What's On Sale This Week?

 I just got back from Philadelphia. A coworker might come over for dinner tomorrow. And I have some stuff from before my trip, but I should replenish. Also I'm hungry right now so I might come up with good ideas.

Bravo: nothing. well, white button mushrooms are always $3/lb there and you can get as few or as many as you want, so I still might end up going there.

Brooklyn Harvest Market: Frozen ravioli are 4/$5 for 13 oz. They would be good with the zucchini pesto I made before I left. Super Pepsi (the kind with the most caffeine.. aka Pepsi Zero Sugar) is 3/$5. Beef hearts are $3/lb. They don't usually have beef hearts.

C-Town: Butternut squash is $1/lb and I just remembered when I made a salad of it using it raw, with gorgonzola and nuts.

Food Bazaar: Nothing. Well, the apples for $1/lb inspired me, but I'm not going all the way there for just apples.

Green Corner: Lemons are 3/$1 and my coworker might want a cocktail that could benefit from lemon. Nothing else is remarkable.

Ozzie's: Lemons are 5/$2 here. Will I walk 0.75 miles each way to save 7 cents per lemon at Green Corner? (I don't know.. I might.) Canada Dry's family of pop is 3/$5. Coke products are "buy 2 get 1 free" and they are $2.50 each, so that's the same price presented in a more confusing way.

Western Beef:  I didn't see anything.

Maybe I'll make sourdough pizza with mushrooms and maybe yellow and/or orange peppers. And A fennel and apple salad. And a butternut squash with nuts and gorgonzola salad.

There are no deals

 I don't update that much because there's nothing to talk about. And the Wall Street Journal covered why. There just aren't any deals out there anymore.

I am going to go buy 5 lbs of potatoes today for $2.

new credit card for the 4th of July

 I got a new credit card that gives you 5% back on whichever category you spend the most on every month. Which is grocery stores. And I got it just in time to spend $200 on groceries for the 4th of July.

Cheap hot dogs were harder to find this year. I got them at Dollar Tree. You can get 8 turkey or chicken hot dogs for $1.25. They are only 10 oz instead of 12 like most places, but I don't care. People want the condiments.

I can't get chicken quarter for less than $1/lb. Peaches were $1.49/lb at the best place I could find. Onions are $2/bag everywhere. Ketchup was $3.50. I got buns for $1/bag of 8, which isn't that bad. And a watermelon was $5 which is fine. The cheapest tomatoes I could find were $1.49/lb. I spent over $7 on Cheez Whiz! Bulgarian sheep feta was $5/lb but that's still a good price. Pasta is over $1 box. I got 3 bags of chick peas for $1.25 each though which is an incredible price. Cracker barrel cheese is $2.50 but then I got $1 back from Ibotta. I should go get more. I had to pay $4 for a pound of store brand mozzarella.

I'm not even making dessert this year. I'm too worn out.

I need to go buy groceries after being away for a week

 I don't even know what might be on sale because I haven't looked at circulars for 2 weeks (the week before the trip I needed to eat all my inventory). I am very hungry right now, so I hope I find things. Also my trip made me fat, so I hope I find healthy things.

Bravo: Frozen vegetables are 3/$4 for 14 oz bags. Those are good for fried rice. Big cans of tomato paste are 3/$7 but I'm not made out of math to divide things by 7. Seems more expensive than when they used to be 3/$6 though, so I'm not buying that out of spite. Frozen spinach is $1.5 for 14 oz.

Brooklyn Harvest Market: A 12 pack of Sixpoint Hard Seltzer is only $10. I wish they sold the cucumber ones separately because those are great and the rest are ehhh. A pound of hummus is $4, which seems like a good price, but I will just make my own. That's a good idea. Cabot Greek yogurt is $5 for 2 lbs. I haven't bought greek yogurt in a while and I can't remember if I like that brand. Bac'n bits are $2.5, which I could use for the 4th of July.

C-Town: Romaine is $1.49/lb. This is mostly a repeat of Bravo.

Food Bazaar: Limes are 9/$2. Corn tortillas are $1.5. Mussels are finally on sale! 

Scallions are 5 bunches/$2 and I should get some because mine all died when I was away. So did almost all my other food in my window boxes.

Ozzie's: Heinz BBQ sauce is $2 but nowhere ever has Carolina which is the best one. A whole cauliflower is $2.5.

Green Corner: nothing

Western Beef: nothing

I guess I should go to Mr. Piña, which doesn't have a circular that I know of.

Beefsteak tomatoes and kaiser rolls

 I saw that Ozzie's had beefsteak tomatoes on sale for $0.99/lb so I went there for lunch yesterday. I couldn't find any though because they were either out or a guy stocking the shelves was hiding them. Instead I just got 2 boxes of 100 tea bags each for $2 each.

I went today before breakfast to try again. I did find them. I also got 2 kaiser rolls for $0.40/each. The bread area is so well stocked in the morning! I never go there then. I took the plastic bag I put my last bread purchase in because I still had it and I don't want more plastic in the world.

So now I have my lunch planned. Maybe some of my window herbs are big enough to harvest for a tomato sandwich. Or I can cut up my Vidalia onion.

A duck. What to cook with a duck. Side dishes for duck.

 The backstory is I got a frozen duck from Gideon for my birthday in December. It is too luxurious to eat by myself, so I stuck it in the freezer. Now it's April and the Omnicron wave around my the end of the year has subsided, the weather is nicer, and it is time to cook a duck.

The first problem with my meal plan is the flip side of it being too lonely to eat a fancy duck by myself. I started by inviting Yasmin. Then I invited Matt and Emily because they also gave me lot of fancy ingredients for my birthday (most of which I still have, and may incorporate into the meal). And I had to invite Gideon of course, but he hasn't told me if he will come. Also, roommates. So I am dealing with not a lot of duck per person and also a lot of uncertainty about how many people I even need.

Two people have suggested I make Peking duck. I do not know how to make this. I am not really sure how to make any duck (that is the point of Gideon's gift.. he gets me weird things I have to figure out). But I especially don't know how to make Peking duck.

I currently think I will make a large amount of some sort of risotto (that was a gift from Matt & Emily) as a first course, then a small serving of duck with a side of some vegetables as a second course. This is basically the Italian meal style. Which means I could flesh it out with an antipasto course. My main risotto ideas are either mushroom (risotto ai funghi), saffron (risotta alla milanese) or to be very weird, strawberry (risotto alle fragole). This one for orange risotto sounds good too. (risotto all'arancia)

The point of this blog post is to take notes while I look through all the grocery circulars to see what is on sale this week and maybe come up with ideas. The title of the blog post was accidentally SEO bait and then I thought it was funny so I made it more baity.

Bravo: Asparagus $2/lb. Mozzarella $3. They don't list them on sale, but they sell bulk white mushrooms for $3/lb which is a pretty good price and I could use a ton of those with a few porcini (gift from Matt & Emily).

Brooklyn Harvest Market: Asparagus. Mozzarella.

C-Town: Asparagus. Mozzarella. All the sales are the same this week. Escarole $2/lb.

Food Bazaar: Lemons 5/$2, but I'm not dealing with that whole store for that.

Ozzie's: Asparagus. Mozzarella is 2/$4 (must buy 2) so at least that is a little different. And ricotta is only $3.

Green Corner: Strawberries $2/lb. Lemons 5/$2 (I will go here just for that).

My Planned Menu

Antipasti: various olives, some cheeses, giardiniera, roasted red peppers, and maybe some sort of crackers

Primo: Risotto ai funghi

Secondo: Orange duck (anatra all'anatra)

Contorno: Escarole or arugula salad with strawberries, gorgonzola

Grocery Inflation Part 2: Whole Foods

 Whole Foods has been the worst for grocery inflation because they don't update the prices on their shelves. They just charge you more. First I got charged $1.99 for my $1.79 tofu. This week, I went back to get 3 liters of olive oil before the quarter ended and my credit card quit giving me 5% on groceries. My $19.99 olive oil rang up as $21.99.

I had happened to take a picture of the shelf of the olive oil so I had the price. So I decided to complain. First I was going to complain to NYC to get them arrested, but there was a line on the form that said "did you try resolving this with the company first?" So I emailed Whole Foods.

Whole Foods ended up refunding me the entire $21.99. Which was a lot more than I would have expected ($2 would have been fair!) but they didn't say "and we will tell the manager to make the prices on the shelves right" so I still don't want to risk shopping there any time soon. But because I have so much olive oil, their plants aren't as good as they were in mid-March, and I got a rosemary at Trader Joe's, and their tofu isn't cheaper anymore, I don't think I need to shop there.

Grocery Inflation!

 Over the years, I have occasionally taken pictures of my receipts and they pop up in my Timehop and I see that most of my prices I used to pay are still similar. Which is surprising. But I have noticed that some things really are more expensive lately. Oil, eggs, and mayonnaise (which is made of oil and eggs) are way up. Meat is generally way up.

And I just saw this peanut butter sale in Bravo's ad next week!

Peanut butter used to be frequently on sale for $2 or $2.49 for a 15-16 oz jar. And now it's 12 oz for that price. The other way inflation gets you. Bags of frozen vegetables are 14 oz instead of 16 at C-Town and Bravo now too.

Here is next week's C-Town ad:

I bought a jar of peanut butter at Trader Joe's recently and remembered why I never liked or buy that. I started adding a spoon to instant ramen and that's really good, but you can't use it in its normal way.

The plan for the Key Foods site

 Housing! From New York Yimby:

The proposed 75-foot-tall development will yield 93,259 square feet, with 92,098 square feet designated for residential space and 1,160 square feet for commercial space. The building will have 134 residences, most likely rentals based on the average unit scope of 687 square feet. The concrete-based structure will also have a cellar, a 35-foot-long rear yard, and 67 enclosed parking spaces on the first floor. There will also be 15 bicycle parking spaces on the first floor and 52 bicycle parking spaces in the cellar.

 With only 1,160 square feet for commercial space, that isn't going to be a Key Food again.