The response to this blog in Northern Kentucky certainly caused quite a bit of conversation over the weekend into this week. So many are chuckling as they too are challenged without our local Kroger.
Today’s post comes from a dear friend who had some thoughts to share. . . enjoy .
From Anisa:
At the risk of being melodramatic (Me? Melodramatic? NEVER!) Kroger has for years taught me a lot about myself. I fancy myself the sort of person who will regularly visit the Farmers’ market who will even trek to Findlay market. I will think ahead to by a cow share and freeze and can from the season so we’re stocked up with a freezer full of stuff we grew in the garden and our very own cow. I read Michael Pollan! I read Jamie Oliver! I read Marion Nestle! I grew up with a small garden and today we have the benefit of a garden patch in the backyard tended lovingly by my mother in law. Who needs Kroger! Yeah right.
Like most images we have of ourselves, this one of me is inaccurate. For one, they don’t sell Diet Coke in bulk at the Farmer’s Market; another problem is that while many parts of a cowshare are the ones I know what to do with (ie steaks, hamburger), our current freezer cow is down to the rather icky parts that I feel like I need Dr G Medical Examiner to evaluate. We do have broccoli for the picking, but like all homegrown broccoli we also have those little green bugs that have to be picked out or soaked out with salt water. What is left of the salad greens is a little too, well, leafy--think oak, not lettuce--in terms of taste and texture. After a long day of work or kids’ activities or whatever, what I often long for is a bag of Kroger frozen broccoli, and perhaps a few pork chops packaged in styrofoam, and maybe some sweet potatoes to bake. And a Diet Coke of course.
Homegrown. Local. Organic. These are lovely concepts and great sounding words. I’m still very much in favor of them. But what also was lovely was listening to James (who worked at our Kroger) do his rendition of Jim Morrison’s songs as he picked up the carts. I miss being able to run in for a salad for dinner or emergency doughnuts on Saturday morning (don’t tell me you never did that). Luckily we have other great options for grocery shopping nearby, but none of those seem natural yet. I hope they soon will.
When we moved here one of my first relationships was with Kroger; the same was true when we got married (and I had to go to our nearby Kroger in Lexington when we got back from our honeymoon to stock Kevin’s man-pantry with a few things besides tomato soup and canned corn) and when we had our first baby (and I realized that the convenience of Kroger diapers were more to my ability level than washing the cotton diapers myself. That was another one of those reality checks.) For a new mom and her extroverted baby, Kroger became a social outlet for him and a place for me to learn how to plan meals for a family. When we moved here from Lexington three years ago, it was only natural to seek out the familiar: frozen broccoli, pork chops, sweet potatoes, Diet Coke. Kroger had me at 10 for 10.
Onward and upward--the new place will be bigger and in some ways better, and at least for a while I won’t take its’ proximity for granted. I’m also be more grateful for the absolute abundance of relatively cheap food by which we are surrounded, and more empathic regarding the struggles of people who live in urban and rural “food deserts” and don’t have even one real grocery store nearby, much less two or three. The only thing left to do is to stock up on Diet Coke.
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