I love talking to people at the grocery store, especially older folks. I’ve found out how to make pot pies, make pie crusts, bundt cakes, potato salad, macaroni and cheese and all sorts of things. The produce section is best. I’ll just walk up to people and say, “What do you do with your Brussels sprouts? I’ve been trying to find a good way to prepare them.” And people will tell you! The other thing that I do is walk up to people, take a peek in their cart and ask, “What’s good today?” And people are more than happy to tell you what they bought and how they’re going to prepare it. My other opening line is, “Wow that such and such looks great, are you having a barbecue/party? People will just jump in and start telling you how they prepare their grill and what kind of marinade they put on their shrimp and that their daughter is getting married and she makes the best blueberry pie in town etc. etc. etc.
This only backfired on me once. I was talking to a considerably older gentleman in line about what he was going to barbecue. This all happened when we were in line. Just yakking back and forth about cooking. After he paid, he stood at the end of the register and said, “Can I get your phone number, are you married?” I said that I was and then he got kind of angry and said, “Well then why were you talking to me then!?” Huh? We were only talking about baked beans and soda pop for goodness sake.