Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, which means we need food for our annual Thanksgiving dinner for everyone who can’t make it home for the holidays. This morning, upon awaking to a fridge containing little more than wine, cheese, a leftover sausage, some juice, and country crock, (I had no idea we were so low!), we knew we needed to go to the grocery store.
There are several options that we’ve tried, each at multiple stages of our city life. There was the Trader Joe’s in Union Square, before we knew better, where you had to get in line as soon as you walked in the door. The line wound all the way around the store, and it was better to just pick up a basket and prod along while waiting to check out. There was also the long trek back on the subway.
There are much closer grocery stores in our neighborhood, the Pioneer, small enough to sell alcohol, small enough, not to really go there for anything else. There is the “fancy” Key Foods almost a mile away that caters to the more gentrified Prospect Heights, the Associated, probably the best balance between Pioneer and Key, better stocked and larger than both, but still tiny. They all have those checkout conveyor belts from the 1970s. They never have a line, but are all so pricey!
Lately, we’ve begun to use a delivery service, Fresh Direct. It seemed expensive at first, but is actually much cheaper, higher quality, and has more selection than the local three.
No matter what we do, it seems we’ve always had to buy our groceries from three separate places. We used to get the generals from Stop and Shop, the suburban sprawling mecca in our old neighborhood. It was worth putting up with crazy lines, for cheap prices and that processed dream food you just can’t buy at Trader Joe’s, Eggo waffles, ReddiWhip, etc. We still bought our beer from Rite Aid, which is still the cheapest, and our meat from Meat Palace Supreme, one of the many butchers on Church Avenue.
This is where we decided to head tonight. Last year, with our Stop and Shop cards, we got our Turkey for a mere $10! With our wire shoping basket in tow, we boareded the B49 bus (late as usual) and headed the mile and a half to our old neighborhood. We strategically went in the early evening, to miss the Sunday night crunch. To miss the really huge crowds, you should either go early morning to avoid the church crowd, though crowd of church goers could vary by neighborhood. You could also go in the early evening in hopes that people are eating and not shopping.
There were only three baskets available when going in, two had busted wheels. We made it through relatively quickly, tag teaming the aisles and strategically planning an extensive list ahead of time. Armed with discount cards and the sense that we weren’t coming back anytime soon, we stocked up on other cleaning products and cat food. The catfood was 1/2 the price of Associated, not on sale!
Towards the end, we checked out using our seven grocery bags, and getting $.05 off for each, this year we set a new record, getting a turkey for $6.99. It was one of about seven left in the frozen bin. We loaded down our little cart, which already steers a little to the left. It didn’t all fit, so Jesse had to carry a bag of groceries on one shoulder, a bag with our turkey in it on the other. Rather than take the bus, we decided to take the subway and then the shuttle back to Franklin Avenue.
We carefully chose the less crowded path along the south side of Church Avenue, past the old Dutch Reform graveyard, past the street we used to live, past the Kennedy’s, the Brooklyn Pizza and Brooklyn Pizza II further down, past the bodega where I used to buy Presidente Beer, and then with little time to get nostalgic, we arrived at the Church Avenue subway.
We had to get the attendant to open the emergency gate, just as we heard our train arriving below. We ran down the stairs, as fast as you could carrying our load. I pulled Jesse, nearly pulling him and the load down the stairs with me, he was more than a little peeved. We caught the train, getting on the last car, along with the trumpet guy, a Q train regular. He pulls his single amp with musical accompaniment and plays all the classics. Tonight he was playing “What a Wonderful World”. I gave him a dollar as we stood up to exit at Prospect Park, poised to run down the platform to catch the shuttle.
I jumped off with the front of the basket, Jesse pushed the basket forward, but it somehow was caught on something, so he fell out of the car with the cart, face first. After dusting him off and grabbing the turkey bag, we tipped the cart back up and pushed it up the platform towards the shuttle, which was leaving. We wouldn’t have made it anyway. When the next shuttle finally arrived, we took it one stop to the Botanic Garden, getting out and carrying the cart up the first flight of stairs, then through the station, then through the gate causing the alarm to go off. That’s ok, though, people do it all the time. Then up the last flight of stairs to the street, where we pushed down Eastern Parkway, always veering slightly to the left.
We finally arrived home everything in tact, luckily we live on the ground floor.

