Too Much Fruit

I found Pete's. It's a produce store on the South side of Milwaukee that is located in the Hispanic part of the city. That's only relevent because I think I was one of the only non-Spanish speaking customers in the store yesterday afternoon.

Now you might ask, why go all the way to the South side of town just to buy produce (let's be real, I live in Milwaukee - it's just not so far!). Well, first of all, this is the only real produce store in town. Other than this, it's the regular supermarkets or the co-op or Trader Joe's. Not that there's anything wrong with those places, but I was looking for a different kind of experience.

I found it.

They sell baskets of things (tomatoes, plums, peppers, grapes, in addition to other things I couldn't identify) for $2 or $3. Not per pound, but per basket. So you can't help but buy baskets of things. You can also buy them by the pound, but somehow it doesn't make sense to pay whatever the cost is per pound for plums when you can get 25 of them for $3, right?

And there in lies the problem.

I now have 25 plums. And a cantalope and a honeydew, some apples, maybe 15 tomatoes, and a bunch of peppers, an eggplant, some grapes, and a jicama. Yes, a jicama. And a husband who might eat an apple and who tasted a piece of honeydew this morning. I'm clearly in trouble.

Respite from the Heat

Who knew that respite from the heat could be found at a grocery store. We were working on some last minute cleaning of the rental house this morning and we were soaked with sweat. But I was also working my real job and had a conference call to be on at noon. When beads of sweat are rolling down ones face, it's not so conducive to focusing on what other people have to say. It's not so conducive to anything really, plus, it could probably short out my phone.



Thankfully, two blocks away is a grocery store. And, given that we live in the modern era, it was a very air conditioned store and a great place to take my call. And of course, right before the call I needed to get something to drink. So I'm waiting in the 15 items or less line with my Diet Dr. Pepper and looking at what everyone else has in their baskets (because I do that).



The man in front of me had a New York Times and a tub of the generic equivalent to Cool Whip. That was definitely not a combination I expected to see. And the woman in front of him had a lot of things (probably well over 15!) including 2 cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. I can understand eating gazpacho in the heat, but definitely not chicken noodle soup!



The problem with this store - it was too cold. So I had to keep walking outside to warm up. And, there was no where to sit inside, so being outside was actually better because at least there was a semi-comfortable bench (made out of 31,000 recycled plastic bags). That bench was worth not using re-usable bags right there!

How Not to Work and Run Errands

It's hot in Milwaukee today. Somewhere in the 90's I would guess even though the official reading right now is only 86. For a change, I was going out for lunch, which, on a day like today, is a nice thing to do being that most restaurants have at least minimal air conditioning.

Afterwards, I get in my car. My very hot car which has been baking for the past 90 minutes in direct sunlight. Lovely. And since it's so hot, I decide that I'll stop at the grocery store on the way home so I don't have to go out later. It's the regular grocery store - the one I rarely go to, but I need sliced dill sandwich pickles to go with the 16 Boca Burgers we bought at Costco over the weekend and Trader Joe's doesn't carry them. And I need diced tomatoes for the black bean soup I'm going to be making, which I could get at Trader Joe's but I'm not about to make a special trip just for them.

So on my drive to the store I call the office and try and touch base with someone (let's call him Avi) who's working with us on a specific marketing project. I tell him that I'm on my way back from a meeting and running an errand, just so that if he hears strange noises, he knows I'm not completely ignoring him. No problem. Until I'm looking at the diced tomatoes (there are way, way too many choices of diced tomatoes). Then it happens. A guy walks up to me and says, "Excuse me, do you know where the tomato paste is?" He clearly cannot see I'm on the phone, so I can't be annoyed. But do I look like I know where the tomato paste is? Evidently I do.

Avi laughs at me.

I excuse myself from the call for a second and say, "No, but maybe farther down this aisle?" And I was back on the call in no time.

And then it came time to check out. I had four items with me. There were three check-out lanes open and they all had at least three or four people in them. I'm not really sure why all of these people are shopping in the middle of the day, but that's why they have self-checkout lanes.

I start checking out. I'm mid-sentence with Avi when he interrupts me to ask if someone else came on the line. I have no idea what he's talking about because I'm focused on only two things: Scanning my three cans of diced tomatoes (I couldn't decide on just one kind) and my jar of pickles and having this conversation. I'm not listening to or hearing other voices.

If you've ever used a self-checkout at a grocery store, you'll remember that the machines speak to you. I did not remember this. Avi laughed at me again. I reminded him that I am so focused on our conversation that the extra voices are being kept at bay. And somehow he thinks this is funny too. So I have Avi laughing in one ear and a machine reminding me to put my diced tomatoes in the bag and take my receipt. It's a strange world.

(It should be noted that now that I am back and seated at my desk I am really enjoying the breeze and would have been fine not going out at all.)

My Grocery Cart

I think I've written about grocery shopping before, but it's been a while, and if I can't remember, maybe neither will you.

Whenever I'm at the grocery store, I wonder what the checkout person is thinking when they look at the items in my cart. Now I know they aren't really looking with a critical eye, but when I look at other peoples' carts, I wonder all about them. What they're cooking, what kind of diet they're on, how many people they're shopping for, what kind of party they're having, if they live alone, why they are only buying licorice and tuna fish, what you actually do with plantains....

Tonight I was at Trader Joe's. My cart included: European-style fat free yogurt (I don't generally believe in buying non-fat foods unless they naturally occur that way but I've learned that in smoothies, the fat content of yogurt doesn't make a difference.), Hebrew National hotdogs, soy cheese, frozen roasted corn, Soy Ginger dressing, fake chicken and beef strips, romaine lettuce, a few onions, Luna Bars and frozen green beans and frozen vegetarian burritos.

This was not an interesting cart of groceries. I don't usually shop in order to have an interesting cart, but this was interesting in how boring it was. About the only thing remotely curious was the presence of soy cheese, yogurt and hotdogs. Maybe someone could wonder if I am shopping vegan, vegetarian or carnivore? But maybe not.

Not satisfied with having a boring cart, I stopped at a second store. Actually, a boring cart had absolutely nothing to do with it. In reality, Trader Joe's was out of hotdog buns, and wrapping them in a leaf of romaine lettuce does not make for a Chicago-style hotdog experience.

So I went into the regular chain store that I maybe go into once a month, if that. It was pouring rain - bigger than cats and dogs, more like lions and bears (no tigers were seen). And there I bought buns and a shaker of garlic and parmesan popcorn flavoring. Someone should wonder about that, right? I mean who goes out in the middle of a monsoon to buy hotdog buns and popcorn seasoning? Evidently I do.