Shabbos Shopping

For me, Shabbos shopping starts Tuesday night, when our vegetable box (aka THE BOX) gets delivered.  Similar to a CSA box in the US (and a big shout-out to my former CSA buddies over the years--Rhona, Denise and Anne), this box gives you no choice about what you get inside.  The twist with this box is that although it's not organic, when I signed up for a subscription, a low-income family got a subscription for half-price.

This week's box had green grapes, peaches, red apples, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, eggplant, carrot, cucumbers, potatoes and onions.  Including delivery it's the equivalent of $19/week.  This is the base for our Shabbos cooking.  Or, as Penina says, it's like we're on a cooking show and we make whatever we can with what's in THE BOX.  (If anyone has ideas for what to do with tons of cucumbers aside from eating them or making cucumber salad/quick pickles, please let me know.  Each week we get about 11 cucumbers and it's just waaay too much for us).

But delicious as my cucumber salad and roasted vegetables are, there's more that needs to be purchased in order to make our Shabbos meals, and that means heading out to one of the local supermarkets.  The pre-Shabbos throngs start on Wednesday afternoon/evening and it gets busier and busier, until Friday when all supermarkets are jam-packed.  Here is a typical Thursday picture:

My guess is that this scene shows one family returning the last shopping cart and another family (who has been waiting) clarifying whether or not they need to give the first family the 5 shekel deposit or not.

So what to do when I arrive "too late" to get a cart and it looks like this:

Well, first off, it's pretty easy to know when you're about to be in trouble at the supermarket.  If you're going shopping Thursday night, you're up the creek.  If you're going shopping Thursday afternoon, then you are also likely to have a cart-less shopping experience.  In these cases, I use my superpowers, aka I make Penina or Ilana come with me and we use the sturdiest cloth shopping bags we own and have a bag on each shoulder.  Since we started getting THE BOX, it's easier to do this, because I'll tell you that shlepping a 2 kilo bag of potatoes on your shoulder along with all your other Shabbos food gets painful after an aisle or two.....

The crowd scene Thursday morning at 11!!! 

I made my life easier a few months ago by getting a store credit card for the supermarket I go to most often.  As a big fan of self-checkout, it was worth the pain of spending an entire hour in the store filling out forms in Hebrew to get the credit card, just to bypass the checkout lines.

On Thursdays and Fridays, though, there is a line even at self-checkout.....(Although I really like how you can see the different types of people who live in my city.  Checking out the headcoverings of the various men and women always helps pass the time in line!)

As does watching the sheer number of children shopping without an adult.  This especially amazes me when it's late at night and I'm struggling to make it through my shopping trip with eyes open, and then I see a kid who looks about 11 with a shopping cart filled to the brim.   Here you see three young girls figuring out the self-checkout.  I especially like the one on the right who climbed up for a better view!  (And I watched them until they left [I was still in line] and they were there on their own).

Overall, it's certainly different than running into Stop & Shop an hour before Shabbos for a couple of last-minute things (starting Friday afternoon, all stores close here), BUT it's truly amazing to be in a place where everyone is on the same schedule, and we're all working on making the most beautiful Shabbos we can!

Good Shabbos, everyone!