READY TO GO! (4th of July/Green Corner)

 I'm in Green Corner's DMs!

I don't know what to buy yet, but I am hoping for peaches, limes, cilantro, onions, scallions, jalapeños, and frozen corn there. And if they can have cheap chicken quarters, that is ideal. I haven't reviewed any circulars for real yet. This is just based on their reputation.

If they come through with a tofu sale, I might serve jerk tofu on the 4th. But last time they advertised a tofu sale, it didn't ring up that way. But it was still cheaper than the other places.

Let's see what's on sale for the week of the Kentucky Derby and Cinco de Mayo

Not just Cinco de Mayo, but Cinco de Fry-o and Cinco de Pie-o too.

Key Food changed its website! Cottage cheese is $2.  Sour cream is $1.69. Cantaloupe is 3/$5. Old El Paso flour tortillas are $1.50.

Food Bazaar: Avocados are $1. Cantaloupe is $1.50. Clams are $4/dozen. Tomatillos and jalapenos are $0.79/lb. That's half off a typical good price.

C-Town: Avocados are 4/$5. Sour cream is $1.50. Bananas are $0.49/lb.

Associated: Website won't work.

Western Beef: They want me to download a new version of Flash or something, and I'm not.

Expansion of Grocery Capacity in Williamsburg Heights*

Two of my local grocery stores are expanding a bunch. C-Town added a back room that has all its beer and snacks and pop. That's why I told them to start getting Fresca. Where the pop used to be, they now have bread. Where the bread and snacks used to be, they now have freezer and coolers and some cheese. I haven't eyed that stuff that much yet.

Associated is also expanding. Who knew the building next to them was unused? They moved into that. I can't even tell how it will all be laid out, but yesterday I got a bit lost trying to discover where they put the eggs. The medium eggs were $1.69, which is hardly better than Key Food now. I bought medium eggs to keep uncooked and large eggs to have a dozen hard boiled ones on hand. I also bought 1.25 lbs of jalapeno peppers ($1.49/lb) to pickle, but my jar only holds about 0.75 lbs so now I have to use up all these hot peppers and don't know what to do.

*Williamsburg Heights is what I've taken to calling the areas around the Graham and Grand stops of the L. When I moved here, I wondered if this was East Williamsburg or Bushwick. As more people moved to the Montrose, Morgan, Jefferson, and Dekalb stops, meaning actual Bushwick, it became clear that if I said East Williamsburg I would not convey my location. So I went back to saying Williamsburg (my zip code is Williamsburg's). One of the good things these hurricanes we get has done is give me flood zone maps. So Williamsburg Heights is the area that is not in any sort of flood zone around the Graham and Grand stops of the L. It hasn't caught on yet, but it might as well.

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.

Cheating on C-Town

I cheated on C-Town today. With a different C-Town. My main C-Town, the one I mean when I write C-Town, is about 4 blocks from my house. It's not very big. It's produce is increasing--a while ago, it had none, then it got some cabbages, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce on a stand in a space in the back, and now it has a real section. But the prices are gentrifying faster than I am. I still go. I like all my stores. But I find myself buying less.

Usually when I shop elsewhere, it's at Key Food, Associated, Western Beef, Food Bazaar, or Bravo. In that order of frequency or money (but not geography, because Bravo is the closest of all. It used to be called Cat Pee). With so many stores, I don't go to extra C-Towns.

But there were two forces that led me to another one this week. One is that Chase Freedom gives 5% back on groceries from April through June. June is almost over. So I should buy pasta and sardines and whatever won't go bad now. C-Town's circular said Ronzoni was $1, but when I went in twice, that wasn't true. Second, C-Town's circular said they had Heinz mayonnaise (new). I went twice, and didn't see it. If any of my other stores had had pasta this week for $1 or less, I would have just bought it there. I checked them all. None did. So I went to the other Williamsburg C-Town.

Now, I've been there many times. I used to be good friends with someone who lived near there and shopped there frequently. And since I'm an avid shopper and he was an adept cook, I accompanied him often. I didn't think much of it then. Today was different. Today I liked it because it respected the weekly circular. But it also had the best price on tomatillos I've seen ($1.49 instead of $1.69) and the best price on jalapeno peppers ($1.29 instead of $1.49). I didn't buy those things, but I liked it. It carried braunschweiger. It didn't carry Iron City. It doesn't tweet to me or have tumblr. But it's a nice store.

I bought 6 boxes of pasta (they were out of spaghetti, so I got thin spaghetti, which is worse. And I don't eat as much pasta these days). I got strawberries ($2.50), leaf lettuce ($1.59?), Heinz mayo (on sale for $2.99), Fresca ($1.67... eh), chamomile tea ($3.99? $2.99? I don't know the correct price for that, but needed it for the Gin test kitchen), and maybe something else. I don't recall. I spent $20, which is a big trip for me.

I wouldn't have bought so much, but Agnes said she'd come over for the Gin Test Kitchen and I needed to make her dinner. I had just eaten so I wasn't clever with ideas. I went for the strawberry/fennel salad I invented on Sunday. It has a bitter green  (ideally, but I used leaf lettuce today), strawberries, fennel, and red wine vinaigrette. I put some balsamic in it today too cause I had too much oil and didn't want to use the rest of the red wine vinegar. It's pretty good. Agnes agreed that it's pretty good. I forgot to serve it with pecorino romano. I bet it would be good with some croutons too. This is a salad I want to build upon and create variations of. It's the best salad I've invented since apple coleslaw.

Eggs on Special at Associated. Beans, no.

I went to Associated today to buy some jalapeno peppers because my jar was running low and I devised a way to mass produce huevos rancheros which is going to make me famous. They were $1.59/lb, which isn't bad. At Key Food they're $4.99/lb. They were on the old side, so I almost left, but I saw medium eggs for $1.25. You can't beat that with a stick! You always want small eggs when you're making huevos rancheros, especially with my new way.

I was also in the market for some celery salt, but they didn't have it. I wanted chick peas, but they wanted $1/can for them and I was having none of that. $0.80 is appropriate. I needed milk too, but I don't think they have enough turnover of milk for it to be good so I still have to go shopping later. I didn't think their price on Mexican crema was that good either.

Here's what I do with my peppers. I chop them up and stick them in my jar of vinegar and salt. Later, they're good.















And here's the secret to mass producing huevos rancheros. Use a muffin pan. It's all in there. The best part is either that the tortilla is not soggy or greasy or that you don't need a fork or a knife to eat these. You can pick them up and they're perfect.

By my reckoning, I will be able to feed 12 people 2 eggs each for about $12, which is how much my huevos rancheros cost the last time I ordered them in a restaurant. And these are better, so I won't name the restaurant.

Key Food didn't do a very good job. Associated picked up its slack.

I haven't been to Key Food that often lately, though I'm still currently the mayor on Foursquare. I wanted to go today to recycle my grocery bags, buy milk, and buy Fresca. I was also willing to consider buying jalapeno peppers there, but didn't expect much.

I was right to not expect much! They were $4.99/lb! That's highway robbery. In the pop aisle, I saw they brought Diet Rite back, but at the absurd price of $1.99. When I had a Diet Rite habit, I was paying $1.29. They also carry some of the other Dr. Pepper/7Up brands like RC Cola and one I'd never seen before: Sun Drop. What they don't carry, however, is Fresca.  I ended up walking out of the store with only a half gallon of milk (I still like their milk the best) and a jar of store brand mayo.

At Associated, I was much happier. I got beautiful jalapeno peppers for $1.39/lb and they are currently pickling in my refrigerator. I got some orange juice, some Heinz hamburger pickle chips, and Fresca. The Fresca was $1.99, which isn't the correct price, but at least they had it. I was feeling defeated.

I think Associated and I Need to Take a Break from Each Other

Yesterday, I was annoyed by almost everything. I was most annoyed, at first, by my right contact which had been jabbing my eye for days. (Too many naps, probably.) I was next annoyed by its replacement, which seemed to be the wrong prescription. I was also annoyed by having no food and by having to cook food and probably by everything else. It is safe to say I was in a bad mood.

I thought that if I forced myself outside enough to go to a grocery store for the first time in days, I might feel better. I went to Associated because they have a good price on eggs ($0.99/dozen medium) and jalapeno peppers ($0.99/lb) and figured I could probably find something else to excite me. Oh how I was disappointed. What I found to excite me amounted to a bag of beans. Literally. ($1.39 for a bag of dried cannellini.) Pasta is never on sale there. Butter is never on sale. It's already a pretty small store, so there was nothing else to buy. I couldn't put $3 on my credit card because it's not nice and I think they'd yell at me, but I figured my half pound of peppers, dozen eggs, and bag of beans would be ok to pay cash for and I had $23 in my pocket.

To fit with my day, my total came to $3.09. Flustered, I broke my $20 and took my change. As I examined my receipt on the sidewalk, I saw I had been charged $1.39/lb for my peppers. Because of that, I had $0.91 in my pocket. I will someday spend those 3 quarters to do laundry, but the rest was a waste. It further ruined my day, so I had a glass of olives for dinner. I hated those olives because they had pits and I didn't realize that when I bought them. I decided they couldn't make my day worse, and flooding them with gin and vermouth could potentially make my day better. If nothing else, the martini and the sleeping pill put my day out of its misery.