Wednesday, January 18, 2017

"Grocery haul"


(My phone takes long,
 narrow photos....don't
know how to fix that)
I titled this post ironically. We don't do that kind of grocery shopping around here. I'm trying to think of how to explain it. The style here is kind of a mix between minimalism (smaller living space and especially kitchens) and hoarding from the instilled fear of a deficit. So, I guess similar to couponing where you would grab up all the toothpaste on sale or something. But there's not a lot of sale items that we would need, and meats/veggies on sale tend to be already on their way out. So if we do get sale items they can be pretty random like a big bag of cookies or tea bags. We pretty much go out and buy the staples pretty regularly, or my in-laws bring food. Not always a lot of variation, but sometimes something really yummy like bacon.

Today I was on a walk and entered the store just as I was getting hungry for lunch. Suddenly, everything in the store looked appetizing, even non-food items. I was particularly drawn to some cute tins of tea, but already have tons of cute tins with nothing to put in them. Saw a bin of Twix and had to restrain myself. Luckily I only take as much cash with me as I need. I did pick up a few treats and then started drooling over some cute dishes, but didn't have the money or a way to get them home! Plus we don't have the space...but we'll see, I may have to send Andrei back to the store.

Anyway, here's what I ended up with for a non-essentials store visit (picture top right): some party hats that say Happy Birthday, some roasted sunflower seeds, some Oreos, and a Kinder Surprise egg for David as a reward for doing some chores.

Here are a few things that made me laugh...but did not tempt me to buy them.

A sausage keeper container thing. Did you know you need a separate container for storing pepperoni? Those cute dishes are right behind it....we certainly don't need more mugs, though!

Some really cheap tea that didn't get marked down correctly.


4 comments:

  1. Ha! I have a kind of collection of odd little signs like that, because they make me laugh. One of the things I actually enjoyed about Russia was that it WAS rather "minimalist" - You didn't seem to see the steady "lure" to buy things that no one needs (i.e. sausage keeper). Here you now see all sorts of special vegetable "keepers" that look like the vegetable - onions, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. The thing is, after you cut some of it, it's no longer the shape of the container, so that's a moot point.

    Strangely, the other day I was just thinking that we'd be better off buying groceries as we would in Russia (or NYC, for that matter) - just what you need for the day - but fresh and without all the needless packaging. At least when I lived in NYC, there were specialty shops for everything - bread, dairy, meat, produce, fish, and then the much smaller "grocery store" was not a place you needed to go all that often. I can't hardly do that here, because all of the individual shops I'd like to go to are spread all over the place.

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  2. I was just thinking I need to look at some of the blogs on your side bar (I'll be avoiding "Fit Mommies" however, as it is too late for me.

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    Replies
    1. Please do! Well, it's fitness in terms of alignment and moving correctly. Some of it is focused on post-partum, but anyone can benefit, especially if you have chronic pain issues.

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  3. I remember reading an article about 50's (?) housewives and how shopping consumed their days since they would go out and get fresh groceries each day, cook it all, etc. Yes, it would be time-consuming. I wouldn't mind if only it were fresh. Normally I just select meat based on the packing date, and it's rarely the same day.

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