August 15, 2013 - Grocery Shopping

I will likely never live as close to the variety of grocery stores that I have enjoying being near for the past 10 years.  Putnam County doesn't have an Asian grocery or a Mexican grocery.  There is no specialty organic grocery or even a Trader Joe's for that matter.  However, with some planning and awareness, one can usually find nearly any ingredient or a suitable substitute within the city of Greencastle. 
The main places where one can shop for groceries are: Aldi, Kroger, and Wal-mart.   Since I rarely go to Wal-mart, I am mainly going to focus on what is available at Aldi and Kroger.
 Aldi is the place where I go for canned goods, cereal, some produce, and a few things I am going to outline here.  They are owned by the same company as Trader Joe's, so there tends to be some similarity in what they offer and what I have seen at my local TJs when I lived in North Olmsted.  The wine at Aldi's is far better than what you would expect for a discount supermarket, since they are owned by a German company and since TJs is one of the largest sellers of wine nationally, the selection keeps getting better and better.  The cereal at Aldi's is also similar to TJs and Kellogg's offerings.  The salad dressing, especially the light balsamic vinaigrette, is very good as well.  Another item that is the same as TJs is the hummus and the pita chips.  Aldi's also has some really good thin crust specialty pizzas from time to time, like goat cheese and spinach.  Their low calorie fudge bars are as good as the Healthy Choice ones.   Their corn tortillas, when served with some beef, cilantro, onion, and a lime are as good as the taco stands.  The tortillas come in three sizes so you can do tacos, enchiladas, or burritos.  This the the place to but bananas, cilantro, cucumbers, button mushrooms, salad mix, sweet peppers, apples, blueberries and strawberries.   I also get greek yogurt, light sour cream, the light and fit eggs, light and fit yogurt, and their sandwich thins.
At Kroger, I fill in the blanks of stuff that I couldn't collect at Aldi's.  I get baked Tostitos chips, organic milk, some of the easy squeeze fruit packs that my son likes, some meats, and any specialty produce. 
On Saturdays, during the spring to fall, there is a farmer's market on the square.  I got a bunch of spaghetti squash there the other Saturday, green beans, tomatoes, and some jalepenos.  You can also contact some of the local farmers about buying freezer beef, chickens, lamb, or pig.
So... while I don't have the luxury of heading down to the Asian market to get some keffir lime leaves, I do have access to a lot of options when it comes to food.  If I do need some lime leaves or any other specialty stuff, Avon and Indy are only 40 minutes or so away and I just have to plan my trips there to maximize the buying experience.