Foodie Fun

So, even in France, it doesn't take long to get tired of going out to eat.  The brassieries all have essentially the same food.  You can find paninis everywhere.  And of course, there are the morning pastries, which we aren't giving up yet.  But we are ready to cook, again.  Fortunately, we found this amazing organic gourmet super market called La Grande Epicerie. This supermarket, WAY better than a MonoPrix, has it all - gourmet pastas and olive oils, wines, cheese, meat, breads, etc.  They even have an "American" aisle and a tex-mex shelf, both of which we avoided.  When in Rome and all that...

Food shopping is an experience in itself.  There is of course the constant converting of Euros into dollars in your head to figure out about how much something costs, and then the challenge of communicating the number of kilos of cheese and meat to the staff.  Even with my French skills, it is an adventure.  On our first go, we ended up with a block of salami (not sure why I couldn't get him to slice it) and WAY more cheddar than we can possibly eat.  Still, we didn't do too badly.  I love the produce system where you put your produce in these paper bags and take them directly to the counter where one person weighs everything and puts a sticker with a bar code on it.  At check out, the cashier just beep beeps it through and doesn't need to know any of the produce codes.  Plus, the staff was really helpful.

The highlight of this grocery visit quite possibly was the giant side of beef hanging in the refrigerator.  We wondered if you could buy the whole thing.  As vegetarians, we were pretty fascinated by the prevalence of meat everywhere.  I think if you do eat meat, you would be in heaven.  I have never seen such variety.  WOW! 

We also noticed that some products were particularly difficult to find, such as milk.  The milk section was very small.  The choice was between organic milk and not organic milk.  We went organic, but for all we know it is whole milk!  We did discover fromage blanc, which is similar to yogurt but a little less sour.  Climber girl likes it quite a bit with cherry tomatoes or blackberries mixed in.  All in all a fantastic experience.  We are stocked up for the moment, but am sure we will be heading back soon.


Blog post by DocRunning