Grocery Shopping

At the risk of having you all hate me, I’m about to write the most obnoxious, overprivileged, out-of-touch, bougy post. And its only redeeming factor is that I’m self-aware about it.

I went grocery shopping. At a regular grocery store. And it was a nightmare.

Yes, I go grocery shopping weekly, but I usually go to Trader Joe’s or, ahem, (mumbles) Whole Foods. And (digs hole even deeper) I get a produce box delivered to my home every other week.

To be fair, I’m good about meal planning and cooking, so I go to Whole Foods with a list and just buy what’s on the list. Mostly. But seriously, I shop carefully and probably don’t spend more at Whole Paycheck Foods than you do at the regular supermarket.

But sometimes there’s something that drives me to the regular supermarket. A certain brand of chile garlic paste. Nonstick foil. Cleaning supplies. A wide variety of La Croix flavors (I don’t think I’m helping my case here).This time it was matzah. Passover is right around the corner and I don’t want to be scrambling for matzah at the last minute.

I went to Ralphs and emerged two hours later, exhausted. How do people do this every week? Here’s what I hated about the experience.

Size. The store is huge, and since I don’t go often, I don’t know where everything is. It takes me so long just to find everything I need.

Choice. There are so many varieties of everything – how do you know what to choose? At Trader Joe’s, there’s one choice – their brand. And that’s fine with me. I was literally staring at the butters for hours minutes trying to choose. It’s butter, people!

Crap food. Yeah, I said it. I can’t believe how much junk food there is out there. And I don’t just mean the snack food, although there is a lot of junky snack food. There’s also all the prepared foods. Now here’s where you tell me that people are busy, they’re low income, they’re working several jobs and taking care of kids and don’t have time or money to cook. But I challenge that. First of all, some of these packaged foods are not cheap. Second of all, cooking doesn’t have to be expensive or labor-intensive. Do you know what I make for dinner constantly often? Ground beef, onion, and spinach over rice. That’s it, one two three, done.

I was so tired after leaving Ralph’s. But hey, I was able to score a case of limoncello La Croix. You’re not going to find that at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. And I found my matzah.