Grocery shopping for the big day

The only thing that is more stressful than Christmas shopping on the 24th of December is grocery shopping for Thanksgiving. Truth be told, I had an initial trip to the store to get the preliminary stuff – corn, seasonings, flour…..and a turkey. That was just a couple of weeks ago. I was feeling quite proud of myself. I had a small list of items and had found nearly everything I needed. The turkey was only about 5 1/2 kgs (roughly 12 pounds). At least I knew it was the frying turkey.

Some friends had told me about a new Spinneys that had opened nearby. Now, for you folks in America, Spinneys and TSC are the two main supermarkets here. They’re like a Safeway or a Giant or a Publix. However, the general rules for proper arrangement of food are not followed. For example, if I’m looking for carnation milk or sweetened condensed milk, I will not find it anywhere near the baking stuff. It will be somewhere on the shelf next to canned fruit and the long shelf life milk. Why anyone thinks that unrefrigerated milk in a carton and cans of Libby’s fruit cocktail belong in the same aisle, let alone the same shelf, is anyone’s guess. There is no particular method to this madness. One must simply learn to file these things away in your head when shopping. The challenge is that the organization of the food is different from store to store.

So, here I am at the new Spinneys. It is gigantic. Like any new grocery store, everything is clean and orderly (well sort of). There’s a gourmet section of imported specialty foods from Europe (but none of the really good stuff). There’s a sushi bar, a bakery, a wine room and a small kitchen appliance section. However, on a Sunday evening, I don’t want to really be here. Just less than a week away from the big dinner, I have a very long list of items to buy. This is the grocery visit where I must buy all of the produce and perishable items. My head hurts. My shoulder is killing me (that’s another story). There are kids racing the carts up and down the aisles as if they are in the Indy 500. First on my list – produce. This includes a 2 large bags of granny smith apples (about 6kgs worth) and a sack of potatoes – except they don’t have any sacks. So I have to fill 2 large plastic bags of potatoes. I happily find the sweet potatoes as well. But they are the white ones. I need the ones that are orange on the inside. I decide to skip that and find it later at another market. I grab a large crate of eggs – there are 30 of them all together. This year I decided to serve baked brie with honey and almonds as an appetizer. The smallest wheel I could buy is about 16″ in diameter. The guy behind the counter – who I’m not so sure about – is insisting that the this big hunk of cheese can rest safely on top of my crate of eggs…which is already on the wobbly surface of my self packed sack of potatoes. I told him that it wasn’t a good idea. With confidence he re-arranges my entire cart. It is just as wobbly as before. He looks me in the eye and tells me to walk carefully. Did I mention the Indy 500 race that is now in its 4th lap? Making my way to the frozen section, I spot a bin full of Butterball turkeys! My hand settled on a nice 8 kg turkey. This will be the one that gets baked. Over the next 1/2 hour or so, I quickly checked off most of the items on my list. What still remained however were my orange sweet potatoes, a few gallons of canola oil for the turkey fryer and Perrier. My cart was too full and my headache was too overbearing to put anymore focus on this.

There are 20 check out counters, and, lucky me, I found one with the last customer pushing his cart towards the exit. Now, there is no such thing as eco-friendly shopping at the grocers. The guy who packs your food will gladly use 1 plastic bag for each individual item. My items are being scanned. The guy on the other end has put a package of toilet tissue in a bag and is now reaching for another bag to put the toothpaste and other items. I remembered that I brought my re-usable, very eco friendly shopping sacs. These bags are heavy duty with thick cloth handles. The guy packing my bags seemed to be confused at first but then took on the challenge of arranging all my stuff so that it fit nicely into just 2 bags.

My head and shoulder were still hurting and I was really feeling miserable. The best thing about the supermarkets here is that someone will push your trolley to your car and load the trunk for you so you don’t have to do all the heavy lifting. I’m especially thankful for that on this chilly evening. It is a free service, tips are always encouraged and I’m certainly glad to pay it.

When I arrived home, I was surprised to see the local vegetable market on the corner still open. They had my orange sweet potatoes! All is now good in my kitchen.

Tomorrow ‘s adventure – Costco!!

Advertisement