Summer's here!

Summer's here. Limes are 10/$1 at the Jesus grocery. That's as cheap as they'll get. Roma tomatoes are $0.99/lb which is as cheap as they'll get, but they're not good looking yet. What's surprising is that this year, the tomatoes still on the vine are $0.99/lb there. I had never seen them below $1.49 in all my years.

To translate any of these prices to Key Food prices, just multiply by two. Key Food has no deals this week. None. I might have saved a few pennies on my ricotta, but that's it. The sausage in a container that is already broken up and you can just cook with it is always a good deal, but it wasn't on special or anything.

I am going to keep my eyes peeled for jars of minced garlic that are on special, because they vary widely in price, and I'm almost out.

I need to become a better pickler.

Mission Tortilla Chips

Mission tortilla chips are $2.99 for a bag at C-Town. The best price other than that I can get is $1.99 for Herr's. I think Mission's are so much beter that they're worth the dollar. They might give you more in a bag too, but I didn't investigate that.

Yesterday I bought tortilla strips. I don't think they were that good for standing up to my guacamole. They're long and thin. They weren't all that bad, but triangles would have probably been better. I might use the strips if I were fashioning an appetizer that had to be surrounded by chips, because the strips are pretty fashionable. And they weren't so bad that I couldn't ever use them again.

Excerpts from Emails and a Weekend Update

Today I wrote a lot of emails about prices. Here's a summary.

At Warehouse Liquors on Broadway and 8th St, you can get Seagram's Gin, which is the smooth gin in the bumpy bottle, for $19.99. That's for 1.75 liters. If you're paying $13 for a 750ml bottle, they must have seen you coming. You can get 2 750ml bottles of Evan Williams black label, which is the best whiskey there is, for $18.99. You can also get a 1.75l bottle for Boru vodka for $18.99.

Key Food has 1 lb of Sorrento mozzarella on sale for buy one get one free. Luckily, the jesus vegetable store has tomatoes that are $0.99 for on the vine and finally, $0.99 for roma. As always, you can get basil for $1 a bunch and there you have your caprese salad. Olive oil's on sale at Key Food, but nothing special. You should never pay more than $7.99 for a liter. You can often find it for $6.99. Extra virgin that is. There's no reason to get anything else.

Key Food had Oscar Mayer extra thick cut bacon on sale for $3.99 for a pound. I tried cooking some in the microwave and some in the oven to put in my dill chicken salad. Microwave wins. Use a bunch of paper towels and cook it until you want to eat it.

Organic bodega still has avocados for $1.49 each. I bought 6 really ripe ones and made my really good guacamole.

I finally was able to make mayo from scratch. The secret was I added another egg.

Here are things I made my the Memorial Day cook out Andrew and I had:
chicken salad with homemade dill mayo and bacon
caprese with fresh pesto
corn and black bean salsa
3-ingredient guacamole

There were at least 2 other parties on the roof yesterday, but we were regarded as having the best food.

Chinatown, etc.

I went to Chinatown for groceries on Monday. I think Dynasty Supermarket changed its name sometime over the last several years. They had a sale on dumplings for $10 for 3 bags, but they seemed to be out. Or I didn't read Chinese well enough. You can get 3 dozen brown eggs there for $2. Or if you don't want that deal, you can get a dozen for $1. I am hard pressed to buy eggs for under $2 anywhere else.

This isn't a grocery, but Old Navy has a sale on swim pants now. Everything was $12.90. But I didn't like anything.

Last I saw, spaghetti, macaroni, and maybe another shape of Ronzoni pasta were on sale for $0.80 at Key Food. You must buy five. The cheapest sauce they had was $2 for a jar.

You can buy a container of chicken livers there for $1.79, but figuring out what to do with them is the hard part. A duck cost me $15 and it was good, but it wasn't 4 times better than roasting a chicken. Nor was it better than having 4 chickens.

Where I Spend It

I just figured out how to see where I spend my money with American Express. Since I use plastic money, especially American Express, for almost everything, this is a pretty accurate measure of where my dollars go. This excludes rent and metrocards, however.

Here's how it breaks down.

1. Warehouse Liquors - 20%
2. Key Food - 15%
3. Botanica - 12%
4. Trader Joe's - 10%
5. Apple - 6%
6. Virgin Mobile, C-Town, Time Warner Cable - 4% each (tied)

Chicken parts

On Sunday, I bought 5 chicken thigh/leg combos for under $4. They were $0.79/lb. That's the beat deal in chickenry.

The milk I bought at Trader Joe's doesn't expire until May 25. How do they make it last so long?

All the Deals I Found on Saturday Afternoon

C-town has avocados on special. They're 2 for $3. The organic bodega on Graham that isn't Khim's but whose name I should know still has them for $1.49. So a penny cheaper. They're also riper. I don't really trust C-town's produce.

C-town still has tuna on sale for a dollar a can. I haven't seen it cheaper than that for a long time.

At Key Food, boxes of Barilla pasta are on sale for $1. It used to be I'd never pay a dollar for pasta, but now if I see it for a dollar, I snatch it up. Usually the only kinds you can get for $1 are spaghetti, thin spaghetti, elbows, ziti, penne rigate, and rotelle. But this sale has every shape on sale, including some whole wheat ones. I got pipette, cavatapi, gemelli, large shells, and cellentani. I'm going to make pesto for one of them.

Barilla pasta sauce is on sale for 2 for $4, and I haven't really seen pasta sauce cheaper than that for a while.

Andrew's going to puree some carrots this afternoon. I don't know what I'm going to puree yet. I'm going to make more guacamole though. Here's my recipe.

Guacamole
2 ripe avocados
1/2 a ripe tomato that isn't too juicy
1/2 a jalapeno pepper

Cut the avocados in half and remove the pit. Scoop out the part you eat into a bowl. Mash it.
Dice the tomato. Slice the jalapeno into small pieces. Put them in the bowl. Stir.

That's it. No salt. No other spices. No nothing. Oh you could certainly add a number of good things to this recipe. I'd eat those too. But I don't have those things so this is my recipe. Well, I have salt. I won't pretend I don't have salt.

Avocado's Constant

I was wrong to report that you can get avocados for $1.19 at the non-Khim's organic store on Graham just south of Metropolitan. I'm not saying my source lied. I'm saying the price went up.

I bought some yesterday for an ersatz Cinco de Mayo. And boy did I make the best guacamole I ever made with them. I used 2 avocados, 1/2 a tomato, and 1/2 a jalapeno pepper. That was it. I didn't even use salt. Just the vegetables. Or fruits, if you want to be particular, because the pepper and the tomato are both fruits and the avocado seems like it's technically a fruit too.

SOUP UPDATE: Andrew was scandalized by paying $1.89 for a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup at Compare, but that's also the price at C-Town. If you know of a better price, please let me know. I'd travel. We go through that stuff like water when we eat our Sausage, Biscuits, Scrambled Eggs, and Gravy brunch that we eat all the time.

Evil Willy

The worst day of my life was when Warehouse Liquors quit offering Evan Williams in the 2 pack. It cost $17.99 for the two, and then suddenly it was $11.99 each. They had some Grande Canadian for that price, but it wasn't the same. It was like losing a friend.

Today I went on my weekly liquor run and when I saw it, I stated to cradle it. I also got a 2 pack of rum and a bottle of white tequila.
I also saw 8 limes for 99 cents at Associated. I can't afford not to get them at that price. But I also couldn't carry anything more because I had just been to Key Food.

Things I Made on the First Day of Owning an Immersion Blender

-pesto
-mayo, but I messed it up twice before my roommate fixed it.
+tuna salad with that mayo
-white bean puree
+crostini with the tuna salad and with the bean puree. I put a slice of sausage on the bean ones
-a very very very minty mint julep
-a very very minty mojito. But it was only 2 verys of minty. The julep was 3 verys.

Today I want to puree meat. I never want to chew again.

I'm back! I think

I'm back, but without the facade of being a guy in a wig wandering around C-Town. That's partially because over the last two years, I've switched most of my shopping to Key Food because when I want to eat raw meat, I trust their raw meat. Also, the C-town doesn't really have produce, but Key Food has overpriced produce, but the Jesus vegetable store has cheap produce and is on the way.

Someone told me about avocados that were $1.19 on Graham Ave, and she didn't even know I used to have a grocery store blog, so I thought I'd fire it up again. And because people are moving to the neighborhood and I need to learn them where to shop.

Lately I've been happy with the price of butter. I can get a pound for about $2.50 at Key Food. C-town has it for $2.99. And I FINALLY found Koolaid in the packets at Compare Food, which means I can start making Koolaid pie again. That store is going to be my new beverage center. It has cans of tomato juice for $1.89, while they are $2.09 at Key Food. They also have a lot of ginger beer, which is pretty hard to find.