Even before I made it my business to shop for and deliver groceries, I’ve always enjoyed grocery shopping. When Wegmans opened its doors in our town, it was a Major Event (which says something about our town, to be sure). It was like a culinary wonderland, with many new things to be discovered – they actually had big fat black truffles sitting out in the open for a hot minute, until they thought better of it. You could try all their shrimp preps at the seafood counter “before buying.”
It’s not nearly as impressive anymore. I still enjoy going to TJ’s as well as the newly opened Aldi.
When traveling, I always check out food stores. A produce place in FL comes to mind that has the most amazing looking produce I’ve seen. The market in Barcelona was a must visit, too. Fauchon in Paris, KaDeWe in Berlin, fresh markets the world over…
I guess I love food enough to enjoy looking at it, even if I can’t buy any… if, say, I’m staying at a hotel with no way to prep any of it. It can be a bit of a torture, but the pleasure of the experience is greater than the disappointment of not being able to peruse any of the offerings.
I like buying herbs and spices when I’m in Europe, and bringing them home with me. I’m still using a roll of plastic sandwich bags that I bought in Austria in 2019. The bottle of Worcestershire in my fridge came home with me from Vermont in 2016. Salad seasoning from Munich in 2017. Another seasoning salt from Japan in Jan 2020.
I have brought a paring knife, salt, pepper on a weekend trip to Tremblant when there was a potluck.
I’ve brought home foods I didn’t finish during ski trips to Colorado and Montana.
I’ve brought tea on so many trips, but I rarely use it.
I bring a plastic bento box, a cutlery set and some ziplocks with me while travelling, so I can doggy bag my leftovers, if necessary.
I don’t tend to bring a lot with me when I stay at accommodations with kitchens. I like shopping when I get to the destination.
I also like to bring things home as souvenirs, especially hot sauce. It was a sad day when I finally finished my bottle of Madam from Aruba. (Fun fact - you can fly with hot sauce in your carry-on if you appeal to the screener’s nationalist pride.)
3 Likes
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
126
One of my big regrets was never getting the whole family to Europe. I’ve been to Germany, Austria and Switzerland many times on business, and would have liked to have taken the family, but with 6 of us I’d start looking at that airfare whammy and decide, “I guess somewhere continental is fine”.
But if I had decided to bite that bullet, I’d probably have shot for a week in Munich in the late spring or early summer. I’ve several times spent most of a day wandering the viktualienmarkt and found myself wanting to go back the next day, and there are plenty of other things to see there, museums and residences/castles, old churches, English Garden. And it’s a relatively easy jump point for doing a tour in Austria or a couple of days in Prague.
I’ve had business trips also to Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin and they might be great places to visit, too, but unfortunately those trips were “all business” and I never got to see much of the sights. Same issue with trips to Geneva, Basel - all business all the time. But for Munich most times I’d have several things to attend to spaced apart by a few days of downtime, so I got to see a lot more of it and know it better.
My husband worked on a NATO project for about 10 years and I used to go with him on his business trips when I could. We don’t have any kids. Got to see a whole lot of Europe doing that. I always enjoyed the food in Germany. We stayed in hotels and had meals on per diem. When he was in meetings I would wander around whatever city we were in and gravitate towards markets and grocery stores. It would kill me that I had no way to cook anything that I saw. I did come home with food souvenirs, kitchen tools, beautiful table linens, some tableware/pottery and like MsBean, reusable grocery bags with the name of the store on them. Since he retired, we gravitate towards France and when we go, we rent apartments so we have a kitchen. We’re still using his frequent flyer miles. Haven’t been there for 3 or 4 years. I hope to be well enough to go again.
It was from a tonkatsu place called Maisen. It didn’t contain yuzu. The other restaurant goers sprinkled it on their salad before eating. There was a shaker between every 2 people. I sat at the counter and had my own shaker.
Starting to like the whole shop often and don’t buy too much theory. I love feeling like I have plenty of food but now that the plague has lifted somewhat frequent trips are more appealing. I live near Philly and the people do the whole french toast panic runs when snow is predicted. I am lucky in that I have never joined that mosh pit. Heading to aldi tomorrow I hope. The one manager at my Lansdale lidl got very ugly with me and I have been told I am not welcome there. So aldi it is. Plus aldi might have summer gnomes. GNOMES
What do you have to do to get banned from a Lidl store? Never mind, I don’t want to know.
2 Likes
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
133
I moved down South in my early 30s, to a place that manages about an inch of snow every fourth year. My first winter there, near Christmas, I hit the mall early one evening after work to find a gift for my wife, and I had the whole place to myself. I’m thinking, What’s going on, is it closing early or something?
I asked a clerk about it and she said, “Don’t you know? It might snow!”
I stopped by a grocery needing only some bananas to make a dessert for a work potluck the next day and it looked post-apocalyptic. Milk gone, no eggs, one forlorn remaining loaf of bread trampled on the floor.
I think that may have been a French Toast Panic. I don’t think people there had ever been shut in more than a day due to ice or snow, but they must have some genetic or hereditary memory of ancestors snowed in half a winter in NoDak or somewhere like that.
French toast panic (bread/milk/eggs) happens in Massachusetts, too, but in our defense when we get Nor’easters we’re buried in snow and power outages last for days…
Oh I know. Not directly thank goodness but I do read Linda Whit’s posts on here. Also a phd teacher who teaches phd level chemistry on wfd lives in Michigan and oh my gosh. Beth is my hero partly because like Linda she cooks amazing meals for one.
Made it to aldi today but the only gnomes they had were the patriotic ones. Just doesn’t fit the gnome vibe for me. Did get some nice strawberries and a frozen bag of chicken fried rice which I will play with later tonight. Everyone was lovely even though I can get sassy when I go out alone. Guy behind me was struggling with two huge melons and I could not resist sayng “nice melons!” Just as well that he did not get the stupid joke and started telling me what a good deal they were. The young stocker guy helped me grab a sturdy empty box and smiled at the Pride dress I was wearing. I lived in Raleigh NC and during that time there was an epic snowstorm. When more southern states get hit they are blindsided. I don’t want to talk about drivers who are not used to snow and ice. Eep.
At my old office, we always laughed when we found phrases that would work as band names. To truly test it out, you have imagine yourself on the center of a stage, arms raised and then you shout out "We are (your band name here.)
So in this case? “We are - French Toast Panic!”
5 Likes
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
139
OMG - too funny, when reading this thread, I immediately thought of it as a band name too. Probably nudged in that direction due to Panic at the Disco. In any case, had never heard about the French Toast Panic due to natural catastrophes, but how freaking apt a description!
