Entertaining NoCal Style

Tomorrow we will have our first guests over for dinner. My normal routine would be to clean for a whole day and then spend the next day shopping and cooking and then the day of the dinner, set the table etc. But here it is a bit different...... Because I am still on the hunt for THE grocery store, I spent ALL day yesterday shopping. I went to FIVE stores trying to find food and table stuff. First, the hunt for brass candlesticks..... Yes, I know. I own LOTS of candlesticks and some are brass...... but they are somewhere in the myriad of boxes buried in the garage. And then I wanted some bittersweet or other attractive fall foliage to put on the Star Wars-esque tablecloth I purchased/made (that was the day before when I went to the fabric store after looking in TWO stores for a table cloth which I know I own a million of but they TOO are packed in a box in the garage so I had to buy fabric and hem it). I looked in THREE stores just for those things and decided to Hell with it and got a frog-pokey-thing for fresh flowers. Then off to find food. I might as well be wearing a skin loincloth I've become such a hunter/gatherer! I had to program Garmin Nuvi to find the place. I forgot I had changed the settings (it's so much fun to have Garmin speak with a British accent as Daniel from BBC America) and so instead of the FASTEST route, he sent me on the SHORTEST route which was through neighborhoods - a bit disorientating. But I arrived at FoodMaxx at last. Again I found myself wandering back and forth around the produce section (which was HUGE and VERY well priced - mangos $.48/each, pineapple $2.98/each) as I tried to find everything on my list. Oh, did I mention that for our first dinner guests am I making something simple that I have made MANY times before? Of Course Not! I am making the Julia Child Beef Bourguignon! And here in THIS grocery is every possible Mexican ingredient you could find including a BIN of dried pinto beans and 12 different kinds of fresh chiles..... go figure. This store, as most stores in the area, has a huge amount of Mexican products. Where we would have 3 feet of produce space for parsley and herbs, here it is cilantro. And shelves and shelves of GIANT bags of tortillas - 50 to 100/bag! This gringa gets overwhelmed by it all (I have to get a Mexican cookbook/dictionary just to figure out all the cheeses). Unfortunately, the 'We're not in Kansas anymore" phenomenon happened...... no watermelon rind pickle(for a delicious appetizer - wrap small pieces in bacon, broil and eat with a toothpick - quick and exotic). Drat! I should realize that I can't really sit at home and plan a menu that uses exotic other-life-type ingredients when I am shopping in NoCal. So with a few items still to get, I asked Garmin/Daniel to get me to Whole Foods. Now, we have a Whole Foods in the old neighborhood. It is new and large and spacious and has LOTS of great stuff (even if it is expensive). Not so with THIS Whole Foods. Out of 10 aisles, 4 were for health/beauty/vitamin type stuff, 1 for cleaning products/pets and the rest for human edibles. So I wandered around again and ....... no watermelon rind. On to plan B...... cheese and crackers and to HELL with them! My shopping took all day yesterday. So today, I'll clean the house (1 hour) and cook (LOTS of hours) and walk to the library in the sun shine and blue sky and winter cold (55). I sure do waste alot of energy and time on this eating thing.