Being from America, I am used to having all of my foodstuffs in one place, neatly wrapped and presented for the happy and healthy wholefoods eating hippy that my university colleagues assumed me to be. Shopping in my local grocery store, I could find everything I wanted, plus a multitude of ingredients for cuisines from other cultures, namely pan-Asian, Mexican, and Indian. I knew that European supermarkets were different. My French teacher used to tell us of holidays in France where she would go from butcher to baker to fromagerie. I used to sit and listen to these stories, dreaming about the romance of it all. I would be one of those chic European girls with her cute market basket, tripping merrily from store to store to make my purchases: a roasting chicken here, a sprig of herbs there, bread from the bakery. And then, I imagined, I would go home and cook it all up into a delightful meal fit for the sophisticated and intelligent woman my fifteen-year-old self dreamed I would be.
Well, fifteen-year-old self would be proud in every way of twenty-five-year-old self, but she would, admittedly, grimace in chagrin at the non-romance of navigating the markets.
This is a typical day at the shops:
1. I set out with my cute market basket (yes, I bought one of those. I have an Inner Romantic to answer to, after all) for the market. I have my list in one hand. I'm getting ingredients for chicken soup and minestrone soup, because it is Soup Season.
2. I enter the first supermarket. It is crowded with moms and dads and babies, and elderly people happily stink-eyeing the younger generations out of the way. First, none of the vegetables I need for soup are in stock. Celery? What's that? says the bewildered clerk. Bravely, I make my way to the meat section, only to find that the only available chicken breasts look like they came from a one-hundred-year-old chicken, and the ground beef from a mad cow. Sighing, I get the basics-milk, butter, cream, pasta, etc-and make my way to the casse. A palatial exhibit of gluhwein stands next to the counter, supposedly to ease the trauma of being nearly killed by strollers multiple times.
3. Drop purchases off at home and head to the next, slightly more expensive supermarket. There I find chicken, beef and the vegetables, but they do not carry cheese. Also, their bread section is pitiful and unworthy of the name. Better to go to the proper bakery. My basket is very heavy by the time I am done.
4. Third stop: bakery. Service is prompt and they slice the bread for you.
5. Fourth stop: cheese shop. Or rather, cheese stand, because this lovely little place is located in the local mall, of all places (as are two doctors, a lawyer, and a fitness center). They only take cash, so I heft my basket and march to the ATM. Then the woman on duty asks how old I'd like my Gruyere: one year or two. I opt for the one year; she wraps it up and tells me I have a pretty accent. "From Holland?" I always get Northern Europe, for some reason.
6. I realize I'm out of face wash and duck into the drogerie to buy some. There is only one clerk on duty and the line is a mile long. But I wait, because if I don't I'll regret it.
7. And home, where I collapse in my chair and reflect that multiple-market shopping isn't nearly as glamorous as it sounds.
Wish me luck, I'm about to go out and do exactly this.
2 comments:
Good luck!
One of the hardest parts for me was going grocery shopping and then hauling all of it up the 7 flights of steps to our apartment... pregnant. :)
The bread was my favorite part. We frequented the local Katz Bäkerei, where we got... Katz Wecke? ..I think that is what they were called. And Dunkelbrot, which actually was one of my favorite things there.
I think if I had gone to more of the privately owned shops (in the last few months we found a great Italian that sold vegetables), and fewer Aldi and Lidl's, I would have been happier... and made more friends of the local merchants. (We also had a Bäkerei that only made sweet things about 10 minutes away from our apartment... we LOVED that woman!
Again--GOOD LUCK!
I laughed long, hard, and therapeutically at this. ALDI stroller-ladies are hardcore! My corner of NYC is also a multi-stop-shopping experience, although I do not have a stylish basket. Something to aspire to!
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