More grocery notes

I went shopping! Boy do I love a party because I get to buy so many groceries.

I don't even know how much the daikon was, but they had them at Jesus. They're huge.

Braunschweiger is $2.49 for half a pound. In Pittsburgh, it's that much for a pound. I need it for my banh mi dogs.

Western Beef was the best! Limes are 10/$1, which is the best price! Tomatoes, miraculously, were $0.49/lb! They looked good too. Everything I'm making is tomato based, so I feel blessed. Loaves of Italian bread are 3/$2 as always, so I got some now so they'll be stale by Thursday for my panzanella. Ketchup was $2 for 38 oz, which seemed pretty good.

I bought a lot of beans at Associated. I got lost in Associated because of their expansion, so I might avoid there for the rest of the week while they figure things out.

I'm making Dylan come over to learn me how to pickle carrots and daikon for the banh mi dogs. Later today or this week, I'm making Agnes come over to bake 6 or 8 or 12 dozen cookies for ice cream sandwiches.

Notes on Grocery Prices for the 4th of July

Key: WB = Western Beef, KF = Key Food, CT = CTown, FB = Food Bazaar, J = Jesus, A = Associated

Hot Dog Buns: 12 = $1.5 WB, 8 = $1 or $1.39 CT, 12=$1.5 KF
Hot Dogs: 8 chicken $1.79 CT, 8 beef $2.5 WB, chicken $1.25 WB, beef $3 KF, beef $3 A
Cheez Whiz:
Bacon Bits: $1.79 KF
Sour Cream: $2 WB, $2 A, $2 KF
Carrots:
Daikon:
Vinegar:
Oil: 96 oz $5 WB
Eggs:
Celery: $1.5 WB
Beets:
Chick Peas: $1/can KF,
Parsley:
Basil:
Penne: $1/lb A
Mozzarella: $3.49/lb WB, $5/lb KF
Tomatoes: $0.88/lb WB,
Cucumbers: $0.66/A, $.66 KF
Avocados: $2 KF
Bread: $0.66/loaf WB
Water melon: $0.49/lb at WB, $0.49/lb A
Corn: $0.4/ear WB, $0.4/ear A
Charcoal: 18lbs $5 WB
Aluminum pans: $0.33 WB
Ice: $3 16lbs WB
Apple Juice: $1.88 WB, $2 KF
Orangeade:

A sad postscript to the Fresca tale + Party Plans

The last two times I've gone to C-Town looking for Fresca, they've been out :(

But I'll move on. I'm having a 4th of July party in 6 days and making a lot of food. It's going to require all my grocery skills to minimize costs. I'm going to make hot dogs 3 ways, plus hot dog salad, beet salad, chick pea/orzo salad, pesto pasta salad, and probably some other things. Probably pimento cheese. I don't know what the three ways of hot dogs will be yet. Definitely baked potato dogs. Maybe taco dogs? Banh mi dogs?

Expansion of Grocery Capacity in Williamsburg Heights*

Two of my local grocery stores are expanding a bunch. C-Town added a back room that has all its beer and snacks and pop. That's why I told them to start getting Fresca. Where the pop used to be, they now have bread. Where the bread and snacks used to be, they now have freezer and coolers and some cheese. I haven't eyed that stuff that much yet.

Associated is also expanding. Who knew the building next to them was unused? They moved into that. I can't even tell how it will all be laid out, but yesterday I got a bit lost trying to discover where they put the eggs. The medium eggs were $1.69, which is hardly better than Key Food now. I bought medium eggs to keep uncooked and large eggs to have a dozen hard boiled ones on hand. I also bought 1.25 lbs of jalapeno peppers ($1.49/lb) to pickle, but my jar only holds about 0.75 lbs so now I have to use up all these hot peppers and don't know what to do.

*Williamsburg Heights is what I've taken to calling the areas around the Graham and Grand stops of the L. When I moved here, I wondered if this was East Williamsburg or Bushwick. As more people moved to the Montrose, Morgan, Jefferson, and Dekalb stops, meaning actual Bushwick, it became clear that if I said East Williamsburg I would not convey my location. So I went back to saying Williamsburg (my zip code is Williamsburg's). One of the good things these hurricanes we get has done is give me flood zone maps. So Williamsburg Heights is the area that is not in any sort of flood zone around the Graham and Grand stops of the L. It hasn't caught on yet, but it might as well.

A Fresca tale

C-Town added a new room (which I'll write about later) and has room for Fresca now. So I asked them to carry it. Then I went to the beach and drunktweeted them a picture of the Waist Watchers fake Fresca we were drinking. So they got it and tweeted me back that it was in and on sale until Thursday.

When I went to buy it, the price rang up without a sale. So I tweeted my receipt and said they forgot to tell the cash registers about the sale. C-Town said "I owe you a Fresca" and asked for my address to have it delivered. That was funny, so I allowed it. I also said I'd be home all day because I tried using my key as a bottle opener and I broke it. Later that day when they delivered Fresca, there was a surprise bottle opener/corkscrew thrown in! Wow.

Friday is new grocery circular day.

I got my tabs open. Now let's see what's good this week.

Key Food:
Diet Coke etc is $4/4. They include Fresca in the list, but every time Key Food puts Fresca on sale, they clear the shelves of it and only have Coke and Sprite. I actually haven't seen Fresca there for ages. I have a good Fresca story for another post.

Hunts BBQ sauce for a dollar. I go through phases of loving bbq sauce. I might as well get some.

Only two things at Key Food worth getting.

C-Town:
Beef is $2.69/lb. Maybe I'll eat raw meat this week. Tomatoes are $0.99/lb! I just bought some yesterday for more than that. I'll eat all the tomatoes. I like them. Hunt's BBQ sauce is $1 here too. Actually, $0.99. I'll save a penny. Diet Mug Root Beer is $1 again! I went in yesterday to get $1 Diet Mug and they were clean out, so I got cream soda. I like that too.

Food Bazaar (I really only care about the seafood department here):
Lobster's $6/lb. I never made or ate a lobster. I probably won't now either. I also never made or ate a whole fish. I should just eat smelts.

Western Beef:
I can get a bag of chicken legs for $0.69/lb. It's a 10-15 lb bag though. I'd need to have a lot of people over. I can't inflict 10 lbs of chicken on my roommates. Wait, I can. One just left the country or 2 weeks. I can throw away all her stuff!

I'm sick of this. Nothing else was good at Western Beef. Nothing was good at Associated.

Tahini

I never bought tahini before because I think it's probably expensive. Yesterday I bought 16 oz of Krinos tahini for $4.99 at Western Beef. That was cheaper than I expected. But I don't know. How much do other people pay for tahini? My siblings were no help.