dailydiatribes

DISCLAIMER:  There will be mistakes in this post because I have a bandaid on my pinky and it keeps messing up my typing.

Today I joined the rest of America in a frenzy of grocery shopping, spending the entire month's grocery money on food for one meal.  Oh what a blessing to live in America, the land of plenty, where we can prepare food with reckless abandon, never once minding that no one will eat Great Aunt Gertrude's mincemeat rutagbaga casserole and it will get thrown out with the turkey carcass.  It's Thanksgiving after all, and it is a day for family traditions and, possibly, family brawls.

So I set out, light of heart and long of list, to purchase foodstuffs for our feast.  I hied myself to Fresh Market, one of the snootier grocery stores in town.  I reasoned, probably erroneously, that if it's more expensive, it will taste better.  Actually, I was going to check out their wine selection, which proved to be a major disappointment, but I digress.

It's a neat little store, laid out sort of like a European market, I suppose.  I started out in the produce aisle and I found myself itching to buy things I never cook with just because they looked neat.  I've heard of fingerling potatoes before, so I found myself reaching for them until I remembered I didn't know what to do with them.  Ditto with the parsnips and the kumquats. 

But the one thing that truly fascinated me was the gentleman buying chestnuts.  I had to wrestle down an overwhelming urge to approach him and ask if was going to roast them over the open fire, but somehow (and you know how hard this is for me!!) I restrained myself.  Chestnuts are nasty looking and I am not sure why you would eat them, roasted or otherwise.  I am sure one of my readers has a Great Uncle Martin who cooked them every Thanksgiving in a casserole with okra and broccoli, but you have your Thanksgiving and I'll have mine!!  No chestnuts here please.

Anyway, I wandered through the store and bought very little.  I did get a very nice centerpiece for the table and some lovely haricots verts, but other than that, I didn't even get any wine.  Do you see how snooty I got while I was there though...."haricots verts"??  Come on, this is the Deep South and they're "green beans" and we cook 'em to a pulp with a little side meat and some bacon grease!! 

From Fresh Market, I progressed to Winn Dixie to pick up the Thanksgiving Spam...no just kidding.  Seriously, I didn't see any reason to buy marshmallows at Fresh Market, or any of the other peasant foods on my list, so I headed to WD where folks is folks and haricots verts is green beans.  Also, WD is a fabulous place to watch people.  I was not disappointed.  First of all, it was obviously Seniors Tuesday and I missed the memo, because there was no one under 80 in the store.  No crying children, no runaway toddlers, just octagenarians shuffling around, leaving their carts conveniently in the middle of the aisle so you are forced to wait while they debate the merits of canned shoepeg corn versus canned yellow corn and you know shoepeg is so dear, but it has more fiber and it really gets the bowels going but then you spend more on toilet paper, which really makes it cost even go up, so maybe you should just skip the corn and GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY!!! 

Alright, it wasn't that bad, but there were an awful lot of older folks in there.  I worked my way through the store to the dairy aisle to purchase whipping cream and butter.  I picked up a tub of "Land O' Lakes" whipped butter and the following voices suddenly spoke in my head:

Dang Bubba, that butter is done give out....you shore whipped it good...I ain't seen butter get whipped like that since Mother Nature opened up a can of whupass on the Parkay....Wooooeeeee!!!

You see why I take medication. 

After the voices, I decided I better get the heck out of Dodge before they ordered me to do something really wild like grab a Sharpie and write Green Beans on all the "haricots verts" displays.  So I headed to the check out line with my purchases.  I paid and I was wheeling my buggy out, when a voice wafted across the parking lot.  It was the bagboy with Tourette's, talking violently to his hand as he pushed a buggy across the parking lot.  "One and Two and Five...unh...One and Two and Five...unh..."  I am not sure what his hand had done, but I did not stick around to find out.  I loaded up my groceries and got home quick.

Now I am surrounded by bags and bags of food that I have to start cooking...oh joy oh rapture!!  We'll be eating at 4:00 tomorrow if anyone gets an urge for an haricot vert.....