For the last couple of years I’ve shopped for food at a discount grocery chain where prices are low and brands are simple: basically there’s one. This means there’s limited selection, and I like it this way. There’s no need to deliberate, so I save time and energy.

A couple days ago I found myself in the antithesis of this grocery store. I found myself in a Food Palace. There were a dozen types of pate, mushrooms so exotic I’d never heard of them and a bakery to die for. It was chaotic and amusing. I was often bewildered. But the mushrooms were delicious when sautéed in butter — and I tore into the chewy but tender Tuscan pane on the way home.

It was as if the food choices I’ve eschewed these last two years had gathered around and started taunting me. See what you’ve been missing, they said.  Look at this richness, this bounty.

I looked, I appreciated. But the very next day I went back to my discount grocer.