Thursday, February 10

Grocery Store Adventures

There are two main grocery stores in my town, Lidl and Mercadona. Lidl is a giant German discount chain that I believe mainly caters to the large German pensioner population living here. Half the food is labeled in German, which often results in increased confusion while grocery shopping. I love that I can find lots of crazy German beer to subsitute in when I am tired of Alhambra or San Miguel, but I really have a hard time finding cream cheese since there are three types that have the almost the same name, carton, price, etc... I usually go by the picture and buy via trial and error.

While Mercadona is a Spanish company that plays their jingle all the time while you are shopping, which often results in you breaking out humming, "Mercadona, Mercadonaaaaa" while walking down the street, or while doing the dishes. (this girl's version which is pretty bad, but it is better than the hundreds of Mercadona house remixes).

Most of the time, I do shop with my eyes and don't even bother trying to read labels. Now I am trying to get a better understanding of the food available by studying the selections. The main differences I can spot are in meat and cheese. Cheddar selections are one thing I miss here, along with string, pepperjack and marbled cheese. Now I get to choose between Tierrna, semicurado, curado (all appearing to be a mix of goats, sheep and cow's milk) and what appears to be different types of American cheese. And the deli selection, I have no idea where to start. So I take one random sliced meat product each week... and this week it's a type of lomo embucado. Tasty.

Yo Quiero
Just discovered, Lidl's ice cream selection is sad.  Strawberries/Cream, Chocolate/Cream, Cookies/Cream and Caramel/Cream. While all good choices, I would love some Ben & Jerry's Phish Food.

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