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Lately I’ve been feeling dis-inclined to go to the supermarket. Blame it on the fact that I’ve just moved, and have about a billion other chores to take care of, or on the fact that the last few times I’ve grocery shopped, the fruit and veggie selection at my nearby Safeway has looked significantly less than perfectly fresh. (Wrinkled red peppers at $1.99 each? Decidedly not enticing.) Then again, you could also just plain chalk it up to the fact that the weather’s suffocatingly hot, my car air-conditioning only likes to function when it’s below 90°F (fat lot of good that does when it’s already nearing the mid-90s at 9 am in the morning), and I’m feeling downright lethargic. Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m being a sloth. And I won’t apologize for it. Now in general, I’m a big advocate of heading off to the market as frequently as possible. Most days, I love wandering around farmer’s markets, buying little bits of all the delectable fruits and veggies that are in season – heck, I can usually even find joy pushing that shopping cart around under the bright fluorescent lights of a chain-store supermarket. But when I’m in one of these lazy phases, no amount of idealism is going to provide sufficient motivation for me to get off my lazy butt. Just one big problem, though: I hate eating bad food. And ordering take-out every night just isn’t an option for me – it’s either too expensive, or too unhealthy. So what’s a girl with picky tastebuds and nothing in the fridge to do about cooking up an acceptable meal? It’s easy to cook good food when you’ve got fresh ingredients, but to get fresh ingredients, you’ve got to go shopping. With a strategically stocked kitchen, however – plus a smattering of imagination and a willingness to forget about what the gourmet snobs say makes proper cooking – it is possible to eat well while shopping little. A brief guide to the lazy shopper’s essentials …
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