The Grocery Store Trap!

I was talking to a friend the other day and she was telling us a story about how she and her boyfriend were cooking dinner and wanted to make chicken parmesan. He went to the store while she was at work and when she arrived at home, they started cooking. By the time she finished with her story, they had only eaten breaded chicken and noodles. Her boyfriend forgot to buy the parmesan and the tomato sauce….can’t have chicken parmesan without those two critical ingrediants! She said he had gotten caught up in the store and bought a bunch of other stuff that they really didn’t need and forgot to buy the parmesan and sauce. I thought her story rang so true for some many of us…people DO forget to buy specific items when they are grocery shopping. I totally agreed with her and thought to discuss this topic. We all do it (including myself) so I figured everyone could relate to this one.

In my opinion there are two times when you should never go shopping: when you are hungry and when you have time on your hands. When you are hungry it’s never a good idea because everything in the store looks good and I mean EVERYTHING! Things you wouldn’t normally buy or eat look appetizing and you get distracted from the items you are supposed to buy for your meal(s). When you have extra time on your hands there’s a tendency walk around the store with no kind of urgency at all...you end up "window shopping". You see things you want to try and then find yourself at risk for being a sucker to the marketing geniuses who use the words like ”New”, “Improved”, or “For a Limited Time only”. The word NEW always gets you sooner or later. I, myself have fallen victim to this IMPULSE BUYING! I don’t know why, but there is something in us that causes us to always have to be the first to try something. Even if your intention is to only spend $50 when you go grocery shopping, you find yourself spending twice as much when you get caught up in these traps. It’s all about advertising anyway, right? They word things and display them in ways to get you interested. The same way when you look at a menu… if it sounds good (from reading the entrée descriptions) you are more likely to order it. Don’t go to the grocery store hungry or with extra time on your hands. You’ll mess up every time!

With one simple solution we can fix this problem of forgetting key grocery items, over spending, and buying food that isn’t good for us. Here are my suggestions:

(1) Just like taking inventory at work, take an inventory at home find out what you actually need and make a list based on that. Also, you can take an inventory of your recipe if you are using one. By making a list and being focused, you can be in and out of the store in no time.

(2) Pick a time of day when you know you shouldn’t be hungry to shop. If you aren’t hungry, you probably won’t get as distracted by the cookie isle…I’m just saying…

(3) Organize your list from the back of the store to the front. What I mean by this is, by shopping at the back of the store first and making your way forward, you won’t need to go back after you get to front of the store. This only works if you stick to your list! Make sure you go the store you usually go to for this to apply. All grocery stores aren’t set up the same way. All you need to do take your recipe or inventory and arrange it based on your store of choice and you can be done shopping quickly. You should never have to be in a store for two hours shopping for food.

Let me give you an example. A few blogs ago, I showed you how to make salmon croquettes. The following items are in the salmon croquette recipe:

Salmon, bread crumbs, celery, mayo, lemon for lemon juice, onion.

For the grocery store where I shop, my list would look like the following:

Bread crumbs

Mayo

Salmon

Lemons, celery, onions

My bread crumbs are in the middle back part of the store so I’ll pick that up first. Then, mayo-- that’s on the way to pick up the salmon. The rest are veggies so they are in the produce section closer to the front. After a few quick stops, I have everything I need for this recipe. If you are doing an entire meal, this same process would work too just be sure to group items that are in the same location together on the list so you eliminate that back and forth shopping that increases the chance for distraction.

These tips can make it an in and out shopping experience and you’ll arrive home with EVERYTHING you NEED and hopefully very little of what you don’t need.

From Chef Randal…this is how you can add a touch of gourmet to your everyday.