I haunt the Superstore. Every day I go and wander the aisles, inspect the produce and sometimes actually talk to someone in the store. One day I bought a house plant at the florist for Earth Day. The lady said to me, “Oh you! You’re always here!” I thought that was funny. When I go wandering in my mornings I wear hiking clothes, pigtails and no make up thinking, no one is looking at me.
They gave out notices last week that the store was going to be closed all Monday for renovations. They seem to do this every year. Just when I think I can remember where everything is, they have to change it. OK, I thought, I can live without The Superstore for a day.
Monday I wandered to the “other” neighbourhood store. It is twice as far a walk from me so my frozen food thawed before I made it home. This is one of the many reasons why I do not go there, especially in the winter where I can barely get out at all, although then there is no need to worry about food thawing!
I have been trying very hard to boost veggies in my diet. I am very guilty of eating few vegetables. Which is bad bad bad! I know that. I definitely make up for it with the fruit I eat but still, come on Suzie the Foodie! Get with the program. I picked up some fennel and radicchio. I was going to roast the fennel with breadcrumbs and use grill the radicchio and make a warm salad with grilled onions. Perfect! Healthy and colourful. Totally made up for the decadent breaded clams, my guilty pleasure.
At the cash, the cashier was completely stumped with the fennel. He asked me what it was. I told him it was fennel and then he said, “Um, how do you spell that?” This is when I started to worry. He went through this little book of produce over and over and couldn’t find it. He went to call his supervisor when I asked if I could look through the book. I found it under “anise”. Which is not how they labelled it where I picked it up. I told him that yes, that was another name for me. He seemed dubious.
After I left the store I looked at the receipt. He had put my radicchio through as “red cabbage.” Good grief. Why should I be surprised? This is the same store that puts lychee fruit in the canned vegetable aisle. It meant I only paid 30 cents for it though so that rocked.
I went back to The Superstore today and yes, a lot has changed but I do not care. The cashiers here definitely know their produce. They may not know the code for each item but they know their fruits and veggies. I did stump one lady though. She said, “I’ve been working here 20 years and nobody has ever bought this before.” Lemongrass. I think that has more to do with people’s lack of adventurous cooking spirit than the people at the registers.
This foodie is very happy that her home away from home is open again!
I love our food superstore – love the variety – but ours does not have fennel – hmmmm!!!
I love when I stump the cashiers with things. Sometimes they ring it up and then ask me how I use it or how to cook it. Even better it sounds like is when you confuse cashiers and they ring it up cheaper because of it! Go Suzie!
i have to say i love american/canadian supermarkets~you get much more choice than we do over here
I am guilty of not eating a lot of veggies! Also, guilty of not being very adventurous in the kitchen. 🙂
I’m so glad to live in an ‘easy garden’ place, & have that CSA membership – tho I’m getting behind on cooking my greens (sharing with my dau’s family – but then we were gone over the weekend, . . .) we had Fennel last week! mmmm
I love that they always inc. some onions & or garlic, & have suggestions on how to cook things! Plus there’s a blog with a week’s meal plan by another CSA member.
I lived for 3 years in Yankton, South Dakota. I was a vegetarian there, and when I’d ask for soy at the HyVee Supermarket (the only one in town) they’d feel sorry for me because that was cow feed. This was in 1999-2003. No one ate soy. My experiences were so similar to the ones you told.
If you were a man and you didn’t hunt, you must be gay, which was not a good thing. It was a crazy culture for me. I eventually started ordering my produce via Diamond Organics, but it was very expensive. Still, it helped me far more than the cost because I could eat good food and be healthy. Then we moved. YAY!
xo,
O
Your superstore has a better selection than ours! I’m glad you have a good place to shop.
I don’t eat many vegetables either. You probably eat more than me! Vegetables are one thing I am just overly picky about.
Your guilty pleasure may be breaded clams, but mine is pasta. In fact dinner is done, and it’s pasta tonight.
Our Superstore sucks the big one, because of all my allergies there are only a few specific things I can eat so sourcing is an issue ANYWAY, but they used to carry the veg line of products (Zogolos) and then out of nowhere cut off their purchasing! Then they told me the company stopped making them, but I called the other one in town and lo and behold they had 5 in stock and more on on order. Yeesh! I do love grocery shopping though – ever been to T&T grocery?? That’s fun Asian shopping!
Just noticed you lived in Nova Scotia, and so do I!
Thank you for the fennel idea,just wondering what to do with the one I have waiting to use.A nice,simple idea.
How about this one “`
cut leeks in half and quarters if you want .Put in an ovenproof dish,cover with stock and real butter,not magarine,oliveoil spread or rubbish, real butter.
Bake in the oven until just starting to brown.Add pouring cream to nearly cover and bake some more.You can add grated cheese,real cheese please not commercial rubbish out of a packet.
You’ll have the simplesr, most delicious veggie dish you could ever eat! yummy!!