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.

Grocery Sales for the First Friday of Lent!

I hope I see some fish! I have been stocking up on canned fishes. Which will also be good if coronavirus wipes out food supply chains. I will already have lots of canned food.

Green Corner: They didn't update their circular, but they are celebrating. This is the top of last week's circular.

Food Bazaar: Instant mashed potatoes are on sale. I am going to make gnocchi tomorrow, so maybe I'll go get them. I don't really know what a good price is for them, but they're on sale so it must be better than normal. I was hoping for a good sale on fish sticks but there is only a bad sale. Potatoes are $1.5 for 5 lbs, so maybe I'll go today and get whole potatoes and instant mashed potatoes.

Western Beef: Barilla pasta is $1/box. Barilla has more of the interesting shapes so it might be worth it to go for orzo or ditalini. The mashed potatoes are on sale here too but I don't even know if they are cheaper than Food Bazaar because I forgot how much they were there. $2 for 13.5 ounces here. Grapefruit is 3/$2. It's not on sale, but they have big jars of pickled hot cherry peppers and regular red peppers that are $4 for 2 lbs or so, which is a great price and I will get those if I go.

Bravo: I haven't shopped here in quite a while. It got gentrified like C-Town, but is always worse than C-Town. There's not really anything on sale there this week.

C-Town: I went there yesterday and the cashier tried to ring up my romaine ($0.99/lb) as green leaf lettuce ($2.49/lb) and then I spent more money than I expected so I thought it was still on my receipt. It wasn't, but it was still stressful so I'm unhappy. Anyway, the sales:

Asparagus is $2/lb. Galbani mozzarella is $4/lb. A fennel is $2.

Key Food: Polly-o mozzarella is $4 here. A pound of mushrooms is $3. I still have a pound of mushrooms from a week ago, but maybe I'll eat them so I can buy more. Here, 26.7 oz of mashed potatoes are $3, which seems better than Food Bazaar and Western Beef.

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's on Sale - Lent Edition

I'm going to have a Lenten diet again this year because I like constraints. And fish. And cheese. And haluski. So let's see what is on sale this week.

Food Bazaar- I start here because they have the best fish section. Jumbo shrimp (16-20 count) are on sale for $10/lb. Too expensive for me, but people can make them for me if they want. A whole cauliflower is $1.48 which is a good price. Avocados are $0.88 and scallions are $0.29.

Associated- nothing really. can't somewhere have fish sticks on sale?

Bravo- a 2 lb bag of onions is $0.89. I could make vegetarian french onion soup. Jacques Pepin told me to use water instead of stock. Cauliflower is $3 here. Too expensive.

C-Town- Eggplant is $0.99. I could make eggplant parm. Or ratatouille.

Key Food- They had their lent sale last week. I dont' know what a mag melon is, but it looks like a cantaloupe in the picture and is $1.25. Oh, it's a Del Monte trademark. Panko is still on sale for Chinese New Year ($1.50/box). I made good meatballs with the last of mine.