Carrefour (Grocery Store)

Today we made one of journeys to the grocery store.  Carrefour is actually more like a Super Wal-Mart than a grocery store because it sells everything ranging from clothes to electronics to food.  We buy almost everything we need there and are pretty sure that it is the cheapest place to buy most things.  Just like in the U.S., it has store brand items that tend to be cheaper, and when quality does not matter too much, that is what we usually go with.  Though in Spain, Carrefour is actually a French store, so many of their goods have writing in both Spanish and French, and sometimes in English as well.  There is one aisle that we call the American aisle (though is really American/British) because it sells things like cereal, box brownies, jams, and other American-type food.  I even saw some peanut butter there today, but it was pretty expensive and I still have a stash that I brought from home.  

Like I mentioned, I have been cooking dinner, so we have been eating a lot of the same foods that I am used to preparing and cooking.  I don’t mind because I love to cook, and it is good practice.  This week we were buying ingredients for Fajitas, Beef & Broccoli, Fried Fish, Eggplant Parmesan, and all the sides we will eat with them.  It is difficult to compare prices here because most of the produce and meet is priced per kilogram; combined with Euro prices, I am not at all sure whether food is more or less or the same amount of expensive.  Many of the things you can get are the same, but oftentimes there is less variety.  For instance, we can buy peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce, and many other vegetables, but they only have frozen broccoli and I don’t think I have seen any celery and certainly no baby carrots.  We bought frozen pizza today, and their options are extremely different; we settled on a ham and cheese pizza.  Finally one of the weirdest experiences is buying milk here; it usually comes in cardboard cartons, though the one we buy is a plastic liter bottle.  But, get this, it isn’t refrigerated and neither are the eggs.  It takes some getting used to, but it doesn’t seem to affect their quality.  Yay for cultural differences!

look at all Deli meat!!

Jamon and queso pizza

pasta just like in the US