All I wanted was a bowl of soup…
The Cash & Carry - if only they'd put the things I don't want out of reach
While other people groan at the thought of having to do a supermarket shopping run, I actually get quite excited; enjoying the prospect that the trip might bring something new, something I’ve never seen or tried.
DANGER ZONE aka the chocolate aisle
Even if I go armed with a shopping list, I inevitably end up with more things than what I bargained for, and I’m not just talking about food. I know I love to shop, shoes especially, but can I actually also be a supermarket shopaholic?
I think there’s even a name for it. It’s called Oniomania, which really doesn’t bode well for me. If even the official name sounds like an addiction to onions, what chance does a happy shopper like me stand on a trip to the cash & carry?
Even the beans are supersized at the cash & carry. We didn't buy that can, or else husband would not be allowed into the bedroom tonight
It all started innocently enough. Over a breakfast of French toast lovingly made by my husband…
This box will go down well with the kids, perhaps their parents too 🙂
Me: Darling, I read a recipe for a Vietnamese style beef broth that I’d like to try out some time.
Him: That sounds nice. What’s in it?
Me: Do you think the butcher will give me some beef bones so I can make the soup base?
Him: I’m sure they’ll have some but our cooking pot won’t be big enough to fit the bones.
Me: Cool. Let’s go buy a new pot then.
Him: You can buy a new pot but let’s go to the Cash & Carry. They have a catering section so I’m sure we’ll find one there. Be cheaper too…
Found these 6 sauce bowls
So a few hours later, we find ourselves pushing an industrial-sized trolley around Bookers, our local cash & carry, on the hunt for an affordable stock pot with which to make my beef soup.
The buttons are making me feel guilty, stop staring at me!
We found our pot (and a damned fine pot it is too!), but as we were at a wholesalers, we also ended up with 40, yes, forty, 4-0, rolls of toilet paper, 2 cartons of McCoy’s salt & vinegar crisps (that’s 72 bags of 50g crisps), 600 cotton buds, 5 litres of laundry detergent and 100 disposable gloves, amongst lots of other things that ended up in our car. I mean, seriously, disposable gloves…? I don’t even use disposable gloves!
THE POT
My moment of insanity
Bearing in mind that we had originally set out to buy a stock pot at the cash & carry because it’d be cheaper, I fell into the classic trap of buying all this other stuff because it’s better value for money in the long run.
Our little hobbit house
At least I can say that my husband is no better than I am – resistance is futile, as the Borg say – he ended up buying another fry pan because they’re like the ones the chefs use to nonchalantly fling and flip food into the air with….as he reads this over my shoulder, he’s insisting that the fry pan (we already have 2) is one that he’s always wanted…
For him to do pretend cheffy things with
Truthfully though, the gloves aside, everything we bought today will actually get used. We do need them, just perhaps not in the quantities that we had to buy them in, especially as we live in a very small and dinky English cottage.
And as for the soup, we got the pot but I’ve yet to make any… too busy trying to find places to stash everything we bought.
Ham and avocado sandwiched in my homemade onion bread
I had to settle for a ham and avocado sandwich made with my own onion bread and a glass of iced pomegranate and elderflower ginger tea (ginger tea recipe here).
Hopefully I’ll learn my lesson next time…
Lots of love
thebigfatnoodle
Our dinky house from the back
(From Wikipedia) Oniomania (from Greek ὤνιος onios “for sale” and μανία mania “insanity”[1]) is the technical term for the compulsive desire to shop, more commonly referred to as compulsive shopping, shopping addiction, shopaholism, compulsive buying or CB. All of these are considered to be either clinical addictions or impulse control disorders, depending on the clinical source. ‘Originally termed oniomania by Kraepelin [1915] and Bleuler [1924], CB has been described for over 100 years’;[2] but though included among other pathological and reactive impulses, CB went largely ignored for the middle quarters of the twentieth century, and even today ‘Compulsive Shopping is a painful yet virtually unknown mental illness’.[3]
We were only meant to buy the one pot
thebigfatnoodle 
Those places can be adventurous and dangerous at the same time. Been there done that in a place like that. Do you really need 150 granola bars, big can of baked beans, 30 pounds of hamburger??? How about that big can of cheese for nachos? Interesting sometimes what you can find in those places and really who uses those things!!! Great post – thanks for sharing.