Tomatoes

It's tomato time. They are $0.99/lb at any store that wants you to buy tomatoes. They are more than that at farmers' markets where they are better and more than that at grocery stores that don't care if you buy tomatoes. (Just like how Associated, Food Bazaar, and Western Beef never care if you buy pasta from them. Some stores just aren't interested. You have to get pasta from C-Town or Key Food. Whole wheat pasta from Trader Joe's.)

Since Friday, I learned how to make panzanella. I had heard of it, but before I looked on wikipedia before making it Friday, I thought it might be soup. It is a salad. It's a salad of stale bread, tomatoes, cumbers, red onions, basil, olive oil, and whatever. I made it Friday and I thought "this is going to be the kind of thing people ask me to make more." And then Agnes loved it so I was right

On Sunday, I had some more stale bread but not much more inclination to cook besides missing my panzanella, so I went to get more ingredients. C-Town's circular said it had plum tomatoes for $0.99/lb and diet Mug Root Beer for some good price I don't remember (but it was probably 3/$4).

When I went there, I found slicing tomatoes for the same discounted price. I like plum tomatoes for sandwiches, but for a food that you want a bunch of extra juice to soak your stale bread, these were better. (The cashier rang them up as plum tomatoes. Maybe their inventory will be off, though the price was the same.) Basil was $2.59 or so, which is absurd ($1 at Jesus, $2 at Food Bazaar) so I improvised my recipe using herbes de provence. It was good.

Tonight I had a leftover tomato and still half a cucumber ($0.50 at C-Town. Off and on I see them cheaper, but it's not worth shopping around. I was happy with that price.) so I diced them and put them with a can of chick peas (probably $0.80 at Western Beef) with some olive oil that I am now out of. And capers ($3.49 for a big jar at Trader Joe's. No one can touch that price.) That was a good dinner.

It's the height of tomato season now, so I should find a famers' market to buy some. I thought I was living ok with tomatoes until 2 years ago when I ate a tomato my cousin grew. Tomatoes are supposed to taste great! I would pay $3/lb for a great tomato (I would only buy 1) but I would be jealous that my cousin gets them for free. And so does my brother by visiting him. He also grows basil. And dill. I never want to move, but sometimes I wish I could have tomatoes and basil and dill. And mint.

Let Me Tell You About Associated

I meant to tell you about C-Town, but I'm telling you about Associated first because that's where the story starts. I've been shopping there more lately. I mostly liked it, except when I walk out without buying something and they question me about that. Sometimes I just don't want to buy something! Sometimes I'm just perusing prices before I make my big purchases. Sometimes your tomatoes are ugly.

Today I went in to get some stuff and saw their ATM was still broken. When I went to check out, they told me the credit card system was on and off. The cashier tried. It was off. I left. If you want me to buy groceries, give me a way to pay. I just left all my groceries there for them to put back because they should pay me to work there if they want me to do that. But I don't know how they'd get money to pay me if they won't even take my money.

So maybe I have to go shop at C-Town more, even if it is gentrifying faster than I am, if only because it will take my money. (Except I didn't shop at C-Town after this. I went to Bravo. But Bravo has a $10 credit card minimum and I can only commit to about $7 so it will never be my regular store.)

P.S. I am 30 years old and I am bad at cooking rice, so my new rice store is the Chinese restaurant next door. It was $2.95 for a "large" of brown, but it is already cooked and I cook rice so infrequently and so poorly that this makes sense for me. I'm stuffing some peppers.

Ceviche Times

One of my goals this summer was to make ceviche (also spelled "seviche," especially by me). On Monday I finally did. Food Bazaar has oysters and mussels for me in the winter and now it has my seviche creatures. Medium white shrimp are $5.99/lb, as are bay scallops. Bay scallops might be too small for ceviche, but sea scallops are $11.99/lb and I'm not made of money. Tilapia is $4.99/lb. That's what I put in the first time I made it, but I'm about to make another batch to which I'm adding squid at $4.99/lb.

Limes got cheaper since Monday. They were 13/$2 but now they are 15. I bought 30 of them because I want to feed people micheladas when I feed them ceviche. I also put the juice of a small grapefruit ($0.67), some tomatillos ($1.29/lb), very fine slivers of red onion ($1.29/lb) and maybe some jalapeño pepper ($1.29/lb) and cilantro. Food Bazaar wanted $1.50 for that, but the going rate is $1 so I didn't get that yet.

I like foods based on festering.

A Bazaar Attack

From the Brooklyn Paper:

An unknown assailant who claimed to be a security guard at a Manhattan Avenue supermarket accused a man of stealing and slashed him on Aug. 8.

The victim told police he was at Food Bazaar between Varet and Moore streets at 5:30 pm when the knife-wielding lunatic came up to him and declared, “You came here yesterday and stole,” slashed him, and ran away.

Very weird. I went there Monday to buy fishes. I might write about that.