Tales of a grocery shopping novice

For the first five years of our marriage, my husband was the unofficially appointed grocery shopper. Sure, there were a few times I went without him, and a few more times that I went with him, but let's be honest, when I tagged along, I only slowed him down.

For the first five years of our marriage, Josh was also the one who did most, if not all, of the cooking. He enjoys it, and he's good at it. Plus, my work schedule for the majority of that time meant that I was the last one home and had the least time to beef up (pun totally intended) my culinary pursuits.

But, this year, on Jan. 27, I began a new job with a new schedule that means my afternoons are free most days. In the last three weeks, I've become the officially appointed grocery shopper, and I'm now taking on about half of the cooking.

As I mentioned, when Josh and I would grocery shop together, I slowed him down. A lot. So it's no surprise that when I grocery shop alone, it takes a while — longer than it should take an adult, I'm sure.

The first week, I must have walked the entire grocery store about six times, forgetting an item here and remembering another on the other side of the store. At this point, I'm a 29-year-old grocery shopping novice.

Josh knows this about me, and though I'm not sure if it's exactly how the conversation started, we ended up talking about how nice it would be if there was an app you could use to keep track of all your recipes, pick a few out for the week and have it translate the ingredients into a shopping list. Yes, we're lazy Americans. But, there's an app for that.

Enter Paprika.

Josh found it in the app store and it has been a wonderful sidekick during my most recent shopping trips. Not only can you add recipes, put them on a meal calendar and add them to a grocery list — it also separates the grocery list items by aisle. By. Aisle.

Plus, we can each sign in to it on the same account and sync our grocery lists. If he adds half-and-half, it shows up in my list. If I add coffee filters, it shows up in his. Oh, the wonders of technology.

I'm going grocery shopping again tomorrow. It has become a Monday tradition. Our meals are picked out for the week ahead, and my grocery list is ready, organized and waiting. With the help of Paprika, I'm sure to turn into at least a shopping apprentice in no time.

**The makers of Paprika have no idea who I am. I'm just really that bad at grocery shopping, and I hope there are others like me who could benefit from such an organized, intuitive app.