I Share Grocery Shopping With A Mom Friend & It’s Changed Everything

A few months ago, I was enjoying an adult beverage with my new-ish friend Julia when she mentioned that every Monday she goes grocery shopping at the Berkeley Bowl, a beloved East Bay institution that is half produce. My son likes to brag that just the apple section of Berkeley Bowl is the size of a regular store. I told Julia that, while the apples were unparalleled, I could not get halfway through the massive aisles without a sensory meltdown. It is large, it is bright. It is full of oblivious Bay-area people who think that just because they have an electric car and dance like nobody’s watching, they can take forever to choose their bulk nuts, holding up the whole flow.

I do, however, take a weekly trip to Trader Joe’s, I told Julia, because it's in the same strip mall as my Thursday morning hip-hop dance class, and comparatively manageable, though of course lacking in some critical staples (good produce, for one), that prohibit it from being my sole grocery stop.

It was for this reason, she told me, that Julia would go to Trader Joe’s after her Monday Berkeley Bowl run, if she went at all. This struck me as a crazy undertaking for a woman with a full time job, two kids of her own, and a strong desire to have a life.

I had a crazy idea, I told her. Something that would save us time and increase our intimacy – it would be like the middle aged version of becoming roommates or shoplifting a smutty magazine together (shoutout to Edith and the Playgirl we passed back and forth after school in the 90s).

Enter: the grocery swap.

Despite, as she told me later, some anxiety about relinquishing control of her shopping list and managing the orders of two families, Julia was game. Thus began our experiment in mutual care, which works like this: On Monday’s we send Julia a list (thoughtfully separated into categories like dairy and frozen, by 9am). She shops for both of us, impressively putting everything into one cart that she is able to separate into two transactions at checkout. Later in the day, she drops bags on our front porch, texts me a picture of our receipt, and I Venmo her the total.

And on Thursdays, our roles reverse: I take on the Lakeshore Trader Joe’s with Julia’s family’s list and mine. I prefer to put her order in the front of the cart and ours in the back, and my ADHD requires that I narrate my progress under my breath the entire time, but I navigate the task nonetheless – and drop hers off in the same manner.

I love Julia. I love her husband and children, especially when Zoe calls me “Friend Sarah”, and comes to me to consult on some injustice she has been served that needs rectifying. I cherish Julia, and I thought I knew her well, but shopping for a friend is not dissimilar from discovering your friend’s sexual proclivities as you page through a Playgirl together. She has frozen favorites (lamb vindaloo, new to me, and the “fancy fruit medley” for their morning smoothies), cheese tortellini needs, and of course, the demand for a dozen or more applesauce squeezers, what her five-year-old Zoe refers to as “pouchies.” There are ideas I’ve stolen from her list – I had never considered the Happy Trekking trail mix packages, but I tossed one into my end of the cart too, and my kids ended up hooked.

“You got it Joey," I imagine replying. “I’m entangled in a web of care, and I do NOT want to get out!”

Julia loves guessing what meals we’re making with the various ingredients she hunts down for us, and we have reminded her of some simple dishes they could be serving at her house. When I see that Julia also buys her kids basically crap granola bars, I feel validated. When I see that she buys them spinach for smoothies, I feel that maybe, just maybe, I could try a little harder. Not for myself, or my ungrateful children. But for her.

I used to loathe grocery shopping. But these days, walking down the aisles with my multi-tiered cart in tow, I feel a profound sense of purpose. When I reach towards the shelf and grab several boxes of pouchies for Friend Zoe, I imagine her squeezing them clean, feeling fed and cared for. When I explain my slightly convoluted payment and bagging system to the cashier, I fantasize about a conversation we never have, much like I used to fantasize about the “sexy pool boy” story in that long ago Playgirl. “You’re doing two transactions, interesting! You must have someone important in your life to care for, who cares for you back?”

“You got it Joey," I imagine replying. "I’m entangled in a web of care, and I do NOT want to get out!”

When boarding a plane the other day, my husband and I rolled our eyes at the man on the phone behind us telling his interlocutor with authority “we want evolution, not revolution.” I couldn’t disagree more. Like many parents in this country right now, I’m sad and scared and angry about a political system that is hell-bent on turning us against one another. And I am desperately fighting my instincts not to have all of those feelings turn me inwards, away from joy and connection and towards doing what I can to build my individual family’s bunker, literally and figuratively.

As part of her “How Find Your People Project” journalist Katherine Goldstein argues that to move from friendship to true community, you need not just ongoing connection but mutuality. Maybe the grocery swap isn’t a revolution, but under the spell of American individualism, it sometimes feels like one. That shift takes vulnerability, yes, but it’s very achievable. Maybe you think you could never share something as complex and personal as grocery shopping. Maybe you are wrong. Maybe, instead of buying yourself a Peloton, you could go in on one that lives in the most accessible person in the group’s space. Make an easy system and try it out. Maybe it’s a babysitting swap (Julia and I are also trying to start one) or a carpool or a traveling gardening club. Whatever it is, I promise you it will bring unexpected delights — like a shoplifted nudie mag but even better.