An Ode to the Grocery Store

I have to confess that I love grocery shopping.
It's a strange thing to enjoy, I suppose. Usually when someone loves to shop it's for clothes, shoes, books, media, or whatever their toy of choice is. But food? At a grocery store? Isn't that terribly. . .mundane. After all, it's a chore. It gets done to keep from starving, not for pleasure.
But I think it's fun; I always have.
My favorite time to grocery shop is early Saturday morning, before the rest of the world has crawled out of bed. I can go and have all 22,000 square feet almost all to myself. It's quiet and I can meander, taking my sweet time without feeling rushed or crowded. Granted, I'll ignore about 80% of what's in a supermarket. With an average of 50,000 products, the modern American supermarket is a testament to excess and 'what were they thinking when they invented that', but there are the corners that I love.
Walk in the front doors and I'm greeted by the produce section. The best part of the supermarket, in my opinion, I spend the majority of my time here. A rainbow of fruits and veggies, just waiting for me to take a sensory tour of them. I pick up a peach and the sweet, fresh scent makes my mouth water. Rolling the apples and oranges in my hands, I know that they're going to be the perfect snack on a warm afternoon, refreshing and perfect to satisfy my sweet tooth. Almost invariably, I end up with more than I can eat, more than I need.
The veggies are just as tempting: the juicy tomatoes, perfectly round and bright red, the crisp cucumbers that are the perfect addition to a salad. And the greens. Oh, I love my dark green vegetables: the asparagus that is simple and delicious steamed and drizzled with olive oil and coriander, the broccoli that goes wonderfully with my honey-mustard tofu, the spinach that I'll eat with pretty much anything.
It's browsing the produce section, loading my basket with the bananas and potatoes, eggplants and mushrooms, that I don't get why people, when they find out I'm vegetarian, ask in confusion, "But what do you eat?" What do I eat? Almost everything. All of these fresh, delicious foods are mine for cooking, however I'd like, and that's half the fun of grocery shopping. It's the potential. Even just in this little corner of the store, there are a plethora of dinner possibilities, just waiting to be made. Alone, mixed with other foods, eaten hot or cold, covered in spices or tasted plain, what can't I do with this produce?
It's this possibility that gets me excited. It's picking up a bag of peppers and some mushrooms and thinking how perfectly they'd taste stir-fried and mixed with jasmine rice, coated in olive oil, and seasoned with freshly grated garlic, lemon-pepper seasoning and maybe even some thyme. Sometimes I buy things with a specific purpose in mind, but more often then not, it's not knowing what I want to make that adds something special to my grocery shopping. It's picking up what looks good, the freshest and the brightest products, and thinking about all the ways I could use it.
That's why I love grocery shopping. It's playtime. An exercise in creative thought and planning. The next time you're at the grocery store, don't think about how it's something you have to do. Think about how it's something you get to do. You get to go and buy delicious food that's going to feed yourself, your family, your friends. You get to take one thing and make it into something new, something different. A little bit of layman's alchemy.
Sometimes it is a hassle, just another 'to-do' squished in between the laundry and the lawn mowing. But even in the middle of that rush, stop for a second. Remember the people you're cooking for and the pleasure they'll get out of that meal. I think you'll find it's always worth it to stop and smell the peaches (or the cherries or the apples).