Grocery Slore

Cute little Kitchen!

So I've moved up to NYC in an adorable neighborhood on the Upper West Side called Manhattan Valley, which sounds much more idyllic than it ought to. It's been exactly one week and I've gotten lost in Central Park twice, had a weirdo follow me from train car to train car on the subway, and eaten two cannoli.

This morning I went big girl grocery shopping for the first time. Now, I've gone grocery shopping a lot. But I used to live in a thirteen-girl vegan local foods co-op where I was cooking meals for 20+ people. I've gone grocery shopping for breakfast and lunch stuff my whole life. But all of a sudden I'm grocery shopping for just me, for all of the food I'll ever need to satiate my little tummy.

The first mistake I made was googling "Grocery Shopping for One." Never do that. You want to kill yourself. You end up on blogs titled, like, "Single and Ambitious WomYn" or "D-vorced and D-lighted." Basically, a lot of blogs that make you shout back at your computer "No! No! I'm a funky, fun individual that isn't destined to live with cats and seek out free Central Park events for the rest of her life."

Once I got into the grocery store, there was the dilemma of the cart versus the hand basket. The cart provides more space and easy management but suggests you are shopping for a family, possibly a significant other. A cart shouldn't be filled with Lean Cuisine ~Singlez~ Meals. So I went with the hand basket and immediately regretted it once I filled it with three onions and it got super heavy. I also regretted picking up three onions, but I'm still not sure of produce touching and returning etiquette. (This is why I purchased three onions, two green squash, and a single potato.)

I tried to buy meat, but it was so overwhelming I bought a pack of tofu that was also advertising Madagascar the movie. I might go see the movie to fulfill the bizarre advertising.

Everything else went along pretty smoothly. I ate too many cheese samples and got a little sluggish toward the end. The thing that got me the most, however, was buying butter. I just wanted a stick of butter to have for pasta, eggs, breads, WHATEVER. But you can't just buy a single stick of butter you have to buy a pack of four sticks of butter. Now, if I were shopping for my family, I'd be like "Hecky yeah! Load 'er up." But I wasn't. I was shopping for just me and all of a sudden I'm committing to four sticks of butter and a lifetime of diabetic ailments. Or heart attacks. But I surely wouldn't eat all that butter at once. Or in like a month. Unless, I do eat the equivalent of four sticks of butter in a month, in which case I need to overhaul my life choices and probably eat a raw vegan dumpster diet and get in touch with Jillian Michaels. I put down the pack of butter(s?) and made the executive decision to go to a deli or diner and just steal a bunch of tiny butter packets and stock up on them.

So, my next post will be going to a diner completely alone with the covert mission of stealing butter....
Until next time!