Staples of a war correspondent's luggage: Parmesan (a hardy traveler), cocoa and coffee.

Alissa J. Rubin writes about her experience as a first-time war correspondent in Kabul in The New York Times:

My first winter here was cold and spare. It was 2001, a few weeks after the fall of the Taliban regime. I had been a foreign correspondent for barely six months, and never a war correspondent.

I packed with only the faintest idea of where I was going, other than to a bombed city and a frigidly cold house. I was taking over from an experienced journalist whose only advice was: “Bring dry soup, good ones. There’s almost nothing in the shops here.”

“And nuts,” she added.

I was allergic to nuts.

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