Grocery Shopping at Target

About once a month, my husband and I pick a weeknight and head down to South Philly. First, we stop for dinner just off Washington Avenue to get big, steaming bowls of pho. After we’ve stuffed ourselves to the point of excess with broth, noodles and beef, we go to Target for toilet paper, cleaning products and shampoo (all those things that are so expensive when bought piecemeal at our Center City CVS).

Recently, our Target remodeled, adding a big, brightly-lit food section. It goes against everything I embrace when it comes grocery shopping, with aisles of heavily packaged, brand-name foods and refrigerators full of plastic-wrapped produce, trucked or shipped from California, Mexico and beyond. And yet, when we do our loop through Target, I cannot stay away. I weave through those rows, feeling both dirty and totally hypnotized by the ease and appeal of the bright colors and cheap prices.

My husband doesn’t help matters. While he’s happy to go along with me when it comes to local foods, he’s not committed to it in the same way that I am. So he likes to try and tempt me while we’re at Target, to see how far off the path of edible virtue he can convince me to stray. And since I enter something of a fugue state when faced with a section bursting with inexpensive Tazo tea (I used to live just down the street from their corporate offices, so it’s kind of local, right?) and rows of Bear Naked granola, when we finally leave Target, he feels smug and I feel sinful.

We’ll be paying a visit to Target this week, to pick up supplies for Scott’s birthday party. I’m hoping to be able to steer clear of that portion of the store, but its siren song is so hard to resist.