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Unfortunately, I don't know many places who do it your way but that would be divine. It would also be wildly expensive. We all know that selling in bulk permits lower pricing but for fresh items like veggies and herbs, buying in bulk isn't always sensible or feasible.

One tactic might be to consider several dishes you might prepare in the coming days that call for cilantro, or Italian parsley, dill, basil, etc. If you could plan meals based on the usage of your fresh vegs or herbs you'd definitely waste less.

There are a couple of T&T methods to keep herbs fresh but the one that seems most widespread is to take your bunch of cilantro or parsley and place it in a glass of water (like cut flowers in a vase) in the fridge. Of course, if you live with kids (or a clumsy roommate) this may not work.

What I do is, wash and spin your herbs in a salad spinner. Place them in a ziplock bag with a paper towel and blow air into the bag. Seal the bag when it's full of air (like a pillow) and this will keep the herbs fresh without the danger of spilling water all over your fridge (which you will, no doubt, have just cleaned).

I love Whole Foods because I can buy a couple of huge carrots instead of a bag of seventeen skinny carrots. Especially for dishes where I'll chunk the carrots and bake them or brunoise them for salads, I'd prefer to peel one large carrot vs. a bunch of tiny ones. So few stores sell veggies this way.

Hope you find your herb nirvana - or at least a place that sells really small bunches.

Thanks, chiffOnade. I have tried the glass of water but the tops wilt. Maybe the low humidty here is the Southwest even gets into the fridge? I will try the ziplock with air. Thank you.

@Chelley D01: Yes, I snip the stems but maybe not up far enough. I will go get a bunch of cilantro and split it and try your method and chiffOnade's. Science experiment!

@PerkyMac: Yes, I do need to plan more, and invite people more. Both. I tend to be impulsive and decide on the menu five minutes before cooking. Too late for any but very nearby guests!

Thanks to all.

Cilantro is probably the #1 food item I don't mind going to waste, and I usually expect a fair portion of it to do so. It goes off so fast, but -- and this is probably true for anywhere in the southwest-- it's practically free at the grocery ($0.25/bunch).

Parsley keeps well, in my experience, up to 2 weeks without me doing anything special to it at all.

More pertinent to your question, though: planning is key if you're cooking solo. I did this for a while, and I picked up a couple of solo cooking books. Consensus all around, you have to plan ahead if you don't want to waste food and money.

For general produce shopping, I've found more and more grocers accommodating. I even saw one market selling celery by the stalk recently, which I thought was awesome. When I cooked solo I bought the celery stick in bags (packaged for kids lunches, etc.). It costs a little more (at lot more by weight), but it didn't go to waste. But celery can stay good for a long time in the fridge, too.

For cabbage, I remember seeing them sold in halves in NYC. Here the closest I would find would be a bag of "soup vegetables," most commonly available in hispanic groceries. It's got some chunks of cabbage, a few carrots, a few celery stalks, maybe a turnip or 2, it varies, and I forget what else. If you can find that, actually, it may help a lot.

And for asparagus and similarly bundled veggies, if it's sold by the weight, don't believe that you have to purchase by the bundle. Take some of the damn stalks out, and buy what you need.

Solo cooks get ripped off, it's absolutely true. The best way to overcome it, though, is to get into the habit of planning.

Celery is actually really easy. I use loads of it in my cooking, so I buy enough to last at least two weeks. Here's what I do:

Cut off the dried out top ends. Cut off the root end a couple of inches up the ribs, far enough that they all come apart. I try to get them the right length to fit the width of a one gallon ziploc. Wash all the ribs, and remove any damaged parts or funky leaves. Lay them on a double sheet of paper toweling, and roll up while still damp from washing. Put into the ziploc, remove as much air as possible, and store. I promise you, your celery will keep a really long time. Nevertheless, if it does start to wilt, just cut off the ends and stick them wide end down in a cup of hot water. Not so hot it'll cook 'em, but about as hot as it comes out of the tap. Let sit for an hour or so. You'll notice the ribs firming up. Shock them, roll up in fresh papertowels and reseal in the ziploc.

This hot water trick works well for carrots, chard, herbs (make the water a little less hot for the tender ones), and other vegetables. I learned it from a florist when I launched a program in my hospital to give a fresh flower to every patient. We had to keep a lot of flowers fresh for at least a week. She explained that cut stems take up more hot water than cold. Something about keeping the cells opened up. So the next time you're making a cut flower arrangement, be sure to fill the vase with hot water!

Buying/cooking for 2 as an empty nester is almost as hard (especially if you'd gotten used to shopping/cooking for 4). What has worked for me is joining forces with a couple of other empty nester friends. We buy and then split up bags of potatoes, apples, other produce that we couldn't otherwise use before they spoiled (especially since we are trying to stick to organic produce whenever possible).

At least I hope you are able to compost the produce you can't eat? If you are able to recycle that stuff into your garden/planter soil eventually you haven't completely lost out on your investment.

I keep bread and rolls in the freezer and take out a few slices at a time, or sometimes I keep it in the fridge. I wrap celery in aluminum foil and that helps it keep much longer. That's the only veg I do that to, and I don't know why it makes such a difference.

Not sure where you shop, but lots of stores now offer at least some loose fruits and veg the way you are hoping, and many sell cut-up items as well, though I know that can be more expensive.
Having worked in produce, with anything not pre-packaged that is sold by weight, DO ask the produce folks to cut it for you...
You can do that in the deli, you can do it in produce. Usually they prefer to cut it by halves, but that is better than a whole if you know you can't use it all up. Most lmed-arger stores have no problem with this at all.
Cabbages, melons, squash, etc. can all be halved for you. Large melons can be sliced the way you want in the amount you want and nicely wrapped up.
and renzata is right, if you can lessen the amount in a bundle of items, go for it.

I agree with PerkyMac (sorry you're not feeling well): That heavy duty Reynolds Wrap works wonderfully to keep celery crisp and bright for at least two weeks. I wonder how it would work with cucumbers...think I'll give it a try.

Has anyone mentioned those Meyer green bags? Those seem to work really well.

I was at a farmer's market this past weekend and I noticed that though very cheap, the portions of vegetables that come in bundles is very small. You should check out produce at your local farmer's market, you should be able to come up with whatever you need for one person for fairly cheap.

I do my produce shopping at my local farmer's market. Unlike the supermarket, where everything are freakish uniform in size (and much too big for my needs), the farmer's market always have some smaller size produce.
But I have a habit of buying too much veggies (especially if they are in season and look so good at the market), so I end up turning them into soup.
I don't eat much bread in general, so I always freeze them (if I buy them at all).

Grocery stores generally let you bag your own vegetables. I miss out on deals buying one avocado at a time - but buying four avocados at TJ's really means eating two avocados, then letting two become art projects. Most of the time, I don't run into problems - frozen vegetables are the single cook's friend (take out a few, the rest of the bags lasts for months). You can also buy single servings of fish and burgers. I find vegetarianism easier and cheaper, so I've figured out how to cook single portions of rice and dried beans. I use a lot of herbs for flavor. You can freeze bread, pitas and baked goods. When fruit needs to be used quickly, smoothies prove ideal (though I will also freeze fruit like mangoes, cherries, and bananas). Vegetables at the end of their rope will often work in stews and soups.

For cilantro, basil and garlic, Trader Joe's (by me, in the midwest anyhow), sells little frozen cubes, which while not as good as fresh, are definitely better than dried. You could recreate those by chopping freezing your excess herbs in a spare ice cube tray. Note that you will NOT want to make ice cubes from that tray after you've frozen garlic.

You can also do this with onions, home-roasted red peppers, oven roasted tomatoes and tomato paste.

Just a quick geek moment for preserving spinach and basil and like leaves:

Pop them into the plastic bag, blow air in, and seal it while it's puffed up.
The herbs survive better in a CO2 environment.

Also, never store apples with the rest of your fruit..... :p