Shopping, cooking and eating. It's simple right?

Not necessarily. The last time I was in France I stayed with a host family, so my host mom did all of the shopping and cooking. After living here for three weeks on my own I am even more grateful for all of the great meals she made and the time she took to "faire des courses."

In Gainesville, I enjoyed grocery shopping. I was familiar with my local supermarkets and could move easily up and down the aisles. Not so here. To go grocery shopping means "faire des courses." "Course" means a few things, but in general it means running, racing, etc. I don't think it's a coincidence that this word is used to describe grocery shopping because that's really what it is over here-- a race to see who can grab items off the shelves and make it to the cash register the fastest.

Grocery shopping has been the worst at this huge supermarket over here called Auchan. My friends from study abroad know how much I hate Carrefour (France's version of Walmart on steroids), but compared to Auchan, Carrefour is heaven. As good as my French is, it's definitely not perfect, so for me, at least now at the beginning, it takes a little while to get my bearings in a grocery store (especially one as massive as Auchan) and make sure I'm picking up food that I'll enjoy. Having a mom almost run me over with her grocery cart because I'm spending a little more time looking over the 20 varieties of cow's milk available does not make my shopping experience very "tranquille."

Adding to the stress, when you buy groceries over here, the customer has to bring bags and bag the groceries him/herself. I have no problem bringing bags (I hate all that plastic anyway), but when you've bought a good amount of groceries and the cashier is scanning the items at rapid fire speed, throwing them to you to quickly bag so that you can pay and the next customer can start playing catch, this does not help make grocery shopping a less stressful experience either. Also, at least at some supermarkets here, you have to weigh fruits and vegetables and print out a barcode before you go to the cash register. Be grateful in the U.S. when you can just go up with a bag of apples and have the cashier weigh it for you, because it's not fun when you've forgotten and have to run across the store just to weigh two apples.

So, when I go grocery shopping you may wonder what I buy and what I make for myself. Even though France is a Western country, there are still a lot of different products here that we don't have in the U.S., so in my first few weeks I've found myself in the middle of a chaotic supermarket staring at the aisles and having no idea what to buy to cook for myself. After two such trips, I've learned to plan out or at least have an idea of what I want to eat before I go so I don't waste time (or money) at the store. One habit I've gotten into is picking up one new cheese every week to eat with dinner. So far I've had a goat cheese, cow's cheese and an ewe's cheese. Making them last the week has been the most difficult part. Mmmmm delicious.

So, meat over here is super expensive and at least when it comes to eating at home, most of my meals are probably going to be more vegetarian. I have no problem with this, I love vegetarian cuisine (though it's harder here where black beans don't seem to exist, but that's another story.) Anyway, after a much more successful grocery trip at the calmer supermarket Super U, I picked up a whole bunch of veggies last Saturday and made a delicious ratatouille Monday night.

While I'm over here and the ingredients are more easily available, I'll be trying my hand at more French dishes. I had to cut the quantity for this recipe in half and still ended up with too much eggplant, so I cut up the rest with tomatoes for pasta last night. As I get more used to how running the races works here, I'm enjoying cooking and trying new things. And if I can cook well on these "plaques éléctriques" found in most of the apartments here, I will indeed consider myself a chef.