"But we just went grocery shopping!"

If you live in the suburbs and need to go food-shopping, chances are you get in your car, drive to the supermarket, and buy a few days' worth of groceries. It's also increasingly common for people to join a members-only "warehouse club" and buy food in bulk. But in NYC... let's just say that there is a reason why you probably have a 10 lb bag of chicken wings in your freezer and I don't.

There are three sources for 98% of our grocery needs in Manhattan, and they are all within six hundred feet of our door. Whole Foods is where we buy chicken (naturally raised, air-chilled chicken breasts), eggs (Omega-3 enriched), and virtually all our other groceries. The Met is a NYC-based supermarket chain that has a branch around the corner. On days when I really, really have to have cilantro and Whole Foods doesn't have any, I'll go to the Met. Finally, the local Korean-owned deli, SoHo Garden, is where we get kimchi and dried seaweed in a pinch.

There are no warehouse clubs in our area; thus, no 10 lb bags of wings.

Not surprisingly, having three grocery stores within walking distance has changed the way we shop for groceries. For example, we usually only buy enough groceries to last us a day or two. While this was initially a weird and wasteful practice to me, the wife tells me that this is what people in France do all the time. French people will buy one loaf of bread for the day. The next day, they'll buy another loaf of bread. By my complex and esoteric calculations, that means stopping at the local bakery 365 times a year, or so. [To be fair, baguettes in France don't last longer than a day anyway because they are made with no preservatives.]

Obviously, the moral of the story is that by living in New York, we are becoming more and more French.