The best way to buy basil

For a few very specific things, Whole Foods is amazingly cheap. You can buy a little plastic container of basil for $3 everywhere or you can buy a whole pot of living basil for $2. pic.twitter.com/if1yoGF1bh

— Mike Cherepko (@mikecherepko) July 3, 2021

I learned the technology of just imbedding all my grocery tweets. 

Guide to Shopping at Whole Foods

Last month a dimwitted anti-housing activist popped up in my mentions on Twitter to imply that I'm rich and talked about Whole Foods.

So I decided to write about how to shop at Whole Foods to get the good deals, which it has. On about 4 things.

Olive Oil

You can buy a 3 liter can of the store brand olive oil for $19.99. That's less than $7 a liter, and it's a better quality than Filippo Berio or those other brands (except Colavita). Trader Joe's has a fine store brand too, but this is cheaper. It also lasts a long time, which is ideal since there's not a good reason to go to Whole Foods all that often.

Fresh Herbs

No, not fresh like other stores sell fresh, which are always too expensive. Buy a whole dang plant for $2. That's cheaper than the little plastic containers of fresh herbs. It's cheaper than a jar of dried herbs. Use what you want and try your luck planting the rest.

I bought this parsley last fall. I should use it more often. It is still alive.

The basil is from this week. I hope it starts to thrive. The rosemary is hanging on from last fall. Thyme has 2 green shoots but it otherwise not doing great.

Anyway, fresh herb plants.

Frozen Vegetables

Frozen peas are $1.79/lb and Brussels sprouts were about $1.50. That's cheaper than Krasdale/Urban Meadow frozen vegetables. And look how small they are.

Canned Tomatoes

You can get the store brand canned tomatoes for $1.39 for 28 oz. You can occasionally find canned tomatoes at other places for less than that, but they're quite often over $2 and Whole Foods has them consistently at this price. Also, they are good. Luigi Vitelli isn't good.

Circular Review - May 5

Since Fine Fare changed to Gala Foods, their special schedule is Friday-Thursday instead of Sun-Sat. But they don't update their website in time, so they aren't getting reviewed.

Things I'm on the prowl for: red onions, deli turkey breast, bacon.

Associated:  Ortega products still have their Cinco de Mayo deals going. Corn is $0.40/ear, which is an ok price, but I don't trust corn that's ready in May. Crema is $3.59. I haven't had crema in a long time, but it's so good. Queso fresco is $3. Basis is $2.50--I bought a whole plant at Gala Foods for $3! Now it grows in my window. Don't buy basil there. $4 for store brand bacon.

Key Food: It's celebrating its 80th birthday, so there is a list of products that whose prices now have .80 in them. Tree Ripe orange juice is $1.80. A dozen large eggs are $0.80.  Skippy peanut butter is $1.80 (I will stock up at that price!) Corn is $0.40 here too, but I still see no reason to trust it. Radishes are $0.67, which seems pretty good. Key Food has Old El Paso stuff for Cinco de Mayo.

Bravo: They are celebrating Cinco de Mayo by putting Heinz Ketchup (20 oz) on sale for $2. Why? Their ad is too hard to read, so I'm done.

Food Bazaar: I'm still on the hunt for my red onions, turkey, and bacon, so I will expand my usual reviews. Corn is $0.25/ear here (if you spend $20). If it's on sale everywhere, maybe it's good. Maybe they got a shipment from somewhere warm. Turkey breast is on sale, but I don't like the price. $6 for honey turkey breast. I don't want sweet meat. Ortega crunch taco shells are $1.25 for 12. What a good price. Mussels are $2.50 for 2 pounds, which makes me want to buy them.

C-Town: I'm still mad at C-Town because I went in on a Thursday evening and there was a sign up for ground turkey on sale for $3. So I got it, and it was $6 because the sale didn't start until the next day. You need to read the fine print if you want to shop at C-Town and not be taken advantage of, and I don't want to read fine print. No use looking up what might be on special if I'm just going to be abused.

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.