My new happy place

I have a serious soft spot for fancy grocery stores. If the only deli options are cold cuts or fried chicken, then I am seriously disappointed. I want salads involving barley, and stuff in the produce department that I’ve never heard of. This is one of the fabulous things about living in Southern California: there is no shortage of fancy pants places to buy organic tomatoes. Just within ten miles of me I have a Henry’s, Sprout’s, Frazier’s Farms, Trader Joe’s and 20 miles away is Whole Foods.

But my new favorite is called Fresh and Easy. They are a small scale grocery store like a Trader Joe’s, but they still stock the necessities even if they’re not super healthy. I can satisfy my Cheez-it addiction while I’m looking for a new snack made out of rice. They have a wonderful produce section, even though it’s small, just because everything is not only super fresh, but also nearly ripe and marked with a fresh by date. It takes all the guess work out of buying fruit you want to eat in hand. You just by a pack that’s set to expire soon, and they’re sure to be perfect.

They carry a fantastic selection of meat, especially seafood, all prepared with a variety of spices and rubs and ready for cooking. Their prepared foods are the best. They have a whole section of Thai and Indian foods that I stocked up on for my month on my own. I ate so much curry that even my sweat was spicy. It was incredible. They have a great selection in their bakery with individually portioned muffins for a family like ours that never finishes a dozen before they go bad, and they have the most incredible frozen cakes. A white cake with mango frosting, and a chocolate cake with banana filling and chocolate ganache frosting. I had those on my month alone too, and in both cases I had to force myself to throw them away before I ate the whole thing.

I’m also a serious sucker for good graphic design, and this place has it. All the signs are so cool with their bright colors and sans serif fonts.

My friend Ali is a major coupon user. I remember back in the day she used to study the grocery store circulars and plan out a big grocery shopping route – one place for hamburger, another had a better price on grapes, another still for milk – and I thought she was insane. Now I do the same thing, except it’s certainly not saving me any money. Now I do the bulk of my shopping at a standard store, and then hop from fancy store to fancy store looking for the very best hippy dippy food, along with the occasional chocolate cake.