I am such a grocery-store geek. I love wandering around groceries, checking out what’s new and taking note of what they’ve got that our stores in northwest Alabama do not have — which is usually quite a lot. Take, for instance, this Kroger in Madison, Alabama (which is just north Alabama without the “west” part), which has an incredible international or global or ethnic aisle or whatever you want to call it. I call it, “There are some wonderful things here that I really should buy and take home and learn to cook.” Now, our local northwest-Alabama stores do have “ethnic” food, but it’s more along the lines of tortillas, salsa with some duck sauce and rice thrown in. This array, on the other hand, was  impressive — there’s even a British section that made me want to brew a cup of tea, put my feet up in front of a cozy fire and read an Agatha Christie mystery. While eating a digestive biscuit, of course.