And On Sunday She Shopped

I've worked out a system for grocery shopping and menu planning, taking my various restrictions into account (schedule, money, distance to store and mode of conveyance), that seems to be working pretty well for me. The system mostly arose out of the circumstance that getting to a reasonable grocery store* is a giant pain in my ass. I've been schlepping down to a Safeway about 3 miles from where I live. (I recently discovered a Sunflower Market, however, that is somewhat closer to me, and safely accessible by bike. I did my last grocery run there and was really pleased with the overall experience.) I realize that may not seem that far, but bear in mind that: 1) I live in a place where the temperature routinely rises above 90 degrees by midday for much of the year, 2) I must negotiate fitting all my groceries in bike baskets and a backpack, which makes for cumbersome riding, and 3) I must brave bike lanes on some pretty busy streets. The whole process of getting there, shopping, getting home and unpacking can take upwards of two hours, on top of which it requires a good deal more cleverness and physical exertion than hopping in one's car. So my menu planning has become an exercise in uber-efficiency; a not-unenjoyable puzzle, the endgame of which is a schedule of meals, requiring a number of items within the limits of what I can reasonably afford/carry that will sustain me healthfully while not boring my palate for two weeks. In short, I must come up with a way to only go to the store once every two weeks.

My list of ingredients and cooking-related groceries for tomorrow's excursion is as follows:

1. Bacon
2. Pork
3. Andouille sausage
4. Quart of 1% milk
5. 1/2 quart of lowfat plain yogurt
6. 1/2 gallon of orange juice
7. Frozen lima beans
8. Coffee beans
9. White rice
10. Walnuts
11. Peanut butter
12. 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
13. 2 15-oz cans chickpeas
14. 2 15-oz cans red beans
15. Fresh fruit (I am usually open-ended about fruit and will buy what's in season/what looks good)
16. Lemons
17. Limes
18. Cherry tomatoes
19. Avocados
20. Bell peppers
21. Serrano peppers
22. Celery
23. Fresh basil
24. Salad greens
25. Whole-wheat pita bread
26. Freezer bags

26 items for two weeks of eating; not too bad, I don't think. Notice how I've grouped things that are kind of alike--cans with cans, etc. This makes the process of shopping quicker and easier, so I'm not zig-zagging back and forth across the store. I will update you later about my plan for all these particular items, what if anything I had to cut from the list, how much it ended up setting me back (I'm guessing $70), and any other mishaps or items of note that may occur along the way. But for now I am off to bed. Goodnight, internet.

*On a side note, I live within walking distance of a Whole Foods. This is odd, because the surrounding neighborhood is mostly working class, and let's face it, Whole Foods is pretty mockably boojy. I have shopped there occasionally, and, I don't know, maybe it's this location, but it always seems to be poorly stocked and poorly staffed. The prices are outrageous, for reasons that are nebulous to me. I know they promote themselves as some kind of pro-sustainability, more-ethical-than-thou alternative to a regular grocery store, but I'm not sure I buy it (literally). This piece from Slate and this open letter from Michael Pollan to Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey partially inform my view. For the record, notionally, I am down with sustainable agriculture and the whole "locavore" movement and organic produce and fair trade and all of that. Practically, I think there's a long way to go with all that. I could (and at some point probably will) write about my thoughts on the topic at length, but I'm not going to do that here and now. I would love all my food to be squeaky clean, ethically and otherwise, but when we come right down to it, I'm a shopping pragmatist. When it's reasonable for me to buy, say, cruelty-free eggs, organic milk, local produce, etc, I generally do it, even if it costs more. There are several "natural" products I prefer to the generic brands, which I buy regularly. Laura Scudder's peanut butter, for instance, or Brown Cow yogurt. But my biggest motivator as a shopper is not being wasteful, and I do that by shopping for things that I can afford and that I know for sure I will eat and not end up throwing away. If that means buying the non-organic tomatoes from Mexico at $1.99 a pound instead of the local organic heirloom tomatoes at $5.99 a pound, I can live with that. By the way, although I wouldn't consider myself a Michael Pollan disciple or zealot or anything, an awful lot of what he says about food and food culture in America makes sense to me. Take a look at his work, if you're not familiar with it.