I like Nice Grocery Stores and I Cannot Lie.

One of the hardest things about  being a single person living alone is the whole cooking/eating thing. I don’t know about you, but I find no joy in cooking a nice meal for one, so most of my meals are microwaved or put together in 38 seconds. For example, today I ate scrambled eggs, a peanut butter sandwich and coffee for breakfast (by far my biggest and most complex meal; I knew it would be downhill from here and I was at my parent’s house so I decided to go big), then had a coffee when I got in the office (I’ve heard drinking coffee boosts your metabolism), hit up Mom’s Organic Market for lunch (I’ll talk more about this later, but they have great good samples if you ever need a free lunch…), where I enjoyed rye bread with coconut spread, two cubes of pepperjack cheese and another coffee (I was feeling coffee-induced existential angst by this point) and then for dinner I had a piece of bread, a bag of popcorn, a bowl of brussel sprouts and a lentil-vegetable empanada (terrible,  I know, but I needed to get my vegetables somewhere). Right now I’m hanging out at a cafe but don’t worry…when I get home I plan to have an apple and an orange to get my fruits in. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I got used to having nice, quality balanced meals when I was living at home, because mom’s (and brothers, in my case) are good at feeding you and making sure you’re getting all your vitamins and minerals and all that. Now that I’m on my own, things have really gone downhill. I mean, I’m expecting some serious solo-living-induced weight loss, but I do miss warm, tasty meals.

So today after work I headed over to Mom’s Organic Market (I was there for more than the free samples) and stocked up on some essentials:

I’m embarrassed to say how much I paid for these rather meager looking groceries…

I don’t consider myself a particularly classy, yuppie-type lady and I’m definitely not one of those organic-crazed yoga-pants wearing health nut types who runs marathons for fun, but I can’t lie…I like nice, upscale grocery stores. I’ve tried shopping at places like Giant, Harris Teeter, even Safeway, but I can’t help getting this feeling like I’m part of a cattle herd or something. Very snobby, I know. I wrote extensively about grocery store hierarchies here so I’m willing to admit that I’m a complete grocery store snob, but the truth is that few things bring me as much pleasure as going to a small, intimate, upscale and well-organized grocery store during non-busy hours. My all time favorite is Trader Joe’s but as I wrote in this post, my neighborhood Trader Joe’s is a little too urban for my taste. I’m just not ready for urban grocery shopping…too many people, complicated, underground validated parking and time limits…too much for me.

So like I said, today I decided to head over to Mom’s Organic Market with the lofty ambition of getting the materials necessary to make myself healthier, balanced meals and let me tell you, organic food is expensive. Anyway, I made some adventurous choice. For example, I picked up something called “farmer’s cheese” because it was the cheapest cheese on the shelf and I thought maybe it would taste like Queso Fresco, which is the most delicious food in the world, but I am sad to report it tasted more like mushy ricotta without salt or, well, any kind of flavor. I also bought some organic popcorn because, in case you don’t know, I love popcorn. I think it’s also the second most delicious food in the world. As soon as I got home I popped a bag and I’m very disappointed to report that organic popcorn tastes really, really bad and I don’t think it’s one of those things that will grow on me. I guess I prefer the fake, genetically modified, bad-for-your-health kind :(. I bought some lime-flavored tortilla chips because lime-flavored tortilla chips are delicious in general, but it turns out they were pretty much unsalted and I don’t know that you can really even categorize unsalted chips as chips. So I was feeling kind of sad. Also, when I got home, I realized I didn’t actually buy anything you can cook or put on the stove…I spent all this money on food accessories, not actual meal-food!

Even though I felt disappointed by my lack of real food purchases, I am pleased to inform you that the rye bread I bought is amazing. But it really had no excuse NOT to be amazing, since I paid $6.75 for ONE LOAF. I really need to start looking at prices before I throw things in my cart. When I go to grocery stores I seem to experience temporary insanity that makes me feel like I’ve got crazy amounts of money in the bank, which is delusional.  I should be clipping coupons. Anyway, I think the cashier thought I was a complete idiot for spending almost $7 on one loaf of bread so she gave me this “bread card” where if you buy 12 loaves of bread you get the 13th free. Yeah, I’m sure every idiot who buys $7 bread gets this “bread card” but it did make me feel a little better… as it should…12 loaves of bread at Mom’s Organic Market will set you back almost $100!!!

After getting home from spending more money on groceries than I feel comfortable admitting, I placed my bags on the table, excited to unpack and I realized that there really wasn’t much to unpack. This is what way too much money got me:

I could’ve gotten at least three much bigger bags for the price of these two at Mom’s Market…

So even though I spent way too much money on groceries and I don’t actually like most of the food I bought, I’ll probably go back to Mom’s because it’s the nearest nice grocery store to my apartment and I just can’t handle city grocery stores yet. And the thing is, when you walk into a grocery store like Mom’s, everything is so organized and small…so small you don’t need to spend endless minutes walking up and down aisles wondering where certain items might be. Plus, they use non-fluorescent lights and everything is so simple and peaceful. I mean, check out the fruit section:

Is this not the nicest fruit section you’ve ever seen??? I can’t afford any of it, but it looks so pretty and healthy…health through osmosis?

And the honey/maple syrup/jam sections are amazing. Really, if you can imagine it, you can find it. I had no idea there were so many types of honey in the world:

So much honey!

I can’t imagine anyone out there is actually interested in my grocery store excursion, but I’m starting my internship next week and I figured I should get my blogging out of my system before my free time disappears. Maybe this week I’ll feature such exciting entries as “Driving to Work,” “Brushing my Teeth” and “Making my Bed (HA! as if this ever happens) as follow-ups to this very exciting grocery shopping post.

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Categories: Alexandria, D.C Culture, Daily Life, Me, Me, Me, Observations, Random, Suburbs, Virginia

Tags: grocery stores in Alexandria, Grocery stores in Arlandria, grocery stores near Del Ray, how to save on groceries if you're single, I'm spending way too much on groceries, nice grocery stores in Del Ray, Where to shop in Del Ray, Why is Mom's Organic Market so Expensive?