Weird Experience at Brooklyn Harvest Market

I went there because Barilla pasta was on sale ($1) and I need orzo to make wedding soup. Canned salmon was also $2.5 and I needed to get out of the house. So I went.

I found other Barillas for $1, like whole wheat spaghettis, so I got several. I also stumbled upon 44 fish sticks for $4.74 or something. I was shopping while hungry, so I got a bunch of stuff. Apricot jelly for $2.5 maybe? I forget... which is unlike me, but I am kinda drunk now.

When the food rang up, it was like $27, which is way more than I expected. I was confused, and thought I messed up, but was going to go. But then the cashier was like "... you wanted $9.02 of cash back on your Discover Card credit card purchase?"     NO! I didn't even touch the screen where I would say that. All I did was scan my rewards card. But for some reason they added $9.02 to my bill and then gave me that in cash.

I am annoyed by having 2 more pennies in my life. But if Discover does something like bill me for a cash advance I am going to have a huge conniption. If they don't, I will accept this as a weird thing BHM does.

Discover gives 5% back on groceries this quarter, so I use it a lot. Next quarter Chase Freedom does. I spend half the year getting 5% back on groceries and half the year getting 3% back. Ask me about credit cards, because if I refer you I get $100 or so. And I know a lot about credit cards.

What's on sale? I'm hungry

 I think Christmas sales are already showing up. And Christmas Eve sales. Lots of fish.

Ozzie's: Jumbo eggs are 3/$5. I might have too many eggs now, especially considering how many eggs my roommates have. However, I have been baking a lot of cookies. Polly-O mozzarella and ricotta (32 oz) is $2.50. Yellow and red onions are $1/bag. They're never the same price. That's it I guess. They have a short circular. Last week, I saw Natty Ice on sale in the Key Food circular, but the store doesn't carry that. I went to Ozzie's, which does carry it and has the same sales, more or less, as Key Food. It wasn't in the circular and it wasn't labeled on sale in the store, but I bought it anyway and it was on sale! That's not ideal, but I liked it.

Green Corner: Chicken legs are $0.49/lb. Polly-o is on sale here, but for $3 (mozzarella) and $4 (ricotta). Mussels are $4 for 2 lbs. No comment:

Grapefruits are $0.50 each and serrano peppers are $1.39. Lemons are 7/$2. I hate that kind of math. I do it in my head as "6/$2, but a free lemon."

Brooklyn Harvest Market: I've already been looking at this one and am going there later, probably. I like their online coupons that go to my card. I'm disappointed that the Ibotta link doesn't work. 3 lbs of sweet potatoes or 5 lbs of regular potatoes for $1.50. Cafe Bustelo bricks (10 oz) for $1.98. I will buy the 4 maximum. I could buy 20 lbs of rice for $8.88, which is almost tempting me to become good at cooking rice. A 14 oz package of "stuffing mushrooms" is $2.50, which is pretty good. Galbani mozzarella is $2 and ricotta is $3. So I'll get the mozzarella here and the ricotta at Ozzie's, if I have room in my refrigerator. Coke products are 4/$5 but you have to buy 4. I guess I can handle that, if I make more than one trip here this week. McCain frozen onion rings and potatoes are 2 bags for $3 with the online coupon. I hope I have room in my freezer too! Two pounds of mussels go for $6.49 here. They're organic.

I got a 2 lb bag of frozen shrimp for $10 last week here, but I didn't write about it. Now I am.

Key Food: This is the other place I shop the most of late. That shrimp bag would be $14 here this week. "Fresh" mozzarella logs are $4. Cafe Bustelo is $2.50 here. Pepsi products are 4/$4 with a $10 purchase, but I don't know if I can reach $10. Polly-o is $2 for mozzarella (must buy 2) or $3  for 32 oz of ricotta. Colavita pasta is $1, so I might go there today instead of BHM because I want fettucine and meatballs. Yellow onions, but not red, are $1 here. Canned clams are $1.69/can. I would stock up, but I already stocked up because this was the sale 2 weeks ago and that price is so good. Usually they're about $2.49 or $2.69. Linguine and clam sauce is only a few minutes away when you have a can of clams. Hot cherry peppers are $2.50, which I might get so I don't have to bike to Western Beef.

You can get a 40 oz box of cleaned squid for $15. That is too much for me, but I like the idea.

Bravo: Cream cheese is $1.50 but I already have that.

C-Town: Cream cheese is $1.50, but I already have that and Bravo is closer to me.

Western Beef: nothing, unless i take a chance of saving $0.50 on cherry peppers

Food Bazaar: Coke is $1, but you can only buy 2. Which sounds better than having to buy 4... I should have gone when I walked by today. Mozzarella is $3 here. Cheese is never a good price here.

What's on Sale This Week - St. Patrick's Day and Coronavirus

Last year Key Food has very cheap corned beef, so I ate it for the first time in my life. It was good, but it's not the same sale this year. Also, I wouldn't invite a lot of people over because of social distancing. My kitchen is pretty full with stuff, but I'm going to see what is on sale this week anyway.

Western Beef: nothing

Food Bazaar: A 44-pack of fish sticks is $6. I can't remember if that's a good price. Considering how many fish tacos I could make with 44 fish sticks (22), it's a pretty good price. That's the only good sale, so I won't go there.

Green Corner: Nothing really.

Key Food: (I hope I find good sales, even though I looked yesterday and know there aren't any as good as last week's.) Cabbage is $0.27/lb. (It also lasts a long time, perfect for a quarantine or even social distancing.)  Flour is $2 for 2 lbs. I have been making a lot of focaccia. The corned beef is $1.99/lb with a $25 purchase. Scalfani canned tomatoes are 3/$4 (must buy 3). Usually that would deter me, but in these times of hoarding I might do it.

C-Town: Nothing

Bravo: Luigi Vitelli pasta is $0.79. I am up to my gills in pasta though. Krasdale cheese hunks are $1.67 for 8 oz.

What to buy this week - Coronavirus Edition

A couple of my friends were talking about stocking up on food in case there are quarantines or supply chain problems. I realized that all my usual shopping already prepared me. I have so many beans because they are always cheap. I have so much canned fish because it's Lent. But now I have an excuse to go buy even more beans. I want borlotti/cranberry/Roman (they are the same) because I've been watching Italian cooking videos.

Anyway...

Bravo: Barilla pasta is $1. I keep seeing that in my videos. I want weird shapes. A tin of anchovies is $1.69. I also see that in my videos. (They use so much more anchovy when that's an ingredient than we do.. and so much less garlic.)

Food Bazaar: Octopus is $3/lb. I watched several videos about that, but I am not ready to deal with one.

Green Corner: Lemons are 7/$2, which is more lemons than 6/$2, which is better than 50 cents each, which is usually a good lemon price. (This is how I do math in my head.)  A 2 pound bag of red onions is $1.25.

C-Town: Asparagus is $2/lb. Since when is Hormel salami $9/lb?

Key Food: Key Food has corned beef sales because St. Patrick's Day is coming up, but it doesn't have sales as good as last year, so I won't buy it. Last year I think it was like $0.40/lb. Now it is $2. Asparagus is also $2/lb here. Baby bella mushrooms are $3/lb. Mozzarella is $3.50/lb. Hmm. Cabot Greek yogurt is $4 for 2 lbs. Compare that to Fage, which is $6. Buttermilk is only $2. It's usually $2.50 here (but $1.69 at Trader Joe's). Colavita pasta is $1. Maybe they have good shapes.

The Sales

Whole Foods keeps emailing me about parmigiano reggiano being on sale, and I am just about out of my parmesan, but I am not going to go because I'm not a Prime member anymore. I do need to go for olive oil soon.

Bravo:  nothing

C-Town: Romaine lettuce is 99 cents/lb. Palmolive dish soap is 79 cents. Coke products are 4/$5.

Key Food: Gorton's fish is 50% off. For Lent.

Doug and Coral just brought me canned salmon and anchovies. That will be nice for Lent.

What is on sale? What will I eat?

I haven't done this for a while because I cooked a turkey and ate leftovers for a week, then went to Pittsburgh where I cooked 1 meal and ate leftovers for a week, and then came back and had parties. But I am in real life now. I have 1 eggplant and about 8 oz of mushrooms that I bought last week. And some tofu. And 2.5 lbs of frozen chicken wings I bought for $4. What will I find to eat?

Key Food:  Avocados are $0.69.  Nothing else. And Ozzie's doesn't have a website anymore, so I'm going to assume they have the same sales as Key Food and nothing is good.

C-Town: nothing

Bravo: nothing

Green Corner: not updated

Food Bazaar: 44 fish sticks for $6.

Looks like I'm just going to eat what I have in my cupboards. I'll look at one more store in case I go to Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

Associated: Quartered chicken legs are $0.49, eggs are $0.79, eggplants are $0.79/lb.

The sales this week

I should have done this when I was hungry instead of eating two peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.

Bravo: A big can of pineapple juice is $2. Those are good to have around. 7-up and Canada Dry type pops are 3/$4. Krasdale's version of tater tots are $2.50 for a bag. A 5 pound bag of potatoes is $1.50. That's the only thing so far that might get me in this store. Celery is $1.50.

C-Town: Boneless whole chicken breasts are $1.59. Since these go on sale so often, maybe I'll skip this time even though I love chicken piccata and chicken marsala. Tide Simply detergent is $1.99. Tuttorosso crushed tomatoes (and all other kinds) are $1/can. Celery is $1.50 here too.

Key Food: What a selection of things for $0.88! Zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, green pepper, plum tomatoes. That sounds like I should make ratatouille. Broccoli rabe is $1.48/lb. Celery is $1.48. So many 8s. Coke products are $1.25. You can get 5 lb bags of apples for $0.88/lb. I might do that. Red cabbage is still 49¢/lb.

Green Corner: They haven't updated their site. Neither has Ozzie's.

Food Bazaar: Bags of black or small red beans are 99¢. Frozen ravioli are $1.25 for 12 oz. 15 oz of sardines in tomato sauce are also $1.25.

Western Beef: I haven't gone here in a long while and I haven't included it in a long while. But Citibike is creeping closer to it so I am going to check its sales.

Chicken breast cutlets are 99¢/lb. Five pounds of onions for $2. Same sardine sale as Food Bazaar. Pears are 99¢/lb. A 44 fish stick bag is $6.

Parrot Coffee in Ridgewood, Queens: The place for olives

I've been buying a lot of olives lately from Gala Foods because they are $5.99/lb and good and I also started drinking a lot of fino sherry and I live the tapas lifestyle. I will still buy olives there, especially the spicy ones, because it is the closest grocery store to my apartment (I have 5 within 4 blocks, but it is the closest.)

But today I went to Parrot Coffee in Ridgewood, Queens on Myrtle Ave. I didn't see any coffee, but I saw a lot of eastern European foods and a lot of inexpensive olives.

Here is what I bought.

From left to right, there are sprats (which are fish), kalamata olives, alfonso olives, harissa, and tahini. And everything was cheap!

The receipt has the alfonso olives labeled wrong, but they were still $4.99/lb. There was a much bigger container of tahini for not much more, but this size will last me two years unless I learn other things to make with it besides hummus. I have never eaten a sprat.

There was also Bulgarian feta that was $2.99/lb I want to try.

Easter Deals

Easter isn't a holiday I cook for because I always go to Agnes's. I do like cooking for Lent, so I'm peeping the Key Food circular to see if it has the things I need for a fish fry. They have a section of next week's ad that celebrates Easter with sales on ricotta, mozzarella, spaghetti, and tomato sauce. I guess that's what Italian people around here eat for Easter? I guess I grew up eating Carpatho-Rusyn food for Easter.

The prices are good though. $3 for 32 oz of ricotta. $2 for a pound of mozzarella.

Luxury butter is on sale for $3 per 8 oz (Kerrygold). I have to buy a lot of luxury butter anymore for my sourdough bread.

I'm not sure if they have fish for my fish fry. I guess I could use basa or swai (which Bing tells me are the same).

A Pittsburgh price for pop

It's not often I can get 2 liters of pop in New York for under $1. But Associated was selling it for $0.89 if I spent $25. And I did because I wanted beef stew and fish tacos.

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.

My Typical Western Beef Trip

Since the weather got nice enough for me to bike everywhere, I've been going to Western Beef a lot. And since I discovered Baltika, I've been going even more. Here's my typical haul: 3 Baltikas, a half gallon of milk, and a bunch of fish products. Baltika is Europe's second largest brewery, according to Wikipedia. These bottles are imported from Russia. They're $1.88 for 51 oz, which is 1.5L. They're 8% alcohol. They only look foamy there because they just survived a ride on my bike. They're either so cheap because the ruble is so weak, their best by date is in 2 weeks, or because they're not that good. I, however, have acquired the taste. It's rather sweet. I'd serve it at a brunch with oatmeal, but not with huevos rancheros.

The sardines and tuna are pretty good prices too. I can find sardines on sale for $1/less sometimes, but $1.15 is the most consistent low price and I eat them a lot. I never find tuna for less than 4/$3.

Disappointing Delallo. Plus Giant Eagle

I've been looking forward to go to Delallo for a while. It sits at the intersection of my three loves: Pittsburgh, Italian food, and grocery stores. It doesn't hurt that it talks to me on Twitter.  What a let down!

 I was still excited when I took this picture. I hadn't yet walked in the door. Inside I found the produce section and was taken aback. They want $2.50 for basil. You get more for $1 at Jesus. They want $1.98/lb for eggplant. It's half that even at Key Food. Ginger was $3.98/lb. That might be better than Giant Eagle, but it's not as good as even Penn Macaroni. Cabbage was $0.69/lb, which is the same as Key Food, but I consider Key Food's price bad. They have an antipasti bar where everything is $8.88/lb. Maybe that's not bad, but at the East Village Cheese Shop, I get grape leaves for $2.49/lb. And that's list price. I don't think they know how to measure and usually give me 2 lbs for $2.49.

The one good price was baccalà. That was $6.98/lb. I don't know if that had a bone in it. There were also some prepared versions available behind the deli counter for $17.95/lb.  Eep! The mozzarella for $4.98/lb wasn't too bad. Eggs were $1.49 for jumbo, which is the best price I know. But when I got to the frozen seafood section, I got positively angry.

 At Food Bazaar, you get a pound of octopus (they call it "pulpo") for $3. THIS IS OVER 4 TIMES THAT! Maybe because Pittsburgh is so far from the sea. I don't know.

 I don't actually know what a good price for cuttle fish is. I do know you'd have to pay me more than $6 to cuddle with fish though.

 I probably wouldn't pick on spelling if I were in Brooklyn. But most everyone in Jeanette, Pa. speaks English as a first language. Also, gourmet prices demand gourmet copy-editing.

 These artichoke hearts made me miss Brooklyn. C-Town told me on Twitter yesterday that a shipment of La Squisita artichoke hearts came in. They go for $1.29 a jar.

So then my brother and I went to Giant Eagle. He had to get 15 gallons of distilled water, so I had time to look around.

First Stop in Pittsburgh: Penn Macaroni

The Megabus dropped me off under the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and my brother was parked right there. It was around 6:30 am, which is when Penn Macaroni opens. That place was packed already! And it was, as they say, "not playin' arahnd."

 The have aisles and aisles of Italian stuff. They have a room of cheeses and deli meats. The prices on the cheeses weren't bad. $6.83 for pecorino romano, for example. (They charge more on their website.)

 This is a pretty good price on these anchovies. It can hold a candle to Key Food and C-Town. In fact, it beats them by about $1. I should have bought them, but I still have to peep Labriola's.

 Here's their pile of baccalà.  I never touched it before today. I expected it to be stiffer.  It was $8.99 for boneless. $7.99 for bone-in. I didn't buy it.

My brother bought 6 bottles of Fernet for $11/each. This isn't Fernet Branca, mind you. It's the weaker stuff. But still, it helps you digest. I saw a bunch of almond paste for $7.99. Limes were 3/$1 and ginger root was $1.99/lb, which is about a good a price as you'll find in this part of the country. Avocados were $0.99 each, which is a lot better than I expected to find. And they had cactus pears, which I have never seen before. It was a good trip.

Then we went to Wal-mart so I could get a loaf of Cellone's Italian bread and some hot pepper rings. I love that bread so much. I got home and ate 3 spaghetti sandwiches. I later ate a ham sandwich. I plan to go to Giant Eagle tonight and get more.

Following, the view of downtown from outside Penn Macaroni.