When the Dude and I got married, one of our favorite things to do was grocery shopping. We had been living on independently for a while, and had sort of managed homes with flatmates etc., but it just isn’t the same as your own home I guess.
So come Saturday, we would set out to the nearest Food Bazaar and stroll around with our cart, and fill it with the essentials for the week. And some non-essentials. Mostly in a 20:80 ratio. But without fail, we would return with bags full of stuff that made us happy and put big smiles on our faces.
We thought this was a phase, you know, the whole ‘playing house’ thing, which would eventually become an annoying chore – just like laundry and dusting and cleaning up after dinner (true story). But, surprise! 14 years this year, and this, is still a ritual.
The stores have changed – from Food Bazaar to Spar, to Hyper City, we moved to Star Bazaar and Pune and back to Hyper City in Hyderabad, before it got changed to Big Bazaar. Now, we have a new place – Star Hyper market, which has established itself as our bi-monthly mecca for home supplies, and most importantly – deals. Because when you enter this store, for the entire length of the wall to your right – from when you enter, until you reach the vegetables, you find deals, and really good ones.
So not unlike before, we spend a good part of our stroll next to this wall, peeking at everything available at a marked down price, and wondering if we need it. If we do, we pick it up. If we don’t we sigh and let it be. And when in doubt, we pick it up anyway.
Given the items in this rack – these days we are always well stocked with dried cranberries, apricots, superfoods like seeds and mixes, unsweetened peanut butter, organic jaggery, millets – all items that we might have overlooked in general, but now that they fit the pocket (and our belief that look! Healthy stuff!), they find a place at home. Then ofcourse there are the chips and fries, and chocolates (oh, the deals on chocolates!), soan papdi, mysore pak (you get the drift) – stuff that we would have picked anyway, but now do, just in bulk, because, come on, why not?
At the end , after billing, we stand for a couple of minutes, and look through the list, feeling so smug, so smart, at having gotten all these ‘deals’. And then we push our heavy cart, over flowing with stuff (the ratio of essentials to non-essentials still the same) to our cart, with big smiles, and a bigger credit card bill. But trust me, the joy is real.
By the way Rice Kodubale is this crazy tasty snack, I think from Karnataka, that we have been picking large party packs of every week – only, there is no party. But it is at 50% off. So.
