Greenpoint Avenue Grocery Store Smackdown: Foodtown Vs. Associated

One of our favorite recipes is for Garlic Cilantro Chicken Thighs with Miso, from some food magazine "special issue" I paid $10 for. I've yet to make anything else from the thing. We usually serve it with mashed potatoes (though not anymore because we ate too many mashed potatoes our first year of marriage and one of us got kind of fat*) and green beans.

Shopping List:
Miso
Chicken Stock (I like Swanson's 100% Fat Free Organic because it has no MSG and no corn syrup)
Worcestershire Sauce
Rice Wine Vinegar
Garlic
Chicken Thighs
Russet potatoes
Sour Cream
2% milk
Green Beans
Cilantro

We like to go grocery shopping together because I am a little lazy and like Wesley to chauffeur me around Sunnyside whenever possible. Plus, grocery shopping in Sunnyside is rife with frustration, despair, and dashed hopes, and sometimes you just can't face it alone.

Which leads to the subject of this post. We have two grocery stores in our stretch of Greenpoint Avenue, which for me is defined as proximity to the library at 43rd and Greenpoint. The Foodtown is on the near side, and the Associated on the far side.

FYI- you can't get miso anywhere in Sunnyside. You have to go to Woodside. But a little miso lasts a long time, so it's worth the trip (and stop by Donovan's for a burger while you're there).

Since the Foodtown is closer, we start our journey there, but don't make it past the nasty produce aisle. The produce at the Foodtown is generally old and sometimes even rotting. We quickly turn around and dash up to the Associated, where we find a wide produce aisle, with water misters spritzing the leafy greens. Are those apricots? Maybe I'll make a pie for my next stitch & bitch!

We start reaching for produce. How come the aisle is only wide enough for one shopping cart and nothing else? The aisle over there isn't even wide enough for a person. I'm can't figure out where to park the thing without blocking the flow of traffic. And I'm terrified that I'm going to poke Wesley's eye out with the spike on top of the cart. There are a hundred thousand people in here, and it's 1:30 on a Tuesday.

Okay, we made it to the back, where I realize that the store is really small and doesn't have a lot of food for sale. We skip the trans-fat laden center aisles and head for the dairy aisle, where I discover that they don't carry Stonyfield yogurt, and where Wesley gets caught in the vortex surrounding the bread corner. He's going around and around because everytime he reaches the exit, somebody blocks him with their cart. "I'll save you, my love," I call out. "Save yourself," he returns, "just throw me a block of cheddar cheese." "The white kind?" I say, through tears. He loops around again, blocked again. "I don't like the orange kind. They put dye in it." I look on the shelf. "They don't sell the white kind." But he's gone, forever. In my dream I put my mouth to his ear and whisper, "Meet me at Foodtown."

At Foodtown I bypass the produce aisle altogether. We don't need green beans or cilantro. We can wash down vitamins with Metamucil. I turn left instead of right and find my dear Wesley! He's marveling over the selection of healthy foods like Annie's Organic, Veggie Booty, Uncle Sam's Cereal, and Newman's Own. He puts three boxes of Fig Newman's in the cart, even though we just stocked up at drugstore.com, reasoning that we should encourage this type of behavior.

The aisles at Foodtown are kind of ugly, but they're wide enough for two carts to pass. And they have Stonyfield yogurt, and an olive bar, and lots of white cheddar cheese for Wesley. I get a huge jar of minced garlic and feel like I own a restaurant. In back, the meat selection is pretty extensive, and the Foodtown brand chicken thighs look just as good as the more expense Perdue brand. I grab some frozen edamame from the freezer and help Wesley load the deli meat he's sure to forget he bought into the cart. We don't have a very long wait because there's hardly anybody here. I present my Foodtown club card and get a discount on several items. Bonus- I have enough Greenpoints to get that blender I've been wanting! Hello, daiquiris!

We lug our food to the car and find that we're parked in front of a store called Mother's. It's a greengrocer with a beautiful selection of fruits and vegetables. We load up on potatoes, green beans, cilantro, clementines, bananas, grapes, and Lindt 70% chocolate. They only take cash and we're pleased to pay it.

Winner, by TKO: Foodtown (ably helped by cutman Mother's), Greenpoint and 41st Street.

*don't worry, a new running routine at the LIC YMCA took care of that