Every time I walk into a gleaming grocery store, I gawk like someone who has just fallen off the turnip truck and who has eaten nothing but turnips until this point. I trek through my local gigantomarket, stalking mangos and bamboo shoots, Alaskan salmon and rotisserie chicken. Perhaps he'll assume I made it myself. Heh, heh, heh. I push the cart past a vendor, who proffers the hors d'oeuvre du jour on toothpicks.
Lobsters wave from a bubbling tank with claws fettered by blue rubber bands.
A man walks by, his buggy piled high with cartons of ice cream, frozen insurance against a forecasted shortage of butterfat. Still, this is a land of incredible bounty. I remember the awe of a visitor from Poland, who gasped when confronted with the safest, cheapest, most abundant food supply on Earth, all neatly stacked on shelves and refrigerated cases. Baby carrots and colossal olives. Grapefruit, grape jelly and Grape Nuts.