A couple of days after we arrived, our cupboards were bare. I mean that as literally as I can: there was half a loaf of overpriced bread (is it possible to buy a loaf of bread here for less than $3?), a bit of jam, and half a carton of milk there.
We’d been struggling in vain to find a decent supermarket, and after wading through a wealth of blatant astroturfing and some scarily hostile posts on review sites, it became apparent that whilst a couple of supermarkets are available to us, FreshDirect online delivery is la méthode de choix for savvy Manhattanites.
Consultation with some mothers, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends, and $200 of frantic clicking later, we had everything from potatoes, spaghetti and salad to foil, detergent and the beginnings of a spice rack winging its way to us the very next day.
What I hadn’t realised, however, was that it’s not just the clothes and the people that are bigger in the USA. In fact, there’s probably a very good reason they are – the food is gigantic. I realise that doesn’t come across too well in the image above, so I took another one; with a slightly modern take on the old cop movie staple of photographing footprints with a Coke can in the shot (so the hero can work out the relative size later.)
Of course, no-one in Manhattan actually stays in, or cooks, anyway. But there’s nothing like having a cupboard that smells of cantaloupe melons to come home to.
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