Doing an article on shopping (food) may seem odd at first glance. However, everyone who has been living in the United States for more than 6 months knows it: it is the topic on everyone's lips when expatriates arrive.
The idea of this article is to share my experience as a Westchester resident (this article is not about the NYC shops I don't go to for day-to-day) by bringing you some keys to find what you're missing and save you time looking for all zazimuts. Shopping here can quickly become a thoughtum as it is impossible to find everything in the same place. You can find good addresses of stores while travelling to the USA on many websites like
https://www.stores-locator.com/ for instance.
Meat and organic meat
1st tip: take your meats "organic", which means organic. In fact, here, almost all the meats you can find (except the organic ones) are, at the very least, filled with sugar (glucose), the animals having been fed with seeds, hormones and antibiotics.
The risks for our health: weight gain and drug resistance. It is therefore imperative to choose organic meats and preferably "grass-fed".
Fish and seafood
For the same reasons as for meats, choose your fish "organic" and ideally "wild caught" ("wild", not always easy to find).
Cod is rather good here. As well as Salmon, Haddock and Flounder (halibut). Lobsters have less taste than in Brittany but are also much cheaper and on the barbecue it's excellent! Scallops can be good, depending on where they are bought (good point for Costco). As for the oysters, I haven't tested yet but either they are ultra-expensive (Whole Food, very small oysters bought individually!), or they can be bought...without shells, OMG!
Fruits and vegetables
A disappointment when you like something that tastes good. Indeed, if New Yorkers have almost all year round (strawberries and raspberries in December for example) it is often to the detriment of taste.
The ideal is to be able to find a small local farmer, not too expensive, who sells seasonal produce. For example, the Ramsey road farm market in Scarsdale (behind the old FASNY Scarsdale preschool campus) has delicious products: tomatoes (excellent really), cabbage (which crunch well and are not sold already cut and dry), plums, apples, peaches... The catch is of course: it's closed in winter!
Balduccis and DiCicco have excellent products too. But beware of the wallet!
At Trader Joe's, if you choose organics, you will find good products. But a little always the same: never turnip, radishes, whole cabbage, almost never fennel, expensive artichokes... On the other hand, good points for organics apples, organics avocados, fresh green beans (the only place I find good ones), organics raspberries and blueberries, or seedless clementine’s.
At Costco, Crimean black tomatoes are excellent and not too expensive compared to what you usually find, small yellow mangoes and yellow kiwis are tops, as are pineapples. But I'm certainly forgetting some.
I think there would still be a lot to say and I will certainly add to this article as I find out more. But I think you already have the basis. And don't hesitate to share your own findings especially!