Nog and I love food shopping!
And for a household that just has the two of us in it, we seem to do a lot of it.
Usually every two weeks or so we do a ‘big shop’ at a supermarket that delivers to the house. Very handy as we live on the third floor (fourth floor US & Cdn) without a lift. So we prefer big burly guys lugging up all the heavy stuff for us.
In between the big shopping expeditions we visit the fabulous markets here or small local fruit & veg shops for fresh produce and especially fish, which is much fresher and cheaper than at the supermarket.
But there is something very pleasant and satisfying about shopping for food. And at times like now (just after a ‘big supermarket’ thang) our fridge and cupboards are stuffed full of amazing things to eat. So when it comes time to decide what to have for lunch we often feel a bit overwhelmed by choice options.
So, is it just us or do other people enjoy this too?
casa azahar 
I enjoy food shopping, too, especially if I have planned to cook something special soon. We do our main grocery shopping once a week, then pick up other things at the weekends. I never visit the local fruit and veg shops, though- I only use organic produce so I buy it all at Whole Foods. But I really love making the rounds of all the various ethnic grocers gathering spices and items not stocked at the grocery store.
Not to get too far off topic- do they really install elevators in buildings as small as three or four floors? We live in a third floor apartment and also do not have an elevator. I’ve never seen one in a small apartment building, only in high-rises.
No matter how stuffed the pantry and fridge might be, I never feel overwhelmed with choices, though. I always have the upcoming week’s menus planned by the time we go to the store on Wednesday.
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We never plan menus … it’s always just about what we exactly feel like eating at that particular moment .
Re: elevators in buildings. It depends here. A lot of older building have small elevators put in the open space in the stairwells. You can fit about two people in them (well, they say, maximum four people but you’d really have to like the other three, if you know what I mean 😉 ).
Also, what is considered the third floor in the US and Canada is actually the second floor in Europe. So in those terms, Nog and I live on the fourth floor.
The other thing is that, being an old building, with apartments that have very high ceilings, each floor is quite a bit higher than in typical newer apartment buildings. My friend Ricardo once showed up here gasping for breath and saying it was 69 steps to get to our flat. As if we didn’t know it was a lot of steps already!
So it’s a total bugger when I get downstairs and then go – ‘shit, I left my sunglasses in the flat!’ – and have to trudge up again to get them. And so we always tend to do a little ‘check list’ before we go out, to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. 🙂
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I have to plan menus- otherwise, I’d never eat anything. I never feel like eating anything at any particular meal time. I must be weird.
Sounds like it’s a bit higher to your flat than ours- the three apartments in our building (one on each floor) have 11-foot ceilings, but it’s only 62 or so (I’ve never counted but visitors always do) steps from the sidewalk to the landing outside our door. That additional seven- another whole set!- would make a BIG difference! Sheesh! Of course, the odds of locating a parking space right in front are pretty slim…
I’m jealous of your delivery service. The grocery stores in our neighborhood only deliver between 7 AM and 5 PM, and we’re both at work during those hours. The only store which delivers on Saturday is one we don’t patronize. Typical.
I can totally relate to getting down all those stairs and realizing you’ve forgotten something. On more than one occasion, I’ve run to the bus through a drizzle, sans umbrella, because I didn’t have it in me to go ALL the way back up for one.
I have been saying for years that we need to install a pulley and basket to lift the groceries up to our top floor. 😀 (And now you now why I bought a washer and dryer despite the fact that the landlord has one in the basement!)
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Curiously, you will almost never find a rental apartment in Spain that has an oven in it (though of course there is always either a gas or electric cooker). But there is always a washing machine, and usually a place up on the roof to hang clothes to dry.
I’d always prefer a washing machine to an oven any day … hate using communal washing machines, and in any case, they don’t actually exist here. Also, there are next to no laundromats here, and the few that exist cost a fortune.
Our place happens to have an oven because the previous tenants put one in, but we use it maybe a half dozen times a year. It just ends up being something else to have to clean! 😉
But getting back to the original post … there is just something very pleasant about going out shopping for food. And the supermarket delivery thing here is available until about 8pm.
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It’s not legal for a building owner to rent an apartment without an oven/range and a fridge. But I digress, and apologize for changing the topic.
I also find food shopping very pleasant. As I say, I always have a list because I know in advance what I’m going to cook… because while I enjoy food shopping, I don’t enjoy needing to run out at the last minute to get something I need to prepare the meal. But getting the stuff to prepare the meals with can be quite fun, as can stumbling across something I’ve never tried before and giving it a go.
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It depends…. quite often food shopping is me and Dp around eight o´clock in the evening after a long working day for both of us when we´re out of essentials. Then is just to take a backpack each and a bunch of bags (reusable fabric ones) and walk to the foodstore in the small shopping mall in a nearby residential area.
We´ve tried planning menus, but after a couple of weeks that ambition is over and we´re back to basics again.
A few times a year we take the bus out to a HUGE supermarket in the outskirts and shop a lot of storageable stuff as flour, dry cat food, cat litter, loo rolls, canned tomatoes, coffee, concentrated orange juice etc. and take a taxi back home.
Occasional Saturdays we do fun food shopping and buy fish or shellfish, fresh pasta or something else we both like and make a three or four course dinner.
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I’m a menu planner myself, but I like to occasionally force myself not to do it but to just buy stuff and see what I feel like. Once when I was in the supermarket and I couldn’t decide what to get I just bought one of every sort of vegetable they had and it worked out quite well.
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I love food shopping — but I *hate* schlepping the stuff home. It makes me feel like a pack-mule!
These days, it’s most important if something is a) at least a couple of servings, for a couple of meals and b) on sale!!!! I’m blessed to be a seat of the pants cook, so I can usually bang something together from whatever’s on hand.
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Crikey I absolutely love food shopping. I get basics from the supermarket but buy really fresh fish from my local excellent old fashioned fish monger, local greengrocer, and meat sometimes from a brilliant butchers that only sell top quality stuff or the local farmers market here every sunday morning. I also get stuff from the local Carribean market, there’s a huge Carribean population locally. Up until recently all I did was invent my own recipes, but there have been so many good cooking programmes on TV lately, eg Rick Stein’s French Odysey, that I’ve invested in a few books. And I’ve learnt loads about cooking according to basic rules, not haute cuisine stuff, but simple mouth watering styles like you get in ordinairy French restaurants. I’m now finding I can experiment but with more basic knowledge. And I love improvising the foreign recipe to Brit available ingredients.
When I food shop I enjoy it so much because I’m thinking of the cooking/eating of the meal as I shop. But I have to visit shops when I’m feeling hungry. It just doesn’t feel half so much fun if I’m full.
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Totally agree, Fanny – food shopping when I’m full is no fun at all.
Re: menu planning. The thing we don’t do is plan out a weekly menu as we do prefer to eat exactly what we feel like eating exactly when we want to. But there is a basic ‘repertoire’ of meals we tend to have on a regular basis, so we always buy stuff for that at the supermarket. And then when we feel like something completely different we go out to the market to look for the ingredients.
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“I’m blessed to be a seat of the pants cook, so I can usually bang something together from whatever’s on hand.”
I tend to do that towards the end of the two week period when we are much more limited, spacecadette. And Nog is always very impressed by what I can whip up with whatever stuff we have on hand. Heck, sometimes I even impress myself. 😉
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Sometimes, cooking with whatever’s on had creates the best original recipes. But shopping for what I don’t have on hand is lots of fun. 😉
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Dp handled the food shopping herself today, while I was at home tidying up the flat. She came home with a HUGE tray of sushi.
For the first time in my life I´m almost overeaten with sushi – nine pieces.. Yummy Yummy
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Nine pieces of sushi is pretty impressive! I’m usually only good for three or four. Imay have to buy a small tray and take it to work for lunch one day this week.
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Wow I had a great morning today. Went to my local fishmongers which is always open on sunday mornings and bought halibut steaks, lemon sole, north atlantic prawns and a heap of small clams. I bought the veggies and herbs and spices yesterday. They are all for a proper fish soup like I remember having years ago in Madrid. It’s a bloody complicated recipe, but really simple at the same time, involving boiling, straining, boiling again with veggies, slow cooking etc etc all from my Rick Stein Book on seafood cooking, A Taste of the Sea. I decided to try this recipe before I inflicted it on anyone else. But I reckon it’s going to be gorgeous. My upstairs neighbour called down to me, asking what the hell I am cooking cos it smells amazing.
The little clams in their shells will go in just before serving in about half an hour. I felt a bit guilty when I bought them earlier as they were opening and closing their shells on the fishmongers slab.
I reckon all told what with buying, selecting, getting home and then cooking, it’ll be the best part of half a day. I’ve heard that on the continent it is completely normal to spend vast amounts of time on making a meal, from planning, shopping to final serving. I’m starting to appreciate this attitude to food, at weekends for example when it’s possible. I think it’s very much a cultural thing about what you value spending your time doing. My own mother did actually spend quite a lot of time cooking at weekends, but it was always the traditional British stuff like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding etc.
Oh dear maybe more of her has rubbed off on me than I would like……….But hey it beats TV dinners anyday!
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Weekend cooking at ‘casa az’ tends to involve more complicated and interesting dishes. In fact, we usually only go out for tapas mid-week when we are too busy or too lazy to cook something at home. Especially at the end of the working day, which for us is usually 8 or 9pm.
But weekends are for making special stuff at home.
Your fish soup sounds divine, Fanny. And no doubt will be totally worth the effort.
Meanwhile, a decent roast beef with yorkshire pudding is nothing to be sneezed at – I adore yorkshire pudding with a bit of gravy on top, and also proper roasted potatoes. Don’t even care about the roast beef bit to be honest, especially if there are also roasted parsnips to be had…
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Hey I agree about the roast beef, yorkshires, roast potatoes and yes parsnips. It’s a wonderful meal, and my mum was rather good at it. I do think I have finally ended up getting her attitude to cooking, but I like to branch out a bit. Well I haven’t got a brit neanderthal husband to cook for thank goodness, who only eats red meat and NO garlic 🙂
Yes the fish soup was just as good as the one I once had in Madrid. Apparently excellent fish meals are to be had there, even though it is in the centre of Spain, because so many poorer Spaniards have gone to find work there in the last hundred years from the coast. And they now demand that fresh fish is brought in overnight by plane and train. Strangely enough the quality of fresh fish available in London is probably down to the Cockney tradition of whelk and cockle stalls, as well as fish and chips. It was always seen as a poor person’s food. Indeed a hundered years ago poor people regularly ate oysters and lobsters, which are now so expensive. Mostly red meat was eaten by richer people.
What kind of tapas do you eat in Seville? Do you ever make them at home?
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“because so many poorer Spaniards have gone to find work there in the last hundred years from the coast”
Really don’t think that has much to do with it; it’s mostly that all Spanish people love fresh fish and seafood. So you’ll find it brought in quickly to the more inland places like Madrid, Salamanca, Zaragoza, etc.
Even Seville – we’re at least an hour away by road from the nearest coast.
But it’s really a treat to go to the coast and eat fish caught that very morning …
As for not eating garlic … I really do wonder sometimes if I have this constant cloud of garlic fumes about my head because Nog and I eat A LOT OF GARLIC. And we love it. For example, there is no such thing as ‘too much garlic’ in our culinary or daily vocabulary.
I’ve never had whelks or cockles. And I don’t like raw oysters. But I’ve had amazing fish & chips in England, both hake and cod. Best place ever is at the bottom of Christmas Steps in Bristol …
And of course, the chip buttie. The most disgustingly delicious thing ever.
Interesting what you said about lobsters once being considered ‘poor people’s food’ and now they cost an arm and a leg. Funny how things change.
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oysters….
*drool*
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Really? I find them just kinda slimy and ick.
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I think that one of the reasons people eat so much red meat is that it used to be a status thing, being able to afford to eat it. I think the same is true of meat generally, there’s no reason to eat it for every meal but a lot of people do, almost on principle.
Also, oysters… slimy and ick. 😉 Lobster on the other hand…. (drool) (boo, where are those h2g2 smilies when you need them?)
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Yeah, the smileys here rather suck the big one.
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I used to love Oysters Rockefeller back when I used to eat meat.
I agree about the smileys. I’ve noticed you have brought some of the cooler ones with you, az… how do you do that?
Also, I tend to cook at weekends, and we order in or eat out during the week, when we’ve already been out of the house twelve or more hours. Some weekends, I will cook four or five meals.
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I think I’d like fried oysters but I’ve never tried them.
The other smileys are only possible to use on original posts, not on comments (as far as I know). I upload them as a photo and insert them. Just now and again – don’t want to get in trouble with you-know-who. 😉
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Oysters in halfshell, covered with creme fraiche mixed with fine chopped red onion and swedish caviar and grated in hot oven until it got a nice colour…
Try that! You can substitute the swedish caviar with some other salty spread I guess
I rarely have the possibility to have fresh oysters. They might be available for New Year. Then I usually do the oven dish actually since they osysters have been harvested days before they reach my fish monger.
The best fresh oysters I had was in New Orleans a few years ago. Just the oysters and squeezed lemon on top with a glass of nice chardonnay.
Mouth still waters *drool*
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I used to work as a bartender in a Cajun restaurant in Toronto – raw oysters on the shell were always on offer. So I tried them.
The idea that you’re not even supposed to chew them – just let them slimily slide down yer gullet – seems like a total waste of food pleasure to me. You maybe ‘taste’ them for a nanosecond and then have this lump of stuff sliding down your esophagus … I could just never see the point of it myself. Especially at the outrageous price for this ‘privilege’. No thanks.
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I do love mussels steamed in white wine and garlic though … mmmmmm.
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I am just all over envy after reading all these posts. There are FISH MONGERS? You have DELIVERY SERVICE? My mind boggles at the idea of fresh fish of any kind. When we lived in San Francisco, it was readily available. Here, no way, no how. Fresh frozen is the best they can do. But living in the geographic center of the country with a bunch of people who think that the best fish to eat is catfish or crappie (yes there really is a fish by that name) makes it a challenge.
On the other hand, we have a more than adequately equipped food room (pantry) and the most amazing pair of freezers you have ever seen. One of them contains mostly meat, chicken and what frozen fish we can find in bulk. All the meat, which is pork, lamb, and beef, came from free range organic stock. We buy the animal and have it delivered to a butcher who we pay to kill, cut and freeze it. The same with the chicken.
The other freezer contains nuts of all kinds, dehydrated fruits and veggies, fruit that I have picked and frozen (blueberries, peaches, apples, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries), the vegetables that I have grown and frozen, and just about every type of spice or herb that you can think of.
I learned a long time ago that when you buy organic spices in bulk it ends up costing you about 1/20 what you would pay if you buy them at the store. But then you have eto store the pound of cinnamon some way that keeps it from going stale, so it must go in the freezer.
We don’t shop so much as peruse the freezer and/or the garden. When we shop, we are usually buying eggs, or milk, or lemons.
But if there were any decent stores around here, we would probably not be so dependent on what we have stored in the pantry and freezer.
I realize that living in a flat or apartment pretty much precludes the possibility of having 37 cubic feet of freezer space plus a huge pantry full of food. I would rather have great shops, a fish monger, and delivery service.
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The lack of storage possibilities is a great disadvantage. When I was a house owner and had plenty of those, including two large freezers, I shopped in the way HMH do.
Nowadays, in a tiny flat at the 6th floor, storing more than two boxes of dry cat food can be a real challenge.
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hmh why don’t you go fishing yourself for fish? There must be more different fish in the local waters than catfish and crappies (yes, what a great name! 🙂 ) Trout? Perch? Fresh water crustaceans? Obviously I’m just guessing, but you get my drift. The best fish meals I’ve ever eaten have been of fish I caught myself with rod and line. I used to eat perch I caught regularly, when I lived out of London. They are really common in rivers and lakes, but you never see them at the fish mongers because for some reason they aren’t a fashionable fish for Brits to eat. But I thought they were absolutely delish!
BTW why don’t you like catfish? I’ve never eaten them but I know they are eaten with relish in parts of continental Europe
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“I would rather have great shops, a fish monger, and delivery service”
I know what you mean, hmh, because it’s actually a pleasant walk and a nice outing to go shopping for fresh stuff at the markets. And the produce and fish at the markets is much nicer than the stuff at the supermarket.
To get the free home delivery here you have to spend 200 euros (recently changed – it used to be 100 euros), which is why we only do that every 2-3 weeks (this also includes cleaning supplies, shampoo, cat sand, bottled water, etc). If you don’t spend that much they charge 5 euros to deliver, which would also be worth it as it’s cheaper than taking a taxi and we don’t have to lug everything up three long flights of stairs.
We’ve sometimes been at the till and had our bill come to about 185 euros so then we dash around the place getting a few extra things to make up the difference.
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I am not much of a fisherwoman. There are brown trout available to fish for from Mar to Oct at Bennet Springs. They are all hatchery raised, however, and taste of fish food. There are bass, and suckers, and crappie and catfish available at the lakes here. All of these fish are bottom feeders, and if you had any idea of the level of pollution that exists in the local lakes, you would understand why I am not interested in eating anything that comes out of them. Taking my health in my hands, that would be. Mmm, have a few PCBs? How about some mercury, lead, raw sewage? Can’t wait to dig in.
Farm raised catfish is okay. I am betraying my coastal prejudices, however, when I say that the only fish worth eating are wild caught deep water fishes like salmon, halibut, red snapper. Somehow, the fresh water fishes just have the wrong texture and flavor.
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If only the Whole Foods market delivered outside of business hours! We go grocery shopping on Wednesday evenings, every week, and get the food, produce and cleaning supplies there. I could swing the equivalent of 200 euros ($255) easily in two weeks’ time. But their delivery hours end before we get home from work. 😦
It would also be nice if the small markets in the neighborhood stocked decent produce, but I have yet to find one which stocks organic. It’s only been within the past three or four years that I have had the option to purchase cleaning supplies at the store instead of by mail order.
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Oh dear hmh you’ve destroyed all my romantic visions of the raw and wild big outdoors of the USA. Actually the fish I used to eat that I caught were probably more full of this that and the other, than I wanted to know about. I just used to have this thing about cooking and eating something I myself hunted from the river, rather than hunting it in the shops. Though goodness only knows what undesirable chemicals my body is full of, but I’ve never much cared…….
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Fanny, I’m probably just a frustrated fisherman. You actually caught fish? I am in awe, and don’t take that as sarcasm. I truly am in awe. In all my life I have caught one fish, and the frustration of the exercise has probably turned me off of fishing forever. I imagine if I was out there actually catching a fish I would eat it with relish no matter where it came from.
But I was raised on the Pacific coast. I know people who live here in the Midwest who think the only fish worth eating is freshwater fish, they can’t stand ocean fish. I prefer ocean fish because that was what I grew up with.
Don’t confuse the raw and wild big outdoors of the USA with the over-populated and badly protected lakes of the Ozarks.
As far as organic food goes, PC, I envy you the fact that there is a Whole Foods near where you live. The closest one to me is in St. Louis, 120 miles away, and they don’t deliver here! Not for any money. The organic produce I eat I produced myself in my own garden. The meats come from people we know who raise meat organically. The bulk foods I have to special order. If only there was someplace around here that had a meaningful selection of organic food so I could just, once in a while, shop for it.
There is a certain amount of pride in making it happen ourselves, but it is a lot of work and every once in a while I’d just like to be able to go buy a nice tomato.
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HMH, they’re building a second Whole Foods even closer to home. And we can walk to and from Trader Joe’s. It just isn’t fair! 😉
Before I moved to the neighborhood four and a half years ago, the nearest Whole Foods was a half-hour ride on the el away. I used to mail order a LOT of stuff back then, especially the cleaning products.
On the other hand, though… I envy you the physical space for a garden. I’m sure I could make the time to tend one if we had the room to grow one, but our back yard is quite small, and the landlord has a little girl who plays back there.
We went food shopping again this past Wednesday. We spent a lot this week- $120- but that’s because I got a lot of produce and some cheese to make risotto for tomorrow’s dinner and a potato and cauliflower curry on Sunday.
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