It's really a bit of a nuisance when you have to peruse over-stocked shelves in a huge supermarket to try to ferret out rather obscure prepared food items that you don't normally look for.  You go through the aisles looking for those unusual - albeit not that unusual - food items where you might logically assume them to be.  Horse radish? why look where the condiments are.  Not there.  Although on previous occasions the particular type I was looking for; labelled horseradish paste, mild, was located just there.

And anchovy paste.  Why mightn't it be stocked where the canned fish is located.  Neither anchovies nor anchovy paste are kept there, however, although sometimes they are.  Whoever it is that stocks the shelves and makes these dizzying decisions doesn't appear to place much stock in assuring the shopper of reliability of place.  And when you bring your puzzlement to the attention of a store employee, they are of little assistance.

Yesterday was different.  Yesterday there was no fewer than three different men rushing about looking for the items I was unable on my own, to locate.  Importantly, one of them showed me where the horseradish was located, in the meat section on a refrigerated shelf, all two bottles of it, and both labelled 'extra-hot'.  It wasn't the product I was searching out, and it wasn't the type I could bring home to my husband's taste-sensitive expectations.

And the anchovy paste?  I did find the anchovies, and they too, in their neat little tins stuffed into neat little boxes - talk about overpackaging - were located with the meat, on a refrigerated shelf.  But not the anchovy paste.  I was eventually led by yet another young man to the cheese section, and there, in an obscure little corner was the anchovy paste.

Why anchovy paste?  Well, I'm trying out a new recipe for pizza sauce which calls for, among many other ingredients, the addition of anchovy paste, and we're willing to give it a try.