Grocery Shopping 101

A new, American friend said to me this weekend, going to the supermarket is the freshman level of filling the refrigerator in France. More advanced consumers would visit one of the many the butcher's shops and buy produce only from the local market vendors. I'm not there yet! Those endeavors require far more interaction and thus, more French than I'm capable of right now. But I am feeling more and more comfortable at Carrefour, our local supermarket.

It's not really a SUPERmarket by American standards, but it is a very nice big grocery store. For the three weeks we've been living in Hyeres, I've probably been there fifteen times. I try to make myself go often so I can focus on a new aisle each time. And we walk there. So whatever we buy we have to carry home.

In the produce section, after bagging the fruits and veggies, you weigh the items on the scale, push the corresponding picture, and a bar coded ticket is printed. There is a scale at the perfect height for Lily, so she insists on weighing and stickering all the fruits and veggies. This is, by far, her favorite part of the entire shopping trip. The yogurt aisle is MY favorite. Never before have I seen so many choices. There is some juice on the right of this picture, but pretty much everything else on both sides of the aisle and on the back wall are all different types of yogurt. Plain, sweet, with fruit, with chocolate...everything you can imagine.

Ah, and this little section. I'm pretty sure the sales of Old El Paso products have quadrupled since I started shopping here. I had to move this stock cart of the way to take this picture. I'm sure they thought it wouldn't bother anyone if they stuck it in front of the Mexican products. I've bought the tortillas, salsa, chips...pretty much one of everything on this shelf.

And when Zachary gets impatient and cries in his stroller, a torn off piece of baguette will keep him quiet for a couple more minutes. I learned this trick from watching French mothers hand hunks of bread to their crying children.

Through the checkout and headed home. I'm not very good at just buying "daily" food at the store. But since there aren't really any gyms in the area, I consider the half mile walk home with 30 pounds of groceries a strength training exercise.

Grocery items that our family misses most: (this is kinda embarrassing because over half the items on our list contain fake cheese and we're living in a country that prides itself on its cheese--we're pretty unsophisticated)

Lily: MacNCheese--she threw one all out tantrum that it wasn't available here.

Sarah: Cheez-Its--I have yet to find a salty, cracker substitute that I like as well.

Zack: String cheese--he's not into the French cheese yet...he spits them right out.

Phil: Diet Coke & Sam Adams--the wine is cheap and fabulous, but the beer, isn't very good. And Coca cola Lite, tastes a lot different than Diet Coke.

Grocery items that I LOVE here:

All the dairy items...the yogurt is better, the ice cream, and oh, the cheese is delicious (we buy a new kind every couple of days to try)!

The produce if very fresh and delicious--we're eating about 25 clementines a week right now!

This trip took two hours (including our walk there and back). I greeted and goodbye-d the cashier in French and included a couple of thank yous. I'd give this trip a solid "B". A couple more months, and I'll move up to the sophomore level - the artisan butchery, patisserie, fromagerie (cheese maker), and all the other little individual, intimidating shops.