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October 7, 2011 - 12:28 AM by Jessica

What I was seeing today

As you may know from my last posting, I’m single-parenting this week, tired from the clock change, and have had two sick kids all week, who have not been in gan since Sunday/Monday. Not that I’m complaining, but it does explain why I haven’t been anywhere fun or interesting, like Brian’s recent jaunt to Moise.

But, I did get to go grocery shopping today, albeit a short trip to Superdeal, the supermarket you head to when you need to get out of there fast, even on an erev erev chag, aka, two days before a holiday weekend. Of course, this particular holiday doesn’t warrant that much eating, so people aren’t shopping as if the world is about to end, as they normally do before extensive holidays. The downside of Superdeal is that it can be expensive on regular items — although that is frequently debated in these parts — and generally expensive because they carry many imported, specialty items that you find yourself purchasing, even though you could live without said item.

He's buying cake, but this is sort of what I'm talking about...

That’s not, however, the subject of this blog posting. What I would like to relate is a certain kind of grocery shopping that happens in these parts, and it’s something that I find kind of charming. During today’s trip, I found myself following two young guys, in full Israel police jumpsuit gear, who were clearly buying their lunch. They wandered around the store, picking up fresh bread, some olives, tomatoes, cucumbers and chummous, although they complained about the lack of cold Nestea iced teas in the fridge. Not only did they put together a nice-looking lunch, I loved that I heard them complain about the prices of tomatoes in this particular supermarket, kvetching that prices are much lower in the shuk. (They are, but these guys were pretty far from Machane Yehuda at the time.)

Police boy buying his lunch

It’s not unusual to see folks wander into a supermarket at lunchtime and pick up those kinds of items, and I don’t mean the usual yogurt. I think I just liked that it was young guys who clearly knew their way around a grocery store, and weren’t just picking up beers. Whether it’s a loaf of lechem achid (standard loaf of subsidized bread) and a tub of chummous bought by some local workmen, or the encouragement to cut up a fresh tomato, as the owner of a local health food store told me to do when I bought a tub of cured tofu for a quick lunch on the go, there’s still a certain appreciation for fresh food that’s prepared by you — sort of. Gotta like that.

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