Tara Goes East: Grocery Shopping

If you travel, even a little, you've probably been to your fair share of regional markets. You know, those chains just a *little* out of the norm from what you are used to...

Well here in the South... goodness they have some fun markets. Here are the 4 most common ones around us:

First you have your Piggly Wiggly. These are the sad, underprivileged spawn of the 99 Cent Store and Major Market. You know, its the store that's a little dirty... the produce is so much less than fresh, you always check the sell by date and you just might second guess buying meat there.

Then you have your Food Lion. Not gonna lie, depending on where you are, these can be just larger, slightly nicer P.W.s, but generally these are the vastly better option. They are kinda like your neighborhood Stater Brothers. This is our closest market and luckily ours is one of the nicer ones. The produce is nice, they have a deli counter and their mexican/asian food isle is wonderful! (They even have fresh tomatillos!)

Next up, would be Lowe's. No, no, I'm not talking the hardware store (though annoyingly there is one across the street from it...)... I'm talking your, beautiful, fairly overpriced, offers somewhat local produce, Sprouts/Ralphs type store. This is where Chad and I thought we would be doing most of our shopping. They have a fresh sausage counter. An actual seafood counter (which is odd, I'll get to that). A nice deli, etc. However, they are PRICEY, 20 minutes away and when you really look, they don't have items that you would expect them to have, like fresh almond butter or unsweetened coconut.... so why not just go somewhere closer and less expensive...

Lastly (and bestly) there is Harris Teeter. This place is awesome. Its like a big, less hoity-toity, affordable, Whole Foods/Vons. It's wonderful! The best of all worlds, even having some of the harder to find items... not all of them... but some! However.... the closest one is an hour from us.... of course.

So the winner is: Food Lion!

Supplemented by the local farmers market. And I'm not just talking produce here, I'm talking sea food and local meats. Its amazing. The shrimps and fresh sausages and eggs and boiled peanuts! Its amazing. The farmers market and local docks is actually why there aren't seafood counters at any of the stores. People just go down to the docks or on a random corner out of the back of a pickup or to the farmers market to get fish and shrimps that were pulled out of the water that morning for awesome prices!