You bet.

There’s a rhythm to shopping, cooking and eating, especially for a guy used to cooking every day. I kept lists of what’s on hand and shopped by myself every Saturday at the farmers market. So I just knew what was going on and what I needed and what I could get ready for dinner as a matter of course.

That’s all changed. Perhaps it will get back to normal, perhaps it won’t. One thing sure; it ain’t there yet. We mostly either eat out or throw something on the grill to this point.

Of course, being able to walk out and throw something on the grill was one of the attractions drawing us to our new home.

But some kind of routine may be close. All of our kitchen and dining stuff is out of boxes and in cupboards. I shopped at a tiny farmers market nearby last Wednesday, plan to do that again and then go to the bigger one downtown Reno on Saturday.

Meanwhile, we picked up a Edible Reno-Tahoe magazine at Rosie’s Cafe in Tahoe City, where we went to unwind last week. I perused it last night and made a list. We need to get out and about and see what’s happening on the culinary scene.

Garden Shop Nursery
Napa Sonoma Grocery
Cheese Board
Great Basin Coop
Nothing to it Culinary Center
Whole Food Market

We have a tree in our back yard that seriously needs attention. Its totally in our face when we step out onto the terrace. First stop Garden Shop Nursery. Not exactly culinary, but closest to our house on our way to the culinary delights. They couldn’t help with our tree, but knew who could.

The Napa Sonoma Grocery Company. How can one not check out a place with a name like that? Turns out, it has a rather split personality. Wine shop with several hundred bottles to choose from; gourmet canned and jarred foodstuffs; cafe with a full bar. Not exactly groceries, but a nice find. No doubt we’ll be back for lunch or dinner. I bought a bag of seasoned pretzels.

The Cheese Board is on up Arlington Street. In this trip, we are discovering a very nice residential side of Reno with shops interspersed. We have only known the Reno of the gritty downtown casinos and the sprawling suburban developments. Here, in the southwest arc between Virginia Street and I-80 is an area with a small town feeling. We walked into The Cheese Board expecting a cheese shop. Oops. Its a restaurant. Again, its very nice and we might be back for lunch sometime, but we’re not making great headway on the groceries front.

The Great Basin Food Coop is about six blocks away and we know we’ll find good food there. Son Eric gave us a membership here and we’ve visited with Son Brian, but this is our first time with actual bags to take actual groceries home. Some potatoes, cheese, and milk and stuff to make yogurt. I can’t bring myself to buy a tomato anywhere but a farmers market. Great Basin presents a nice shopping environment, but I was not yet in a frame of mind to think about what goes together to make dinner. Discombobulated.

So we drive south to Nothing to it Culinary Center. This funky place is at the very end of a dinky little street off S. Virginia described as “one block north of Whole Food.” Edible Reno-Tahoe says, “This outstanding facility features hands-on and demonstration classes taught by master chefs. You’ll also find a gourmet Napa Valley inspired deli, as well as a fabulous kitchen store for all your cooking needs.” The kitchen store reflects wit and whimsey of the buyer and any cook would delight in anything in there. Fortunately for us, we have almost everything; this was proven conclusively after the packing and unpacking we’ve just gone through. Lunch was going on and it was lunchtime, so we chose to do it there on their shady porch. Good choice.

 

We have been surprised again and again by the bigger-than-a-football-field sized stores in Reno — Home Depot, Best Buy, Ross, Raley’s, even CVS. So why were we shocked at this vast Whole Foods? We came for fish and creme fraiche, but also picked up coffee, kosher salt, Newman’s Own pretzels, and some lettuce and mushrooms for an upcoming steak salad. A woman customer at the fish counter was raving about the Halibut Burgers, so we got one of those and a Salmon Burger for dinner. It was disappointing that most of their fish was from the east coast.

What a great trip. We saw parts of our new city that we had never before seen, found new places to shop and eat and scored dinner. And now I’m starting to re-focus on eats, as home organization becomes an activity rather than a necessity. I even put beans on to soak this morning.