Grocery Shopping

In America, we have Wal-Mart and Target. In France (and the rest of the world), there is Carrefour...the French version of Wal-Mart. It's huge. It's covenient. It's one-stop shopping. And just like I can't handle Wal-Mart, I can't handle Carrefour. Too big. Too many people. (I inevitably always get run over by someone's cart.) It's just not for me unless I have to go there. And besides...I have to take two buses to get there. No thanks.

For the most part, I hate going grocery shopping. I'm not even sure I can put a finger on why I hate it, I just do. Everyone has their thing, right? Me...I enjoy ironing and mopping. Something about the mindless back and forth motion is very soothing to me. But grocery shopping? ick. Filling up the cart, bagging veggies, checking out, lugging all the groceries home...and all of it entails spending money that in just a few days will leave nothing to show for the money being gone.

About a year ago, I began making a weekly menu, and creating my grocery list from the menu. That way, I wasn't buying extra (and thus, having food go bad when I didn't use it in time...something else that I hate), and was able to stick to my budget for groceries. Something about the process made grocery shopping more tolerable. (Although, in Bez, grocery shopping could never be pleasant, because the Lost Boys all hung out in front the grocery store, and they were creepy.)

Here in Marseille, I stuck to my menu planning/grocery list shopping, and was overwhelmed during my first few weeks to find that I was spending way more than I had been in Bez and even Paris on groceries...even though I was buying the same things...minus meat (which is the most expensive thing). I decided that since I'm not paying money for gas, I might as well travel to a cheaper store to save the money on groceries.

So I did a bread basket research of my own to discover which grocery store was overall the cheapest, out of the three that are within walking distance. That led me to do most of my shopping at Monoprix, except for produce, meat, and frozen foods. For meat and frozen foods, I go to the frozen food store called Picard...which has bagels (!) and pureed pumpkin (!) and the cheapest chicken breasts I could find. And as you already know, I get my produce from the Arab market in Noailles.

Unless I just don't have time to run down there. Then I go to my local grocery man. If I could do all my shopping at the local grocery man, I'd be a happy girl and recant my hatred for grocery shopping.

He sells the basic produce (but no Cubanelle peppers...sorry Rachel Ray), meats, dairy, olives, honeys, wine, plants, and... antique books! It cracks me up. At first I didn't get why he sold books with all his food stuff. Then, the other night, I needed a few quick veggies for tonight's chili, and so I popped in there.

Mr. Grocer was talking politics with another man. They talked while I shopped. When I was about done, the man said good-bye and left, and Mr. Grocer picked up a book off his shelf and read until I was done. He reads while he's there, and sells the books when he's done with them!!! The other man came back, and began talking to both of us, and talked and talked and talked...and after about 20 minutes of "Wal-Mart could never touch this" in my head, the bavarde (talkative man) left.

I ran into Mr. Bavarde later on my way to Picard, and he waved good evening to me. It was a "I love France" moment. I love that my grocer sells books that he reads right there in the store and discusses with his customer. I love that people are friendly and will greet you after a conversation about politics in the grocery store. I love that I don't have one-stop shopping like Wal-Mart but that grocery shopping is a half-day event that gets me out and about in my neighborhood.

I suppose...I don't hate grocery shopping anymore.