"I find groceries significantly cheaper in Europe (and I live in London) than North America." Not in Switzerland, they aren't. If you go food shopping in Switzerland and expect to find bargain prices for fresh food, you will be in for a surprise. But restaurants are even more expensive.

Switzerland is one place where having a full kitchen really works to your advantage. Or at least a freezer. Some suggestions from Swiss grocery stores:

Migros:
Frozen, bake at home pretzels (if your apartment comes with a real oven and not just a microwave oven). They're really tasty, esp warm from the oven. You can salt them to taste and add extras (pumpkin seeds, for example) if so inclined.
Marinated salmon. The Migros marinated fresh salmon filets are good, the marinade is just a little spicy. Pop them in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Serve with veggies or whatever you feel like.
Pumpkin stuffed pasta. A fall treat. Boil them for a few minutes (whatever the bag says). While they're boiling, in a frying pan melt some butter and add in small pieces of walnut and some fresh sage. Top with grated cheese. As I said above, it's more of a seasonal thing at Migros, but I can now get them in the summer at Manor.
Toast caviar. Get some lompefish caviar (it's cheap), mix it with some finely chopped onion, some fresh parsley, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Spread on toast.
Cheese. The larger Migros stores usually have an excellent cheese selection, experiment with Swiss cheeses you haven't tried before. The Appenzell region actually produces a nice Jersey blue cheese.
Migros is somewhat better than Coop, IMO, for fresh herbs.

Both Coop and Migros have decent pesto sauces and both sell a wide variety of fresh and dried pasta.

Breads. A British poster once complained on Fodors that Swiss breads were terrible and that there was no variety. I have no idea what he going on about. Manor, Coop, and Migros all sell a variety of excellent fresh-baked breads. Each chain has their own specialties. Your choice of white, whole grain, dark, plain, seeded, etc.

Coop
Most of Migros' products are their house brands. Coop sells a lot more global brands. Coop also sells alcohol (Migros doesn't, although the Denner chain, owned by Migros, does). Coop's organic ("bio") products are sold under the Naturaplan label. They have a wide selection of organic products, if you're so inclined. They even made a music video about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4YrkbvKjnc
(with the lyrics in case you can't follow Swiss German, French, Italian. etc) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EJZ1Kdft5I

Coop's house brand chocolate chip cookies are pretty good if you feel like a ready-made snack.

We like Coop's Rosti better than Migros. Open up the pack, slap it in the pan and cook.

If you have an oven, you can often find whole chickens from Coop on "action" for as little as 9 francs.

I like the house yogurts from Migros and Manor and some of the local brands. I've got a jar of Toni raspberry yogurt open right now.

Manor has really good bundnerfleisch (dried beef).

Try bottled lemonade from the Ticino if you come across it. Light and refreshing.

Pizza in Italy and France is nothing like you get in America - all that thick crust and oily cheese and a million toppings. It's light with crispy crust and you'll want to eat all of it - it's delicious! Often pizzerias sell individual pies so you don't have left overs.

In France and Italy, Barilla pasta sauce (in the jar) is, again, delicious. Nothing like what they import to America.

In Italy, even the cheap olive oil from the supermarket is wonderful. You can add this and to fresh vegetables. No need to cook potatoes - bread can be your starch.

You can buy thick slices of ham for your meat and add some vegetables or store-bought salads.

Think about what you make at home - is every dinner elaborate or is it usually simple ingredients. Someone above mentioned apples with pork - fruit is standard when I cook pork but usually I use prunes and occasionally apples.

You can buy small salt and pepper shakers at home and bring them along with some dried spices in small zip lock bags.

<< We simply can't eat dinner at 9-10 pm and go to bed full >>

Where did you get the idea that you have to wait until 9:00 for dinner? Probably from someone who has never been to Europe. Perhaps it's best to leave preconceptions at home and explore other cultures. Try something new rather than the same old things you make at home.

"It's light with crispy crust and you'll want to eat all of it - it's delicious!"

Agreed, but we never had any problem finding that kind of pizza in Philadelphia -- including the delicious toppings. Our local pizza joint at 24th and Spruce made a fab goat cheese and grilled asparagus pizza.

<i>Where did you get the idea that you have to wait until 9:00 for dinner?</i>

Exactly! If you eat earlier, say around 7:00 pm, it may even be easier to get a table.

Jarred pizza sauce is still a processed food, and Barilla isn't that great IMO. Eating pizza a lot is not particularly healthy, either.

YOu don't have to wait until 9 pm in most countries to eat dinner (there are actually some restaurants in Spain that don't open until 9, never seen that in France, UK or Switzerland, where all of them are open by 8 that I've seen). And of course, if you don't eat at a real "restaurant", you can eat earlier, so if you just want cafe food, you can get that even earlier in France (and some restaurants open by 7:30, but a lot are not open at 7 pm).

I would hope one could move their internal dinner time to at least 7:30 when in Europe, that's not that big a stretch, also, obviously it would depend when you eat lunch. If you eat lunch later than usual (whenever that may be if one eats at 5 pm, which I can't imagine, but I suppose 11 am), it doesn't make sense to eat dinner at the same time, you shouldn't eat just because it is a certain time of day.

All good suggestions above. One of our go to dishes when staying in an apartment is Spaghetti Carbonara - the ingredients are simple to source, all you need is one pot and a frying pan (or even just one pot) ... and leftovers make for great breakfasts too - bacon and eggs!

Yield: 4 Servings

2 tb Extra virgin Olive oil
8 oz Pancetta or Guanciale cut into pieces 1″ long by 1/8" thick
3 Whole eggs
1 c Freshly grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan
Ground black Peppercorns
1 tb Kosher salt
1 lb Spaghetti

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium
flame. Add the pancetta and cook slowly until crisp and just lightly
browned, about 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

Beat the eggs together in a bowl large enough to easily hold all the
pasta. Add the cooked pancetta and, if you like, some or all of the
rendered pancetta fat. Stir in the cheese and add at least
6-8 turns of the pepper mill. Set aside in a warm place.

Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil and add the salt. Plunge the
spaghetti into the boiling water and cook until al dente. Drain the
spaghetti into a colander and then immediately toss into the bowl
with the egg, pancetta and cheese mixture. Stir the spaghetti well to
both cook the egg and coat the pasta, and serve immediately in heated
bowls. Top with grated Pecorino Romano.

PUT PASTA BOWL OVER HOT WATER IN THE POT TO HEAT PASTA

Yield: 4 servings

That's certainly not my recipe because it's missing the crème fraîche!

kerouac - I think Carbonara doesn't contain cream when made in the traditional way - the eggs and cheese make the sauce. (I should have added a comment to the recipe above to add a bit of pasta water if the sauce needs thinning)

We have never prepared Carbonara with creme fraiche; only eggs, cheese, and a bit of pasta water if necessary. Creme fraiche seems very fancy!

Delia uses cream: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/t...carbonara.html

Delia uses cream>>

delia would! she's very heavy on the butter and cream, IMO.

no need for any cream in spaghetti carbonara, just spaghetti, bacon, and eggs, followed by black pepper and grated parmigiano or pecorino.

It's an ongoing debate certainly - whatever you prefer I say.....interesting article here

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...etti-carbonara

So much depends on your travel and eating habits, the specifics of the apartment, and how much time and effort you want to put into cooking, since after all, it's supposed to be about the travel, not about the cooking (IMHO).

For instance, there's no way I'd take the time or effort to shop for and prepare carbonara while traveling. That's just me.

We usually rent apartments, and start off the day with a good breakfast -- maybe cereal, fruit, yogurt, coffee. That works for us, because we can buy all that stuff one time, at the beginning of the trip, and not have to shop again for it.

Since we're out most of the day touring, we (a) have a big lunch if we have the time and have decided to go light at dinner or (b) grab something fast and easy on the go if we're trying to pack in a lot of daytime activities and plan to have a bigger dinner.

If we do plan on a bigger dinner, we usually buy something prepared or semi-prepared, and maybe add vegetables or a baked potato, rather than preparing a full meal. That's a halfway measure between paying restaurant prices and saving by eating in.

We'll be in Bologna in a few weeks. Hand made pasta (that cooks in three minutes), an etto or two of ragu and a handfull of Parmagiano from Tamborinni. How easy can it get?

We've rented 20 or more gites in France over the past 15 years because we love having eating out remain an option rather than a must do. Recipes I like at home I put on the computer and my full recipe set (currently 932 and counting!) goes on my phone. I love going to the markets and seeing all the incredibly fresh and tasty options on display. Oh the cheese! the fish! the oils! the....! you name it...

Yes I end up buying spices/herbs that will stay on behind. In my view that is the price of the pleasure of feeling like I am living in Nice or Domme or Pau or Paris or St. Mammert or... and not just visiting!

We are the same as tansay. We have spent 26 weeks in gites in France since 2006. Because we travel for longer than some [ our last trip was nine weeks ], eating out every day is just not financially an option for us. And as much as we love some cheese and charcuterie, which usually comprises our picnic lunch, we do not want it again for dinner. And we do love our veges. So I do cook. People have said to me that they do not go on holidays to cook, but if I said that, we would not go !!!

I enjoy cooking with things that are not readily available or are cheaper than where we live e.g. fresh sardines, guinea fowl, wonderful smoked sausages from the Jura. I usually end up leaving something in our final gite. We also enjoy the process of shopping for food when we are in France, be it at the markets, small shops or supermarkets. This is part of the holiday for us. So I suppose it depends on how you travel

I am always amazed at and thankful for the many thoughtful responses that people offer for no reason other than - well, to be helpful and to share their experiences! Thanks to all of you for many wonderful ideas that I hadn't considered - but will now that they have been suggested! And I will try the spaghetti carbonara, either at home or on the road. I have had it in restaurants but haven't prepared it. (Actually, my husband does the cooking these days as he is retired, while I continue to work. And he does a wonderful job!)

In response to your responses, the idea that one typically eats later came from posters' comments on the forums, trip reports, and guide books, as well as our own experience on our last trip - to Switzerland, when we ate at what were late times for us and invariably were alone in the restaurant, often until we were ready to leave. A number of people have commented on trip reports (for Italy)that they made a reservation for 9 and found the restaurant empty, while it filled up around 10-10:30. Some have even said that many restaurants do not even open until 8 pm or later. So it is good to be reassured that if we should decide to have dinner out, we can eat before what for us would be almost bedtime! We do get up and out early as we are often so excited by what the next day holds that we simply wake up very early, so we tend not to stay up late.

We had excellent pizza in southern Switzerland and look forward to the simple taste of pizza in Italy, though we don't want to "survive" on it! We are able to get very good Italian food in our city but look forward to "the real thing."

We also had amazing bread and cheese in Switzerland and sometimes ate that for lunch while on the train to our next stop. (We were fortunate that there was a cheese market the day we arrived in Lucerne.) I have searched for similar bread and cheese here (in the US) but haven't found anything that tastes the same.

I would be curious to hear from posters who found groceries in the US to be so expensive to share what city and what kind of grocery store they shopped in while in the US. I enjoy checking out markets and grocery stores when I travel and have been shocked at prices in London and other parts of England, Paris, Athens, and, as others mentioned, Switzerland (although the bread was a good price!) About every other week, I buy a rotisserie chicken at Costco for $5 that serves my husband and me with enough left for at least one other meal. Even at a regular grocery store, they are rarely more than $7-$8. One can, of course, shop at Whole Foods or other upscale grocery stores and pay an arm and a leg, but that isn't necessary.

I didn't mean to imply that I expected to find a B&B with a frig and microwave as I have not seen one either - just that it would be ideal (for us) to have a lovely breakfast ready and waiting in the morning and also be able to keep cold water, meats and cheeses, veggies, etc in the frig to make sandwiches, and to pop a prepared dish in the microwave to warm it up for dinner. Wishful thinking!

Again, thank each of you for taking the time to share your experiences, which have been very helpful. We have booked an apartment with a nice kitchen in Bellagio and are about to book one in Florence. How much we end up using the kitchens we shall see!

For reference, when I was in Rome last spring, we purchased dinner in the prepared foods section of a Conad grocery store. A rotisserie chicken and several side dishes totaled 13E, which I thought was pretty reasonable. The two of us had plenty for dinner, and leftovers for the following day.

We also found that restaurants in Venice and Pienza were more tourist-oriented and felt full enough around 7PM or so. Rome seemed to be on a later schedule, but it just depends on if you care if you are eating alone, I suppose.

But I think that cooking sounds great. I'm sure you will come up with some excellent meals. Have a wonderful trip!

drchris- you will love cooking in Florence. Get thee to the Central Market first thing upon arrival, and you will find everything your little heart desires! :)

I was just in Rome for 3 weeks and had a full kitchen in our apartment. (Burners were a little small for my comfort, but they worked.)

I made a fair amount of pasta. Just fresh cherry tomatoes cut in half, a little garlic, salt and pepper, EVOO and some oregano. It was delicious.

I went to several different markets on this recent trip and find that Italian markets are becoming more "Westernized" each year. I could never find "prepared" mayonnaise on recent trips, but did find it in my little grocery near the apartment. Also very surprised to see many more prepared foods. Bagged salads, prepacked servings of tomatoes and mushrooms and green beans, etc.

Always kept crackers and jam, too. Cereal also. One thing that did catch me off guard- the milk was always only good for a few days, not a few weeks like here in the States. Additionally, if you don't speak Italian, make sure you get someone to help you get the right milk! They seem to have a dozen kinds!

If you've been out pounding the pavement all day, you may just delight in an antipasti platter and glass of wine for dinner. So easy to put that together!

(I attempted to make "French toast" with what was labeled, "American Style Bread". NOT successful. The bread was so dense, it just wouldn't soak up any egg. Next time, I'll look for some brioche or cholla!) hahaha

Buon viaggio!

drchris --

This April, I did my shopping (usually for a 4-7 day supply of everyday goods) at regular large supermarkets like Safeway or Albertsons and also a Wal-Mart in Nevada and North Carolina. My indicator for "expensive" was not the high-end ranges of produce or deli groceries but more what I had to pay when I wanted the cheapest or something in the middle range. After some rough math of computing dollars per pound or gallon into euros per kilo or liter, I found that many staple foods had been somewhat more pricey.

OTOH, I never do my grocery shopping over here at street markets where you usually pay more.

Most consumer watchdog surveys here have shown anyway that produce in supermarkets (and surprisingly often in discount chains) is in general more fresh (least time from farm to shelf) and more in compliance with consumer safety standards, i.e. allowable level of contamination or zero if labelled as organic...

Which is not much surprising as the large chains usually have their own logistics: contracted farmers, state-of-the art transport and storage facilities, short shelf life in the supermarkets due to high turnover - and operating under the scrutiny of independent watchdogs and official supervision.