Shopping List
Part of having worked for nearly three years at a grocery store is that it's hard to go to a grocery store without occasionally making notes to oneself about how the grocery store where one is a customer is similar or different from the grocery store of one's previous employ. Eventually, then, these small points of comparing/contrasting accumulate in one's brain until they seem to have the bulk that, in this day and age of blogging and all that, become blogworthy (and then, having blogged these few notes, one realizes that one's brain is easily clogged, and there were, in fact, a very small number of grocery store notes to actually make):
* I have been, for many years now, a fan of Kashi brand "seven grain pilaf," the super-bland hot version of their proprietary blend of whole grains and sesame seeds. Once upon a time, back when Dad refused to eat anything with fat or salt in it, he served it to some portion of the family (I think maybe the post-twin nucleus), who roundly rejected it as a foodstuff (except for me, who made a mental note of its deliciousness (and later, in my Malden year, perfected my preferred cooking method (1 cup water, 1 cup apple cider, 2 tablespoons (or so) habanero-based hot sauce))). Eventually, the Stop & Shop (pronounced in an annoying Boston accent) in Malden stopped selling it, though, and it dropped from my diet around the beginning of 2005. Thank the gods (or, specifically, the God of Pilaf (Pilaferus)), though, that the Publix (the first grocery store chain to vie with Giant Eagle in my internally-waged battle for worst grocery store ever encountered (it may just be that between shopping at Giant Eagle and Publix, I spent most of that time working for Trader Joe's (which I also hate, for a whole slew of reasons (despite still finding many of TJ's products to be wonderful and indispensable)), and, in fact, hate all grocery stores everywhere (much of that claim, though, can be explained away by my retrospective hatred of the job I worked during the only soul-crushing year of my short existence))) in my neighborhood (neighborhood is probably the wrong word) sold Kashi Pilaf, so it had regained it's place as one of the pillars of my cook-and-eat everything from the same small red pot way of cooking/eating. About a week ago, now, though, the Kashi Pilaf disappeared from the shelves - and it didn't just get bought out, all the tags or signs that it was ever there on the shelf are gone (Pilaferus, what have I done to deserve this already-familiar punishment?). Every time I go to the store now, I still check and see if it's back (it hasn't been). Yesterday, when I was looking for it, I happened upon a shopping cart filled to the brim with broken-down cardboard boxes, and I said to myself "I used to fill shopping carts with broken-down boxes."
* I bought some necatarines the other day. I like nectarines more then peaches, plums, apricots, pluots, or apriums. Always have. They were only $1.99/pound (I'm not actually sure if that's a good price or not) so I bought a few. Eating the first of the four yesterday, I noticed that the sticker on it said "Flown ripe nectarines." Well crap. The idea that these nectarines were flown to me really makes me feel like a dumb/evil American consumer. What the hell kind of carbon footprint is on the sweet fruit of the gods (well, not THE fruit of the gods (cantaloupe is the fruit of the gods (GO!)), but the fruit of a god (Nectarinius (the god, not the late-era Roman emperor)))? I would have never bought these back in my days of working at a grocery store (especially in Portland where I did occasionally try to knock the green-yuppies off their high horses (or, rather, knock them from their bio-diesel Subarus) and actually maintained a buy-local (for the most part) policy myself). I'm slipping, which, despite the moral problem of being an evil consumer, is probably a good thing.
* I shop a lot, since I only have a bicycle and a backpack (which often has books etc. in it), so finally, after shopping there maybe 4 days a week since August, a couple of the check-out clerks at Publix will finally admit that they recognize me and say "Hi!" back when I greet them at their register. I consider that to be a major breakthrough.
* I have been, for many years now, a fan of Kashi brand "seven grain pilaf," the super-bland hot version of their proprietary blend of whole grains and sesame seeds. Once upon a time, back when Dad refused to eat anything with fat or salt in it, he served it to some portion of the family (I think maybe the post-twin nucleus), who roundly rejected it as a foodstuff (except for me, who made a mental note of its deliciousness (and later, in my Malden year, perfected my preferred cooking method (1 cup water, 1 cup apple cider, 2 tablespoons (or so) habanero-based hot sauce))). Eventually, the Stop & Shop (pronounced in an annoying Boston accent) in Malden stopped selling it, though, and it dropped from my diet around the beginning of 2005. Thank the gods (or, specifically, the God of Pilaf (Pilaferus)), though, that the Publix (the first grocery store chain to vie with Giant Eagle in my internally-waged battle for worst grocery store ever encountered (it may just be that between shopping at Giant Eagle and Publix, I spent most of that time working for Trader Joe's (which I also hate, for a whole slew of reasons (despite still finding many of TJ's products to be wonderful and indispensable)), and, in fact, hate all grocery stores everywhere (much of that claim, though, can be explained away by my retrospective hatred of the job I worked during the only soul-crushing year of my short existence))) in my neighborhood (neighborhood is probably the wrong word) sold Kashi Pilaf, so it had regained it's place as one of the pillars of my cook-and-eat everything from the same small red pot way of cooking/eating. About a week ago, now, though, the Kashi Pilaf disappeared from the shelves - and it didn't just get bought out, all the tags or signs that it was ever there on the shelf are gone (Pilaferus, what have I done to deserve this already-familiar punishment?). Every time I go to the store now, I still check and see if it's back (it hasn't been). Yesterday, when I was looking for it, I happened upon a shopping cart filled to the brim with broken-down cardboard boxes, and I said to myself "I used to fill shopping carts with broken-down boxes."
* I bought some necatarines the other day. I like nectarines more then peaches, plums, apricots, pluots, or apriums. Always have. They were only $1.99/pound (I'm not actually sure if that's a good price or not) so I bought a few. Eating the first of the four yesterday, I noticed that the sticker on it said "Flown ripe nectarines." Well crap. The idea that these nectarines were flown to me really makes me feel like a dumb/evil American consumer. What the hell kind of carbon footprint is on the sweet fruit of the gods (well, not THE fruit of the gods (cantaloupe is the fruit of the gods (GO!)), but the fruit of a god (Nectarinius (the god, not the late-era Roman emperor)))? I would have never bought these back in my days of working at a grocery store (especially in Portland where I did occasionally try to knock the green-yuppies off their high horses (or, rather, knock them from their bio-diesel Subarus) and actually maintained a buy-local (for the most part) policy myself). I'm slipping, which, despite the moral problem of being an evil consumer, is probably a good thing.
* I shop a lot, since I only have a bicycle and a backpack (which often has books etc. in it), so finally, after shopping there maybe 4 days a week since August, a couple of the check-out clerks at Publix will finally admit that they recognize me and say "Hi!" back when I greet them at their register. I consider that to be a major breakthrough.
1 Comments:
On the imported-food point, there was a recent New Yorker article about carbon footprint stuff. One of the main points is that it's extremely hard for consumers to judge how much energy a food product actually consumes.
More broadly, we're not going to solve the carbon-output problem without actually assigning an economic cost to emissions, so the "buy local" movement is pretty trivial unless it somehow blossoms into a robust international carbon cap-and-trade framework.
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