Okay, I give. There are too many subjects aside from my fiber addition that flit through my brain. I will break my original rule of keeping this to fiber only. I’ll try and keep it mostly fibers. How’s that?
Last night, I had dinner with Grace, Mark, Iris and my Mom. On the way home, we stopped off at an ice cream shop. Grace asked me about the grocery store that shared the same parking lot. I told her that it was my favorite grocery store. Of course, the next question was, what makes it my favorite?
My criteria for a good grocery store? It needs to have a good balance of organic food, “alternative products” (stevia, recycled paper products, holistic health care products), as well as the standard mass consumption products (garbage can liners, Oreos). The produce, whether organic or not, should be fresh. Locally grown produce a plus. The fish and meat should be really fresh, and provide meats produced or gathered in a sustainable fashion. And, this is for me only, have really, really good selection of bulk foods, cheeses, artisan breads and a great deli. This grocery store has it all, and friendly people. It’s a true neighborhood grocery store.
And the criteria to make a really good grocery store into a “favorite” grocery store?
- It must be within walking/bicycling distance. By that, I mean that by whatever non-car transport method, I must be able to get the ice cream home before it melts. This grocery store is in the bicycling range majority of the time.
- I should be able to do multiple errands within the same trip. If I’m driving, I shouldn’t have to move my car for these errands. This grocery store shares the same parking lot with a great pet store with holistic pet foods, coffee shop, restaurant, cleaners, and the said micro-creamery ice cream shop.
I favor this type of store because I do my groceries several times a week. This habit started when we lived in Boston with a very flakey refrigerator and even flakier landlord, who couldn’t seem to get the fridge fixed in a timely manner. We learned to only buy enough food to last a couple of days. At that time, we were walking distance to Bread and Circus, now Whole Foods, which made it really easy for us.
Okay, the other reason is that I never seem to be able to plan my menu that far ahead. The closest I came was when we had a subscription to locally produced organic produce. We still ended up going to the grocery store several times a week to pick the proteins.
Lastly, I prefer to support small local grocers to large national chains. Just because.
Oops. Gotta run to the grocery store…