Grocery Questing

Oh, the joys of French grocery shopping.

As you can't see me throw my head back to heavens in frustration as you read the first line of this entry, I'll have you know it was written in a facetious tone. Being the gastronomical capitol of the world, you would think grocery would be fabulous. And it can be, if you're looking for something such as prepared soups (endless flavors, all delicious) or risottos (I personally love the pumpkin-gorgonzola). However, it you're looking for something like floss, then grocery shopping, a typically banal chore, can in Paris prove to be difficult, fascinating, and hilarious.

After we first arrived at the apartment some five weeks ago, I asked Sophie, the agent showing us around our new temporary home, to point me in the direction of the nearest grocery store. She confidently directed me to the Monoprix on the Rue de Rennes. As it turns out, there are four other grocery stores that are far nearer than this particular Monoprix (a good 15 minutes' walk away) but it would take me nearly three weeks to discover this.

On our first day  here, as Anthony took off on the metro to find his new work office, I set off to find the necessities--toothpaste, laundry detergent, dish soap...and trash bags. Bin Liners. Garbage sacks. Whatever you want to call them, they're conspicuously absent from this subterranean, expensive, miniature Target-like grocery store they call Monoprix. Roughly translated, the name implies one-stop shopping, which it clearly is not as there is not a trash bag in sight.

They do, however, carry a dozen types of cat litter, about eighteen million flavors of yogurt (which I both understand and fully support, as French yogurt is supernaturally delicious---why can't American yogurt taste as magical?), men's underpants in assorted designs and colors, and an assortment of Monsieur Propre products---Monsieur Propre being, of course, the French brother to Mr. Clean. But, *le sigh*, no sacs poubelles. 

As yet undeterred, I headed to the Franprix that's just two blocks from our apartment. No trash bags there, either. But I did pick up some lactose-free milk. Accidentally. While I'm glad there are options for those poor, undoubtedly ostracized lactose intolerant Parisians, I was just looking for plain ol' low fat milk. I thought the label on the bottle ended at demi ecrimee, but I somehow missed the "easy to digest" part. Keeping an open mind, I tried said lactose free milk, but it tasted how I would imagine goat's milk mixed with infant formula would taste. The flavor might be appealing to some, but it's not my cup of tea. Actually, it makes my cup of tea taste like animal pee, so, not knowing any lactose intolerant Paris-dwellers, I ended up throwing it out.

If I lost you in the Great Grocery Saga, I still have no trash bags. It would be three long days before I found trash bags. Luckily, I randomly stuffed a few bags from home in the front pocket of my suitcase as we were leaving our apartment in Austin, so we were able to contain our garbage in the interim between our arrival and my trash bag discovery. Some angel must have been whispering in my ear as I packed. Archangel Poubelle.

I finally found trash bags (cue the "Hallelujah" chorus) at a Carrefour (meaning intersection) in the St. Germain de Pres neighborhood. This grocery store holds untold wonders, among them: floss (absent in the nearest FIVE grocery stores, which makes me question French dental hygiene), cotton balls, peanut butter (the primary staple in Anthony's diet), sweet potatoes (imported from the U.S. and listed alongside mangoes under "exotic produce" at the print-your-own-label scales), oatmeal, and even disinfectant wipes! But it's a mile away, which may seem close, but is actually quite far when  you're walking in the cold November rain (cue Axel) dragging a wheeled shopping tote behind you. But still--trash bags!!

And milk. Delicious 1.5% milk! By the way, if there are any chiennes maigres out there reading this who drink exclusively skim milk, you're out of luck in France. It simply does not exist. 1.5% is as low as it goes in France, which I think is just great! If you ask me, dairy products without fat are both suspicious and pointless. I believe diet butter is a contradiction in terms. Just read the ingredient list. No such nonsense in France, though!

No, the French don't mess around when it comes to the flavor of food. Only when it comes to finding it. Please allow me pause to say that I have quite happily lived in a small handful of European cities and never had so much trouble finding basic items, and thus don't believe I'm unreasonably fussy. I just believe the French have a talent for making la vie quotidienne unnecessarily complicated.

Anyhow, in the third week of our epic grocery journey, Anthony and I found that there is a non-crowded, well-stocked G20 grocery store just one block up the street from us. Although the aisles are as tightly packed as all the other markets in Paris, the pace inside is decidedly slower, and thus it is much easier to stand in the aisle and translate labels until you're sure Gerble is a brand of fortified cookies and not gerbil food. It's wonderful! And it has trash bags. But no floss, peanut butter, or regular milk.

The Monoprix just one block up from us has cotton balls, but no laundry detergent or peanut butter. The Carrefour Express on the corner has regular milk and sandwich bread, but, being a space-limited "express" store, little else. So now, five weeks in, I have mastered my grocery run. So when Anthony and I returned from Vienna to empty cabinets, I began at the G20 where I got cleaning supplies and cereal, moved on to the close Monoprix where I bought cotton balls and coffee, then to the Carrefour Express for four 1-liter bottles of milk (roughly a gallon, but a liter is as large as they come here, and I've since learned I about 2/3rds a liter a day!), then briefly back home to offload everything, then back out to the St. Germain de Pres Carrefour for floss and peanut butter. Whew!

By the end of the trip, I feel zero guilt about indulging in a few squares of incredible (store brand!) chocolate, international award-winning 4-euro wine, fresh-baked French bread, or aged artisinal cheese...all of which make the expatriated hero's journey of Parisian grocery shopping so, so worth it. And in case you were worried, we now are very happily flossing our teeth and putting our garbage in lined bins :)