Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
The one gotcha, of course, is fresh fruit and produce. That's always extra trips, at least weekly. We try to wrap them into others, but...all the necessities are spread out in various directions, unfortunately. Opposite directions, as it happens.
|
There are reasons I love living in NYC, and this is one of them. Pretty much everything we need is in walking distance or a subway stop or two away.
My SO shops daily. She's "early to bed and early to rise", and is up at 6am. One destination is the farmer's market, two subway stops away, and she arrives early when the other patrons are mostly chefs buying fresh produce for their restaurants. Food here tends to be "What's in season?"
Fresh asparagus is now no longer in season, to my SO's sorrow. She adores it, as do I. And she announces "I regret nothing!" as she heads to the bathroom. A side effect of eating asparagus is really stinky pee. I never noticed, but it's apparently a genetic quirk - only about 40% of the population can smell what makes the pee stink after eating asparagus, and I'm not in the 40%.
Thursday is Chinatown, for roast pork and sundries like duck hearts. My SO has been shopping at a particular Chinese market long enough that she's simply another Chinese housewife shopping for her family with her folding cart who just doesn't happen to be Chinese. The clerk she normally deals with is insistent that she get hot and sour soup for me in weather that provokes sinus problems. I suspect it's what she feeds her husband in such weather. My SO doesn't argue.
I've been watching the supermarkets for years. At one point, there were three 24 hour supermarkets within a few blocks. They've dropped, one by one. A Sloans was the first to go. A Food Emporium folded recently, and a Gristedes which was across the street from it closed soon after. The last man standing is a new entrant - a Trader Joes took over the space the Food Emporium used to occupy. They seem to be thriving thus far, probably because they now get the traffic that use to be spread over three competitors.
There are an assortment of 24 hour delis as well, though we generally keep track of what we need and don't need to resort to them.
______
Dennis