Grocery Goddess

Ideally you’d be at the Farmer’s Market yourself with no plans, no recipes, no lists--ready to be inspired by whatever is fresh and cheap, but who’s got the fucking time? So I give Teresa a grocery list for Safeway full of arcane instructions and contingency plans.

• Apples—Fujis, but only if cheap. And not from Chile

• Lettuce--romaine or oak leaf, whichever is cheap and looks good

• One bunch of celery—not in a bag. Get the kind with just a little plastic around the bottom and lots of leaves on the top.

• One pork shoulder roast--around five pounds, but only if still on sale, should be $1.99 a pound

• Jack or cheddar cheese--only if on sale and NOT pre-grated, unless the pre-grated is super-cheap.

• Green enchilada sauce--but cancel if you don’t get the cheese.

• Corn tortillas--three dozen if you get the cheese and enchilada sauce; one dozen if not.

• Flour tortillas--be careful not to get the supposedly butter-flavored ones, also NOT low-fat.

• Coriander—not from spice section, get from Mexican section in little envelope. Also, whole seeds, not ground.

• Cumin--same as above

• Olive oil--cancel if going to Trader Joe’s anytime soon, because it’s cheaper there.

• Red wine (Shiraz, second to cheapest bottle you can find.)

• All the usual: eggs, milk, frozen things you need

I know that shopping with Enzo is pretty much like having an unexploded bomb in the cart. An unexploded bomb that says, "Cookie, cookie, cookie." Translation: tick tick tick. He is only going to stay there so long, and it’s almost impossible to comparison shop or change plans or even follow complex instructions. You’ve got to move.

So I get out of court and check my messages:

Hello, this is your family. What’s cheap for lettuce? And how am I supposed to know if it looks good? Call us!

Hello, this is your family again. [Enzo in background, “cookie! banana!”] How can you tell if the apples come from Chile—do they have a sticker or something? Why don’t you answer your stupid phone? And what’s the matter with Chile anyway?

Hello, this is the last time I’m calling you. The pork roast says it’s still on sale, but it’s not $1.99 a pound, it’s $2.50. Do you still want it? Never mind! We’re getting it.

Okay, this is last time. They don’t have whole cumin in the Mexican section. Do you want me to get whole cumin from the regular spice section or ground cumin from the Mexican section? Never mind, you don’t get cumin. Deal with it. Or answer your phone.

It’s us again. Do you think we’re mature enough to get Nutter Butters? They’re on sale. Remember The Debauch?

That last message refers to one time when we ate a hole package of Nutter Butters at a sitting, while playing chess. That was pre-Enzo, of course. We still talk about it fondly as The Nutter Butter Debauch.

I think most of our life together is like this—messages in writing and then on answering machines, a few emails, an occasional debauch. It’s like an epistolary novel of domestic life. And the plot goes like this: muddling through somehow–more of the same–Nutter Butters—answer your phone!—Cookie, cookie!–Check Mate.