I am a professional grocery shopper

I have a love hate relationship with the grocery store

I cook for a living. But I also plan the menus, create shopping lists from those menus, and buy the groceries from those lists. If you were to ask me where I like to go grocery shopping, I’d say it depends.

Costco is an obvious choice, with its bulk items and high quality sourcing. It’s even got commercial sized grocery carts that I can fill entirely without having to go back for a second, third or fourth cart. I know that when I go to Costco in Prince George, Kelowna, Kamloops, Langford and Grande Prairie, the inside will look the same and the products will be familiar and dependable. I also know that if I’m starving after wandering the aisles for 4 hours, I can buy a $1.50 hot dog and eat it while I explain to the cashier what it is I’m doing buying $8,000 worth of trail mix, bananas and coffee.

But if I’m in smaller towns, I usually spend my time in a Save on Foods, followed by at least 2 stops at any other stores that will have the specialty items I couldn’t find, like obscure spices or specific cuts of meat. I am that person in the grocery store who has so much food in my cart, people think I work there and they ask me where to find things, or they take things from my cart because they think I’m stocking shelves. More often than not, an old timer will come up to me, ask which logging road I’m working down, and go on to tell me about the trucks he used to drive, or the equipment he used to run, or the cooks who used to feed him while he worked cold BC winters in the bush. Sometimes I am grabbing items so swiftly that the produce clerk wanders over to me and compliments my efficiency. “I see you in here very few weeks, and I gotta tell you, you really know what you’re doing”. Ahh, to feel seen.

Camp and lodge cooks differ from restaurant cooks in many ways, but one of the main ones is, apart from doing the shopping, that we do not have a set menu. What the clients eat each day is for the most part entirely dependant on the creative freedom of the cook. And if you are lucky, your cook will be someone who integrates variety into their menus. Because the thing about being in the bush or backcountry, is that you are probably there for more than a few days in a row, and it is probably nice to not eat the same thing every single day. Beyond the cooks inspiration and personal style, the menu will more than likely be altered daily depending on what produce needs to get used, which refrigeration unit is on the fritz, how many fish were caught, which box of food the pine marten got into, or which helicopter delivery is delayed. A creative and resourceful cook is who you want at the helm in these situations, not someone who cooks the same pasta dish designed by someone else for 80 covers in a night.

And so, with an ever changing menu, this means that often times, the grocery list for the upcoming shift will be wildly different than the last. And it will probably look something like this:

Before and 6 hours later

Once we fly to the lodge, or barge to the camp, or drive down the bush road, we won’t be able to run to the store for anything. My list is detailed as hell, because I do not want to forget anything. I don’t want to forget the whole chickens for an entire dinner, I don’t want to forget the bottle of amerretto for a dessert, I don’t want to forget the dish soap that I desperately need, and I don’t want to forget the candles for that weeks birthday guest. If I do forget something, I better have a plan B, like that time I had to cut sponges into circles and squeeze them into my sink drains because I forgot to buy plugs for the first shift of a season.

I am a methodical, meticulous, and nimble grocery shopper. I will wander the store, aisle by aisle, scanning the shelves and taking what I need, with a pocket full of loonies to unlock all of the carts I intend to fill. I will calculate how many pounds of beef I need based on how many people I am feeding and what I am cooking while I stare at the meat case. I will pick through the produce to take the items that smell and feel freshest, knowing that in a weeks time I will still need them to taste and look fresh. I will maneuver my cart through crowds of every day shoppers without them even realizing it, while I buy every single jalapeño left in the town of Vanderhoof or every single litre of whipping cream from the corner store in Nakusp.

As I approach the checkout with 4 carts in tow, I try to select a cashier who seems perky and ready for what is coming. I begin unloading my first cart while on the phone with the Safeway next door to ask if please, for the love of god, they have the pork belly I need for that weeks menu. I scan my points card, unload my loot, and watch the total go up as I pack everything neatly into boxes. Once things are boxed up, the cashier will hand me a receipt as long as I am tall. I will roll my carts outside one by one, each piled high with the contents that I so carefully planned out; the halva for the uptrack, the crackers for the après, the M&Ms for the block treats, and the Worcestershire for the bbq sauce. And, without fail, as I walk across the parking lot with enough food to sustain an entire week of lodge guests or a 60 person planting camp, some dude will inevitably yell to me: “someone’s hungry!”.

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Thanks for reading! You can expect more recipes starting next week.