Domestic Sh*t

My friends and even acquaintances know that I love to go to the grocery store. It’s something my father and I used to do together. It made my mother crazy because we’d be gone for a long time and come home with things she thought we didn’t need. But my father and I both loved food and we had fun picking it out! I still do. I love to go to grocery stores in foreign places and I even love to go to pretty much any grocery store at any time. I can always find something new or interesting, and just browse for a long time.

There are some things I have noticed in my chosen store. It’s big and has almost everything, except the kind of wine I’ve decided is my “go-to” and I have to go to a different store for it. The outlet of that store that is closest to my apartment keeps the wine I want on the top shelf. I can’t reach it. So, I either have to find an employee or “borrow” the step stool to get it myself – which comes with dual risk – falling or being admonished. I sometimes go to a farther outlet of that store just because they keep my wine at my eye level.

I’ve noticed that there are some items in US stores that rate a lot of shelf space that receive very limited shelf space here, and vice versa. I think I’ve mentioned the huge selection of chicken broth here. Also, the shelves with olives in my store take up at least half the aisle. And food storage bags, foil, Saran Wrap, etc.? — almost none. They also really like their chocolate. It has it’s own aisle separate from the rest of the “pedestrian” candy.

I’ve never understood milk here. Some of it is refrigerated and some is not. I think it has to do with pasteurization, but I’m not even sure what that is. I just know that I prefer buying milk in the cold section. It seems a little less gross than a room temperature box of milk. I hate milk, so anything that seems to make it grosser, I avoid. They don’t have any pint-sized bottles of milk. I can only find liters or liters and a half. One day, I found a bottle that seemed a little smaller. It was labeled whole milk and it said “Bio.” I don’t really know what that means either, but I bought it because it would take up less space in the fridge. I have an electric frother, and the frother wouldn’t make the Bio milk frothy. That should have been a red flag. One day, not long after I purchased the Bio milk, I tried frothing it again, and I guess it had gone bad, because it frothed itself into something that resembled (barf) cottage cheese! I guess I’m going to stick with the large cold bottles.

At Christmas, I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies for my neighbor and my dog-sitter friends. I could NOT find a cookie tin anywhere or even a cookie sheet. I found a pan that worked perfectly, but it was labeled for pizza. They do have some boxed cookies here, but I guess no one makes them at home.

The cleaning supplies are relatively similar. In fact, Mr. Clean products are sold here as “Don Limpio” and in France as “Mr. Propre.” A popular brand of dishwashing detergent is called “Fairy,” which I don’t think would be acceptable here.

Today, I played petanca (pétanque in French), which is a game something like Bocce Ball. I played with the expat people for the first time. Turns out, even though I can’t hit a ball with a bat or a racket, I can throw a ball not embarrassingly badly. My team lost two out of two games, but it was still fun. Everyone else was British and quite controlled when they threw a ball especially well or especially poorly. I was the only one cursing my (or my teammates’) bad throws and screaming and clapping when we got a good shot. I said something like “excuse me, but I’m an American” to which they all sort of grumbled. I guess I’m invited back because they gave me a set of petanca balls. YEAH!

This is not my group, but you get the idea.