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I am very lucky to live literally three doors up from a neighborhood co-op, where I buy bulk spices and grains, dairy, dry goods, some produce, and other basics. It's great for last-minute needs, and it is wonderful to be so close to a neighborhood market.

I go to a butcher for most of my meat, the farmers market (or garden) when in season for produce, and Trader Joe's for cheese, honey, wine, snacks, and other miscellaneous groceries.

Fresh Direct all the way. I became a convert during pregnancy, when the smells at the market were guaranteed to make me sick.

I do hit the Union Square market every Saturday morning with my 3-year-old daughter. I would not call this grocery shopping. It's a chance for my girl to meet The Honey Man, The Flower Guy, The Asparagus Lady, The Farmer Who Gave Me a Tiny Cipollini Onion All For Myself, The Goat Cheese Lady, The Muffin and Bread People, feel the cat grass, and ask me lots of questions about death now that The Peeler Man is not there. We buy two or three things that are especially nice that week.

Other: farmers market for as many fresh veggies as I can, supermarket for anything else I need, occasionally Target for cheap staples (canned soup, milk, yogurt).

I shop only at my local market, but that's mostly because Berkeley Bowl is freaking AWESOME, and if I need something special, they almost always have it.

I do the mix, and am lucky to live next to Eastern Market in DC, a health food store and not so far from Safeway.

We entertain a lot, and have lots of casual dinner parties. I still run around to shop for more formal cocktail parties (TJ's for wine and nuts and cheap cheese! local bakery for baguette! fruit counter for grapes!). However, I know I wouldn't entertain nearly as much if I did this for most parties. I challenge myself to host with things that are in the pantry, and available with quick, round-the-corner, one-stop shopping. It feels easy, kind of serendipitous, and encourages me to make easy meals (soup, salad, fritatta; beans and ?; etc.).

I live in Chicago, and 90% of the food I buy comes from the awesome little supermercado two blocks away (next to my train stop!). The produce is extremely fresh and cheap, and it's a fantastic selection, even organics! They have a wide variety of unusual and "ethnic" foods, stuff you can't find at the big grocery store (rose preserves, or freshly made cracklins, anyone?). The trade-off is that they don't have a huge selection of packaged foods (not usually a problem), and are missing some otherwise ubiquitous items, like plain gelatin and poppy seeds, for example. But they do have King Arthur Flour, which is extremely useful for my breadmaking blog - no special trips needed, yay! Whenever I have to move away, I am going to seriously miss that store. I will probably cry. My food budget will also increase about 200%.

As for the other 10% of the food, meat is purchased at either Whole Foods or the Paulina Meat Market, that temple to all animal flesh. We eat it infrequently enough that it's not a hassle to make a special trip. Spices come from the bulk bins at Whole Foods. Wine is usually from Trader Joe's ($2 Chuck by the case!), but beer and bourbon come from Sam's or Binny's. Parties may warrant special trips, but mostly it's all from the supermercado.

Farmers' markets are so short-lived here (basically June-October), and far away enough to warrant a car excursion, so I tend to forget about them. (But if you're ever in Louisville, on a warm Saturday morning, be damn sure to get an omelette at the Bardstown Road farmers' market! It's the booth with the huge line, and it is damn well worth it. Oh, I miss those.)

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A year-round farmer's market keeps me going every weekend and that is where I get 90% of my produce; also picking up eggs, honey, pork and on occassion, cheese and rice there. Everything else gets purchased at Trader Joes and Raleys with Costco throw into the mix every 6-8 weeks or so.

I live in the West Village, so my only "supermarket" is a Gristedes, which I hate, so I never go there. I eat mostly produce, so I get a box delivered weekly from Urban Organics and then I hit up the little green market on Saturday mornings. My box tends to be heavy on greens, so I'll get things like asparagus, squash or specialty vegetables along with pork/chicken/eggs from one farmer and seafood from another purveyor.

For other "normal" things that come in packages (olives, mustard, etc.), I usually go to the Gourmet Garage, which I guess is a specialty food store, because it is convenient. I also make occasional trips to Murray's Cheese, Ottomanelli's butcher, Kalustyan's, Buon Italia, etc. when time permits.

This is one of my biggest gripes about grocery shopping in Chicago. In my quest to find both decent quality, yet not grossly overpay (i.e. buying everything at Whole Paycheck), I find that I end up shopping at no less three different places in order to put a dinner party together. No one store seems to have all of the things that I need. The biggest offender is Jewel, while it is within walking distance of my home, shopping there nearly reduces me to tears...or profanity. Whoever came up with their redesign last year should be fired -- there is no reason why dairy products should be split up and placed in three different areas of the store.

Inevitably, I end up having to go to Stanley's (cheap produce and herbs...but a completely random selection on any given day); TJ's for what I couldn't get at Jewel or Stanley's plus trips to specialty stores like the Paulina, Sam's Wine, and Costco.

I miss Randall's in Houston!

I forgot to mention, that I also make a big Fresh Direct order if I need a bunch of staples -- lugging cans of tomatoes home from the store is no fun. I also really like that they've paired with Union Square Wine merchants, so I can get good wine delivered too.

i live in an orthodox jewish hood in brooklyn. so i shop at glatt mart! but they opened up this HUGE store called pomegranate just a few blocks from me...this place is like the whold foods of kosher food. it's impressive!

i then also go to the korean grocers on my avenue when i really need the perfect nectarine fix. and then whole foods when i need a big thing of their store brand olive oil. there is also the baker and fish market on my avenue. i gets mah candy at the 7-11 ;)

Smiling about Glatt Mart - I had a temp job right near there. I usually shop weekly at Trader Joes, Key Food, Sahadi's and Green Pea (fruit and veg located next to Sahadi's.) in Brooklyn. Sometimes the local health food store (Perelandra). I buy most things at TJ's, salami, cheese and taboulleh salad at Sahadi, canned goods I can't get at TJ's at Trader Joes, and most of my vegetables and fruit at Green Pea. I buy a large clamshell of organic salad at Perelandra each week too. Lately I've started buying apples at the Borough Hall farmer's market too. Wine comes from Heights Chateau or Montague Liquors.

I'm allergic to gluten, so I shop from anywhere between 3 and 5 grocery stores on a regular basis to maintain some grain variety in my diet. The Whole Foods a mile away tends to have the best variety of gluten-free grocery nearby, though Trader Joe's is a close second and is where we get most of our staples. Amazingly, a Cub a few miles away has a huge selection of GF stuff, too. The farmer's market during the short growing season here in MN gives us our veggies; otherwise, it's up to Whole Foods and Lunds.

Lunds is also the only place we find our totally redonk un-natural guilty pleasure: Klondike Slim-A-Bear 100 calorie fudgesicles...

I get almost all my produce, as well as eggs, milk, and cheese, and sometimes bread and pasta, at the farmer's market. Two or three times a month we go to Kroger and Whole Foods for chips, ice cream, beer, tofu, and all those other delicious processed goodies, or out of season and locally unavailable produce.

I live in a fairly large city, but I still make the effort to get my veggies from local farmers, my meats from butchers and fishmongers. I admit, however, that most of my dairy is commercial. Sigh.

I'm gluten-free as well, but I'm lucky to live about a mile from a fantastic health food store that has the best gluten-free selection around. I only go there about twice a month though, mostly to get the teff wraps I like to pack for lunch!

I frequently shop at a little farm stand down the street - they've got great veggies as well as basics like eggs, milk, and juice. They're not open all year, though, so I do go to the grocery store more in the winter. When they are open (April-December) I go there a few times a week!

We belong to a CSA for our vegetables that runs from June-October (plus they have a winter share for November-December) and we just joined a meat CSA which runs year round. We also grow some veggies too, and I'm hoping that deer-netting will keep the groundhogs away this year.

Sadly, our favorite local supermarket (.5 mile away) closed this winter. We're hoping for another market to take its place, but there's a chain supermarket about a mile and a half away that we've been using since then.

We try to bike/walk to the market when we can, but it is a little more difficult since the local market closed - the other supermarket is in a really busy and not bicycle friendly location, so I usually drive there, but the farm stand and health food store are both very easy to get to without a car.

I get much of my weekly food from my CSA box. I'm lucky that my CSA includes eggs, meat AND cheese in it! I also pick up any additional veggies, milk (raw), other cheeses, yogurt, bread, preserved/canned goods, beans and pasta at the farmers' market. I'm very *very* lucky that the one about 7 blocks from me is year round as is my CSA.

I do occasionally hit the grocery store (about 10 blocks) or Trader Joe's (easy public transit trip) for things I can't get at the farmers' market. There are a variety of specialty stores nearby for things like flours and a whole mess of various ethnic groceries for interesting items. And the local coffee shop is all about fair trade organic beans in fantastic roasts/blends. And there's the fruit guys stand that shows up during the summer/fall that has fantastic fruit in addition to the other little fruit/veggie stands scattered around that have good and cheap produce.

Having lived in places where I've HAD to shop entirely at the grocery store because there were no other options, I know how extremely lucky I am here in Philly. And believe me I'm milking it for all it's worth. :)

I picked the 3rd option, but it's not really quite right.

I loath the supermarket because of it's astonishing prices so I limit my visit to once every 2 weeks for non perishable essentials. I find the we used to pay about 200% at the supermarket for meat and vege so we don't do that anymore.

We buy and freeze meat once a month from a discount butchery. I walk to the vegie shop 3 times a week to get cheap, fresh vegetables.

In Baltimore we have a great farmers' market on Sundays downtown under the highway overpass that runs May-December; off season (and year round), there's another smaller farmers market that is open on Saturdays. I try (if not hungover, or otherwise indisposed) on Sundays to go there, try to plan meals in my head, and supplement my produce and dairy buys with stuff from one of two grocery stores in walking distance. The Giant has a private brand of organics, Nature's Promise, that's really inexpensive, and a good selection of fake meats. If there's something fancier I need (a special cheese, a weirdo fake meat), I go to Food Whole...you know what I mean. So 1-2x a week.

combo - but reversed from the one listed... mostly the farmers market (all meat & veggies, most dairy & breads) and supermarket (cereal, and a few packaged foods like frozen lunches and cereal bars...)

When I lived in Brooklyn, I got pretty much everything at the Flatbush Food Coop, with occasional fill ins from Key Foods (though the one near me was pretty gross) and Shop Rite. Going to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods was special, because it was an extra trip into Manhattan and had to be planned accordingly (but that made it pretty exciting, which sounds so dorky!)
Now that I'm in Philly, I go to Whole Foods mostly, which I feel kind of bad about, since there is a locally owned health food store just down the street. But, if I shopped there for most things, I'd be broke. I go to the farmer's market in the spring/summer/fall now too, which I love. I also hit up the "regular" grocery store from time to time.

It's funny how changing cities changed my shopping habits. I definitely spend a lot more now on groceries than I did in Brooklyn and I feel that I'm constantly going out to pick something up.

When I moved to the Netherlands 10 years ago, I was shocked (shocked, I say, shocked!) that stores were *closed* by 6pm and not open on sundays. Now, food stores can remain open until 8, but most of my shopping is done at the open markets. Most towns hold open markets for farmers and small businesspeople twice a week; I even bought a place right in front of where the market sets-up.

Around 4am they roll in...some small-scale industry like bread trucks, fruit and veg, some meats, on large mobile platforms (they go town to town all week long). Then come the real farmers who set up a wooden table, put out their eggs, potatoes, herbs and cheeses - these folks I tend to buy regularly from.

But that's another story - they're here twice a week, open from 6:30 to 3:30 - so I never buy more than I can eat in 3-4 days. That means a dozen eggs lasts 2 weeks, or I buy 3-4 potatoes and a pair of onions - not a 20lb bag. You can't even store such a thing here in the small homes of Holland. Most fridges are slightly larger than the ones you had in college; people buy fresh almost daily!

It's a heck of a change from going from large-scale Sam's Club shopping to 3 potatoes, but now everything is as cheap and fresh as possible and I've very little waste (living across from the market helps). I'm not sure I could go back...