We have now been in the USA for a few months now (yippee!!) but I promised myself I'd do a couple more grocery store posts and I really do want to showcase the different types of stores, since it's pretty interesting. Needless to say, these days when I go shopping at the local Publix supermarket, I really, really, really (how many really's can I include to show how much I mean it!) appreciate all of the beautiful, plentiful, fresh foods they sell. Anyway, on to what Scott and I called the "blue market," because of its blue sign.
This market was across the street from our apartment building, on the same side of Tverskaya, and quite easy to get to. From the outside (wish I'd taken a photo of the outside, oh well), it looked teeny-tiny, but it was surprisingly large once you got inside. Lots of little rooms with shelves of food that were tough to navigate if you had a stroller. We used this market as our source for Diet Pepsi when our usual, big supermarket ran out, which probably happened once/month. You'd think the bigger market would have no supply issues, but for whatever reason, that was not the case, and this little market almost always had our diet soda. We also went to this market if we ran out of a non-perishable staple, like pasta or rice. This was not, however, our "go-to" for last-minute meat or fresh fruit/vegetables. Another post about that market to come.
 |
| Front and center for the beer. You had to walk past this to get inside to the rest of the food. |
 |
| Milk aisle. This market didn't sell any refrigerated milk at all; everything was in a box and shelf-stable. |
 |
| View into the 2nd room, which contained cookies and cakes. To the left is refrigerated for yogurt, sour cream, cheese and kefir. To the right is the non-refrigerated, boxed milk (see above). |
 |
| Mysterious fridge containing all kinds of salted and cured fish in small packages. |
 |
| Bread selection, none of which tasted very good. Nor did they last longer than a day or two (no preservatives? I guess that's good, but...) |
 |
| "Fresh food" section. Literally this is all they carried, which is essentially the ingredients for people who want to make borsch (potatoes, carrots, beets, onions). Those iceberg lettuce heads were a surprise - usually this market didn't have any lettuce or other salad-type ingredients. |
 |
| jams, canned veggies/fruits and oil. |
 |
| Cereals and pastas. Below was a freezer case with some frozen meals in boxes that I could never figure out. |
