Homage to the Grocery Store

I never realized before what an amazing place a grocery store is. I sort of took for granted there would always be some place fully stocked with foods of all kinds some easy distance from my house. In fact, there would probably be two or three of them to choose from. I spent a fair amount of time complaining about the lack of something or other there, or criticized how one was far better than another at certain things. I'd still probably complain today about that, but I don't think I'll ever take such an amazing place for granted again.

The first thing I'm going to do when we move back to the States is head to the grocery store armed with a list of all the basic and exotic ingredients I can think of. Like apples. And rice paper and mushrooms so I can make these. Everything we can't get now, or can only get after it's spent far too much time being transported various ways. Wilted lettuce and withering green peppers are fairly common fair here.

After two and a half years, I've gotten used to this as much as I can, but I am definitely tired of trying to come up with something for dinner every night. I try very hard to get it in my head what we are having that morning so I am not hit with it at 1600. There is no such thing as meal planning when you don't really know what is going to be for sale that week in our gas station-sized grocery store (which also has about a 1/4 of the space dedicated to non-edible things).

I am a fan of the lowly grocery store. It's awesome. It's amazing how your perspective can change.