Fairway Note:
Mallomars?
2 March 2018
An important part of my new régime is to do what my friend, Fossil Darling, calls a “big shop” every Monday. For several weeks now, I have been able to manage with only the one Monday visit to Fairway. I buy everything I can think that we might need, without a list, and it works.
But I had the vapors on Monday, and something prevented me from going on Tuesday, again on Wednesday, and finally yesterday. I thought I’d better go today, despite the atrocious weather, because we warned of a big storm. We could manage until Monday, but there would be a bit of doing without. Much as I hated the prospect of shelf-stripping throngs in the narrow aisles of Fairway, I hated the prospect of I-told-you-so more. Besides, I needed a few things from Schaller & Weber. So I donned street clothes (which is what I really didn’t want to do), and ventured forth.
Although it was gusty as well as wet, it certainly wasn’t stormy, and I began to think that the rest of the neighborhood had got that message ahead of me, because Fairway was unusually empty. I usually head downstairs first, and then peruse the produce at the end, but when I came upstairs, I realized that I’d forgotten something — tomato pulp — and when I came upstairs and got in the checkout line, it was something else that came to mind — ground beef — and I had to make a third visit to the netherworld. The temptation to blow off these afterthoughts was great, but another part of my régime is to resist blowoffs.
When all my shopping had been rung up, the total came to about $125, which is about normal — I’d bought veal for another go at Mme St Ange’s blanquette de veau. The checkout clerk told me that delivery, for which Fairway charges shoppers living in the immediate vicinity $7.95, would be free if I rang up five dollars more. So, to save the $2.95, I grabbed a box of Mallomars from a nearby stack. I wonder what will become of them.