“Supermarket automatic doors open for me; therefore, I am.” Craig Bruce
I love to go to the grocery. I love it so much that I go at least three times a week. There are only two of us in my household, and only one of us likes to eat. That would be me. I also like to cook. And nest. And play June Cleaver.
When I was a little girl back in the fifties, my dad did the grocery shopping. This was a time when a dad shopping was just plain weird, and I never wanted my friends to know. I don’t know how the division of labor put him behind the grocery cart, but every Friday on the way home from the foundry, his fingernails lined with dirt, his face still smudged with soot, he bought our food. When he came home, he called my brother and me to come down to the garage to help carry the bags up. As soon as the bags landed on our gold-speckled Formica table, I would rummage through them to look for something fun. Maybe this time there’d be some sugary cereal or chips or Pepsi Cola. But there never was, unless it was the Friday before my parents’ card club. The most exotic thing I was likely to find on a non-card club week was a huge bottle of cheap cream rinse which smelled like a used diaper.
I never got the feeling that my dad enjoyed this task. Maybe he did the shopping because he thought he could do it better than Mom, that he could size up a piece of round steak since he’d been a meat cutter at Albers in high school. Or that he could stretch a dollar farther or finish the chore more quickly. All through my growing up years, grocery shopping was the exclusively within the male domain. I don’t remember my mother shopping even once, nor did I until I was married at nineteen. I didn’t know that I was supposed to put produce in bags to be weighed. I knew nothing about selecting a melon or a steak, either, but by then I was more discriminating about hair products than my dad, the seasoned shopper.
When we were newlyweds, Rick and I went to the grocery together. I loved pushing the grocery cart with my new handsome mustachioed husband. It was so new to me, this domestic chore, and it made me feel grown up. I learned more about my husband in our first shopping trips together than I had in premarital counseling. He was not an impulse shopper, and chips and cookies never found their way into our cart. He didn’t like whole categories of food, like legumes and cruciferous vegetables. And he was thrifty, really thrifty, even though he was making a whopping $7200 as a first-year teacher and football coach at Colerain Jr. High.
We bought the Wednesday newspaper so we could clip coupons. We were astounded that you could use a coupon to buy a box of salt for seventeen cents, so we bought three. We bought the cheapest cans of tuna (just a notch above cat food) and store-brand processed cheese (fifteen cents cheaper than Velveeta) so I could whip up my tuna fish noodle dish, which figured prominently in my slim culinary repertoire. Our first Thanksgiving we bought a twenty-two pound turkey and made little baggies of the leftovers, all twenty-one pounds, and put them in the freezer where they died a freezer-burned death. At Christmas, Mom and Dad bought us one of those vacuum sealer contraptions and sturdy plastic bags so our leftovers could die a more dignified death.
When our daughter was born, and then our second sixteen months later, I became the grocery shopper. If I took the kids, this entailed pushing a cart with them in it, and pulling the cart with the groceries. Then I learned the joy of shopping before dawn. Our neighborhood Kroger was open all night, so I’d go shopping at 5:00 AM and be back before my husband had to leave for school. Sometimes my girlfriend and I would babysit each other’s kids so each of us could go to the grocery alone. For seven years after our first child was born, I was a stay-at-home mom. Going from two salaries to one, and from two mouths to four put my husband’s thriftiness in overdrive. He wanted to know exactly how we spent our reduced income, so he bought journal where we had to designate where every dime went. That included the big expenditures, like mortgage and utilities, but also gas, diapers, and groceries. He wasn’t trying to control my spending, he explained, he was just tracking it. I soon learned a little loophole. At the Delhi IGA, I could make my check out for $20 above my grocery bill, which would allow me to buy clandestine lipstick, doughnuts, and tampons.
Even without the secret spending money it allowed, I still loved the miles I logged behind the grocery cart, checking items off the list, actually getting something done. I was the boss in the store. It was sanctioned spending; I mean, I had to feed my family, right?
Whenever someone finds out that we live downtown now, the first question he or she asks is, “Where do you go to the grocery?” The
Virgin coconut oil?! I only have the slutty kind in my pantry.
answer is we go to whatever grocery we happen to pass when we’re running low on something. Rick often goes alone to fulfill his predictable needs: bananas (one for every day he golfs); apples (#4015 Red Delicious); juice (Dole orange/banana/strawberry); and yogurt (in a variety of artificial flavors like pineapple upside down cake and Boston crème pie). He always calls to see if I need anything, but I usually say no because he’ll sigh loudly if I ask for more than two things or for something even slightly specific, like “Golden Delicious” instead of simply “apples.” I don’t take him along because he’s always in a hurry and, like my dad, won’t by fun food.
I am not generally a shopper. I only shop for clothes when I have to, and I have no interest in Coach or Michael Kors or Polo. And I see nothing fun in stripping in the glare of fluorescent lighting and floor-length mirrors. Grocery shopping is an entirely different sport. You never feel guilty doing it because groceries become something nourishing. You usually like what you buy when you get home, so there are rarely returns. And you don’t have to take your clothes off before making your selections.
There is so much promise inside of a grocery bag: thoughts of family sitting around steaming platters and crockery bowls; friends chatting over coffee and pound cake; the sick and the grieving peeking inside Pyrex casserole dishes you’ve delivered. There is such joy in the abundance and the ability to share with others. I have never been poor, really poor, so there has always been enough food in my pantry. I don’t know why, then, I feel so compelled to fill the larder. I only feel content when I don’t have a single thing on my grocery list and when I can make a cake, casserole, or salad without leaving the house. If I have clipped a recipe from a magazine, I want to know I have every 
ingredient on hand so I can make it with a moment’s notice.
So, in my pantry, you’ll find sugar: confectioner’s, brown (dark and light), superfine, and raw, as well as a variety of substitutions: corn syrup, honey, molasses, agave, honey, Splenda, Sweet n’ Low, and Sugar Twin. Tomatoes: crushed, diced, sauce, paste, sun-dried, soup, plum, grape. There are black, green, and Kalamata olives. Vinegar? Nine types. When I’ve used the last of the capers – or the anchovies or the pepitas or the green lentils or the coriander–I go to the grocery.
Six years ago, we sold our house and alhttps://fstoppers.com/food/what-week-groceries-looks-around-world-3251l of the furniture, as well as the encyclopedias, Venetian glass tchotchkes, college text books, lawn mower, and almost all of the other junk we’d accumulated over a period of three and a half decades. I’m proud of this simpler life we’re leading, glad we’ve lightened our load. But there’s something about a pantry bulging with spices you’ll never use again and yeast that has died and the jar of preserves you bought in Amish country. It’s, well, comforting, I guess. Going to the grocery and buying this food when you can afford it and have the time to prepare it is comforting, too. And knowing that when your neighbor comes to borrow a cup of sugar (which she never does), you’re there for them. Comforting. Comfortable.
Check out this site to see what groceries look like around the world:
https://fstoppers.com/food/what-week-groceries-looks-around-world-3251
Copyright © 2014 Sandy Lingo, All Rights Reserved
So enjoyed reading this Sandy well done.
Joanne Queenan: My Dad would go to Findlay Market on Saturday evenings, hoping to find some bargains for his family of 10. He loved meat and potatoes Veggies and dessert stuffs weren’t high on his list either. . One time I begged him to get some fresh coconut at a vendor’s stand. He didn’t want to but gave in. I was looking forward to the sticky, sweet bagged flavor of coconut, but it was wet and white and bland, totally unsweet. I think he saw that I wasn’t enamored by the flavor but I ate it anyway feeling guilty that I had asked him to spend money on something so undelectable. I should have stayed staring at the inexpensive paper-soled shoes at Cohen’s shoe store that stayed open those evenings. When my kids were tots, I’d take them to the store as an adventure land. Smell the pineapple, feel the rough potato, that it wasn’t really hair on the carrots. … My daughter would fill her tiny cart with frozen peas and squooshy bread, acting very grown-up. Thanks for refreshing my memories.
I love this! You should have your own blog! I wish you’d sign up for WW Tuesday morning class so I could read more of your writing. Thanks so much for taking tie to read this AND for creating a new image for me.
Thanks so much for reading my blog. You should start your own! What wonderful memories you have of your childhood and motherhood. Wish you’d sign up for Tuesday morning class so I could hear your writing every week.
Oh, my goodness. I never knew you were a grocery store lover! I too love the colors, variety, and the ultimate hunt to get the best price! New exotic products (especially on the sale shelf) send me into a creative trance thinking about all the things I could possibly make. Sometimes I do, other times I realize they have expired before my creativity could get motivated at 5:00 pm. But I have that same stocked pantry that is so reassuring that I could cook for weeks without going to the grocery store if I needed to do that. (Let’s not even talk about the freezer!) I do love to cook and find it an amazing way to express myself at the end of the day.
We need to take a field trip to Jungle Jim’s for shopping and a cooking class.
Love this!
You always make me smile… But watching your posts on Facebook… You are never home to cook or eat!
Love you
Sandy,
Love your blog!
Pitching a turkey carcass 8 months after Thanksgiving due to freezer burn- been there! So much promise- yes, and so little motivation, planning and time.
Grocery shopping for me has taken on a new meaning now that I am no longer forcing myself to meal plan for the week (I hate to cook) and grocery shopping as a stay-at-home/work part-time mom. An activity done during snatched moments of “free time” in between client projects and school drop off and pick up.
Now, grocery shopping is time spent with my husband, who is a fabulous cook, as he tells me what he can do with the food we are buying and of course “date night” of dinner out before we get to Kroger on Friday nights. And if I manage to remember the coupons, that’s just an added bonus.
I did NOT inherit this love of grocery shopping from you. Tonight I forced myself to go to the grocery because I literally only had one egg left in my fridge. I mean, that was it. I had ONE egg and nothing else.
I love this take on groceries….I will think about this next time I head to Kroger. I’ve never liked this chore, but I just might see the bigger picture. So well written!
Hi Sandy, this made me
You always have enough food to feed an army! My kind of girl!
Wow I was traveling down those aisles with you! Always enjoy your creative expressions and wicked sense of humor.h
I was traveling down the aisles with you! Always enjoy your creativity and great sense of humor.
Thank you so much for reading my blog! I love that another humor writer is reading my writing. You should have a blog!
Oh, Sandy, I am so grateful to be notified of your posts. I have missed you since your retirement and love hearing your thoughts (most unbelievably similar to my own) on the things in life that we may have never stopped to consider before, but just take for granted. Your humor is fresh air and a great way to start the day. Keep on keeping on!
You made my day! How awesome that we’ve reconnected in this way. I hope you are finding retirement as enjoyable as I do.
Oh, Sandy. I just loved this. I forwarded it to Dan and Laura, since they both had the blessing of having you for a teacher! I’m remembering that as soon as I could drive, the grocery shopping suddenly became my job. Since both my parents were working, they were more than happy to give me that assignment. : )
So neat that you are connecting with me through my writing. I am so excited to think that my former students (both of them fabulous writers) will be reading my blog.
Enjoyed reading. Good story.
I always enjoy reading your blog. You make me laugh, mostly at myself, because I find me thinking or doing the same things. Keep it coming!
You got me at “I am not generally a shopper.” Agree, Agree, and agree! This was very enjoyable. I thought that I was the only one who kept a full pantry. You forgot the five kinds of mustard and pickles as Fern would say. They are there too.
When I return from a long shopping trip my husband asks who I met. For what other reason would someone spend so much time at the grocery store?
It is so good to know that you have the same vice. When you downsized it confused me as to how someone could downsize a kitchen. I am glad to know that you have your hidden pantry even though the fridge is challenging. You still manage wonderful entertaining!
We are so much alike in this respect, although you are a far better cook. My refrigerator notwithstanding, I am very pleased with my spacious kitchen. It has a very efficient design, though there’s no granite, wine cooler, or stainless appliances. I always hoped that some day I would be cooking with gas, but I guess that will never happen. Thanks, Judy, for reading my writing.
Sandy, I love the spirit of your writing. I only met you once (at WWfaC) but you let me get to KNOW you with your essays. The specifics of your stories reveal so much so openly. Thanks.
Dear Kathy with a K . . . I am so tickled that you are reading my blog. Is quite an honor, especially when an author mentions “specifics”–that really makes my writer’s heart sing!
What a great way to describe grocery shopping! Loved this article.
Thanks for reading my post. I would tell you in person if you weren’t gone all the time! (Look who’s talkin’!)
Loved this! I remember grocery shopping with you when the girls were babies. We always brought our baggies of Cheerios to keep them happy. I miss those days.
I remember once we took all three of them out to a grocery on Colerain Avenue because they had triple coupons. Remember that? I can still see Erin and Stacey sitting in the carts, munching on Cheerios. We have so many wonderful memories together.
Love, love, love this! It brings back so many memories – leaving a half-filled grocery cart in aisle 5 because I had pushed my little one too far by making that one last stop and infringing on her naptime, knocking over a display that only Mr. Whipple could have been proud of while chasing my 2-year old who couldn’t sit in the cart seat one more minute. But a favorite was the time my grandson saw the bananas and went crazy until I allowed him to eat one – and then sheepishly handing the cashier the empty peel at checkout. Thanks, too, for reminding me how therapeutic grocery shopping can be. And how blessed we are to be able to do it anytime we want to.
Thanks so much for reading my blog. Hope you remember that story about Cherokee forever so you can bring it up at embarrassing times.