After the excursion to the East Market District yesterday, today I’m back with another place in my neighborhood that I will really miss — ValuMarket.

I think my love of this supermarket has a good deal to do with the fact that I can walk to it. And I walk to it a lot, sometimes multiple times a day. Yesterday, between Gabe and I, we were there three times (the moral here is that we should improve our shopping-list skills). I use my lunch break once a week to do our grocery shopping, schlepping the bags through the Mid City Mall parking lot, through the alley, and up our back stairs (after one too many times of feeling like a pack animal, I’ve learned to take a car when I have heavy items). It’s groceries and exercise!

There’s an adjustment you go through when returning to the United States after living abroad. Maybe it’s culture shock. Maybe it’s just getting used to a wealth of options again. I felt it most when food shopping. Valumarket was, and still is, my main grocery store. It’s smaller than most Krogers, but it still felt big.

“Look at all this yogurt. There’s a whole wall of yogurt.”

Now, Valumarket is a fine size for me, and 99.9% of the time, they have everything I need (recently, I was looking for coconut syrup, which I couldn’t find at Kroger, either). I like that they acquired postal services. I like the butcher that always asks how I’m doing and can inform us on our meat’s origin and what it ate. I like that spinach dip their deli sells that Melissa brings to book club. I like when they set up a grill outside, and we can buy bratwursts to eat on the way home. I like the beer cave, the Blue Dog bakery bread (delivered between 1-2 pm), the loudspeaker announcement, “Aaattention, Valu-shoppers!” I like that it’s locally owned, and I love buying something new from the variety of international food at the Iroquois Manor location.

Mainly, I really like not having to get into my car to do my grocery shopping every week. We’re eliminating that option entirely by leaving our cars behind when we move to Cambridge. I hope there’s a good grocery store close to our new apartment.

I’ll miss you, ValuMarket.