Avoiding Supermarkets

Ryan and I were talking about supermarkets the other day in the car as we did our usual trip out to the King Soopers grocery store. I was telling him about Wegmans, the supermarket chain I experienced in Ithaca, New York with its enormous fresh foods section, 3 aisles of international selections, and an olive bar. However, even better than Wegmans was living in Providence, Rhode Island with its mini-markets of every ethnic background you could imagine. When Ryan told me that Pueblo actually has both Latin American and Asian mini-markets, we decided to try mixing up our grocery shopping a bit.

First was the Mexican market where we acquired Maseca for our tortillas, chipotle and jalapeno peppers, and some dirt cheap pasta. Then to King Soopers for our staples: bread, yogurt, cheese, coffee, etc., and then to the Asian Market on the other side of town, oddly placed next to a Planned Parenthood.

There we wandered slowly down the couple of aisles, wondering what all of the unfamiliar small jars and packets really contained. I decided to get the ingredients for Miso Soup, and Ryan went to the store clerk to ask if they had any fresh fish. Did they ever. The woman who was running the store went into the back room and returned with two bins, one containing still lethargically crawling blue crabs, the other with shrimp and whole sea bass. She encouraged us to buy the bass, explained how to scale the fish and remove the innards and then proposed a variety of methods for cooking it.

We returned home excited for a food adventure for dinner. Ryan scaled the fish while I prepared a garlic butter sauce as a marinade. We decided on garlic and scallion mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus to accompany our meal, and so the water was put on to boil while I diced the vegetables in preparation.

I'm not about to say that we'll be running back to get another sea bass tomorrow. What I want to communicate with this story is that it's important to try new things. It's easy to get stuck in a food pattern, making the same things over and over, and a lot of that is because we insist on going to the same boring mega-grocery stores over and over. You forget that there are other foods that you like that you don't make, other combinations of ingredients you could prepare that you don't try out. In the end, our mashed potatoes were superb, our asparagus enchanting, but we decided that the more standard tuna and salmon are probably more popular than sea bass for a reason.

However, no regrets. Avoiding buying everything at the supermarket means taking chances on ingredients with labels you can't read, unmarked bizarre looking vegetables, and fish with their heads and scales still attached, and then enjoying the cooking adventure while it's happening.

I'll give you that mashed potato recipe though. : )

Garlic and Scallion Mashed Potatoes
(Makes enough for 4-5 servings)

4 medium sized baking potatoes, quartered, skins on

water for boiling

2 tbsps butter, and more to taste
1/2 cup warm milk
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 scallions minced

Place potatoes in enough water so that they are fully submerged. Boil until a fork stuck in them will go through easily. In a frying pan, melt the butter and fry the garlic for 2 minutes. When potatoes are done, drain the water, add the milk, butter and garlic, and mash until the consistency you desire. Add the scallions and enjoy!