R.I.P. to my Gorgonzola

Yesterday I went to Trader Joe's and bought a lot of stuff and nothing to really cook. I also spent more money than I ever do at regular stores.

When I got home, I quit unpacking my groceries halfway through. Then my new roommate's dog stole my gorgonzola and ran all around with it! He's good at smelling things. I threw it away :(

Greek Yogurt

I went back to Key Food to buy more cottage cheese because at $2 for 16 oz, it's the cheapest I can find. And because since my first post, I've found that I like it a lot and eat it a lot. Even though I haven't figured out anything to do with it.

Key Food at Fage Greek yogurt on sale for $2.5 for 17 oz, so I figured I'd try that. I've never eaten it before. The price seemed good.

It didn't impress me. I don't need it anymore. Unless I change my mind soon.

Reminder: Quit Buying Pasta Sauce

You're getting ripped off and it's worst for you and it tastes worse.  Buy crushed tomatoes (with 2 ingredients) instead. I like Colavita and Dei Fratelli, depending where I'm shopping.

1. Jarred sauce is a rip-off. Crushed tomatoes cost $1.67 or $1 for a 28 oz can. Pasta sauce costs $2 or $3. And for what? For the extra ingredients.

2. It's worse for you. My Colavita crushed tomatoes have about 6% of my daily sodium allowance per serving. A jar of pasta sauce has a lot more. Newman's Own Sockarooni has 19% of your sodium.  Cabernet Marinara has 25%. Roasted Tomato & Garlic has 21%. You can always add salt and salty grated cheese, but there's no way you're going to add this much!

3. Crushed tomatoes taste better. And you can doctor them up however you want. I know some people who doctor up jarred sauce. WHY?! You can doctor crushed tomatoes and not start from expensive sodium juice! Colavita crushed tomatoes are so good you can eat them plain. You can spread them on toast. I once made pizza and my pizza sauce was undoctored crushed tomatoes and everyone asked how I made the sauce taste so fresh.

Key Food Sucks on Thursdays

I was going to go to Key Food, but it sucks on Thursday evenings because they take down all their sale signs. Last week I heard an old lady sassing the manager. He said they have 3,000 items and need to take them down early. The other stores somehow manage. Especially since Key Food has them down about 4 hours before the store closes.

Grocery Transport by Bike

One of my bikes, Bike Cherepko, has a basket. So when I buy groceries with him, that's what I use.

When I take the other bike, I have always looped my bag over my wrist. It works pretty well. I finally bought a backpack though because I have a shopping problem, especially with Asos. In the past 2 days, I have tried shopping with the backpack twice. Yesterday I went to Trader Joe's to buy dried dill and dried oregano. Today I went to Western Beef to buy a big Tapatio, some dill mustard, a tomato, and a can of mushrooms.

Now that I've tried both ways, I think I like the bag on my wrist. Things on your back poke you. I think I can carry about as much, though I haven't tested that yet. The wrist way doesn't make you sweaty all over your back.

Malt Vinegar

I asked C-Town to carry malt vinegar, preferably Heinz. They got some weird brand and told me it would be in yesterday. So I'm going to go look for it today. I like malt vinegar, but I'm not sure what I should eat it on. I will probably start by putting it on everything. Maybe I can put it on cottage cheese? (I've been eating cottage cheese plain so far. It's good).

Malt vinegar can be good for salads. Marinades. Maybe it can finish a dish? I will figure it out.

Cottage Cheese

I bought cottage cheese for the first time in my life. It was $1.99 for 16 oz at Key Food. I should go eat it or put it away instead of spreading the news.

If you have any advice on what I should do with it, let me know.

Dwolla - The Inconvenient Alternative to Paypal

(Sometimes this blog veers from groceries to talk about how to pay for things. This is such a time.)

I was shopping for a cast iron skillet because I've wanted one for a while. My roommate recently moved out and took a lot of things, so I m in a buying mode. He owned a cast iron pan, but it had grill ridges on it, so I rarely used it. I used Google shopping to find a pan that was very cheap. I'm getting a 12" skillet for under $9. As soon as I paid, I realized this seller ONLY accept Dwolla, which I never heard of before. So I signed up, was annoyed for several days, and then tweeted this this morning.

I accidentally bought something online that requires me to pay with Dwolla. If you aren't familiar, Dwolla is the inconvenient Paypal.
— Mike Cherepko (@mikecherepko) April 9, 2013

To their credit, they emailed me to ask if something was wrong.

Dwolla Support
APR 09, 2013  |  11:36AM CDT
Mike,
Noticed your tweet that you were maybe having some issues with the Dwolla account. Any feedback you can provide us?
Sincerely,
Dwolla Support

And so I went to town.

Since you asked: 

You tout that you're the most secure payment network. I wrote that you are the inconvenient alternative to paypal. Those are two sides of the same coin. Dwolla made me make a password that is so secure I can barely remember it (though if I write it down, it becomes much less secure.) On top of remembering the password, I have to enter a PIN. The PIN gets away with only being 4 characters. I haven't used Dwolla enough to know if I will always have to enter a password and a PIN. If I do, that's just another level of inconvenience. If I don't, 4 digits seems markedly less secure than a password I can make up of whatever digits and numbers I want. 

This reminds me of the time I closed my ING account because their system was just too annoying to log into. 

I came to Dwolla against my will. I bought something online and only noticed after I agreed to purchase it that the seller only accept Dwolla. After verifying that you aren't a scam, I signed up. Then I found I had to link a bank account. Then I found I had to wait for deposit verifications. That took days. (I signed up Saturday. I finally got the deposits today.) I realize that financial institutions don't move very quickly over weekends. I just don't care about that because every other method of me paying this seller would have been faster. In between finding out I needed to enter the deposit verifications and them actually showing up, I received an email from Dwolla reminding me to verify my account. That added insult to injury because I was already checking 3-4 times a day. This morning when I finally did verify it, I was happy that I could finally add less than $9 to my account to pay for that item I bought Saturday. Now it will take 3-4 days before that money is available! Again, I understand that banks don't like to move money very quickly. And again, I don't care. This is so far just an extremely slow and extremely inconvenient alternative to Paypal or to emailing money to people directly from my bank, which I also do.
I do have suggestions to make Dwolla better. I'm not all complaints.

1. Loosen the password security. There's no reason Dwolla needs to be more secure than my accounts with PNC, Ally, Chase, Bank of America, American Express, Citi, Discover, Paypal, or Etrade. 

2. Speed up the time from sign-up to first payment. I don't know how to do this, but in a modern economy, it should not take a week to move $9.

I just noticed that they have a link to send someone free money on them to entice me to get people to sign up for Dwolla. I'm not going to do that. I think you should run away from Dwolla. But I'm also annoyed that if they will just give people free money, why can't they front me $9 while they're making me do all the stupid verifications?

Update: Dwolla just did give me $9. I feel bad for their customer service people who seem good at what they do because they still have to back up an annoying product.

Shopping Hiatus

My roommate of almost 6 years just moved out and there are so many things in this apartment that were his that he left or that were mine the whole time and I didn't know about. So I'm trying to purge. I'm particularly focusing on food because my new roommate likes to cook (and I let him move in anyway) and will want space in the kitchen. I don't want to waste food, so I am eating.

Right now I am making a stew that has frozen corn, canned corn, kielbasa, a jar of pasta sauce, a can of butter beans, a can of spinach, and maybe some other things.

I am sodium.

Notes on Grocery Circulars 3/22 - 3/29

I only was able to wake up today because I thought of perusing the grocery circulars.

Key Food has a 101 oz can of Filippo Berio extra virgin olive oil for $14.99. That's a good price and a good brand. When you buy it in the can, it doesn't go bad as quickly because light doesn't get to it. Key Food also has white mushrooms for $1 for 8 oz, which is pretty good. Nothing else is that good a deal. Maybe pork shoulder for $1/lb. A 32 oz Powerade is $1. That's helpful for hangovers.

C-Town has bananas for $0.49/lb and Diet Mug root beer, among other Pepsi products, for 4/$3. A 32 oz container of ricotta is $2.50. You can also get a pound of mozzarella for that price. Must be lasagna season, because they have that on sale too.

Western Beef has 2 liter bottles of Pepsi products for 4/$5. But I dont' think they consider Mug a Pepsi product. It's also harder to bike up the hill with a ton of liquid. Pecorino romano is $4.99/lb, which is pretty good. You can buy a whole or half lamb or kid for $4.99/lb. A whole or half pig is $3.99/lb, which is the same as leg of lamb. It's the Easter sale over there. I don't know if these prices are even good, but you don't see this stuff in circulars that often. Powerade is only $0.79 at Western Beef.

Associated doesn't really have anything this week. Maybe a can of black olives for $1.50, but you can usually get that price at Key Food everyday.

At Western Beef, Braunschweiger is on sale for $2.50 for 8 oz. That's pretty good for around these parts, but nothing like what it goes for in Pittsburgh. You shouldn't eat too much of that though anyway, especially if you like to drink. Vitamin A does a number on your liver. Medium shrimp are $5/lb and mussels are still $2 for 2 lbs, which is the best price. I recommend eating mussels.

Buying Sardines at Western Beef's Fishmonger

I bought some. It was annoying. The guy wanted me to pay him instead of at the cash register when I checked out. And then he wanted me to pay cash. I'm sticking to Food Bazaar for my fish.

I haven't cooked them yet. I should.

Cheesed Off

 Even though yesterday I complained about the price of cheese at Key Food, I might have to make huevos rancheros soon, so when I was at C-Town, I remembered to look. This nice block of Monterey Jack had a big $1.99 sticker on it, so I bought it. But look at my receipt! They charged me $2.59, 30% more!

I shouldn't be too mad though. I had just bought a pair of red shoes. Shoes are the one thing I'm not supposed to buy. Also, they carry Old Bay now for Ridgely. I asked them to via Tumblr.