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.

Where's the tea?

 I'm out of tea bags. I make a pitcher of iced tea every night before I go to sleep and go through 4-6 bags a day. Dollar Tree tea isn't good enough, but store brands are good enough and name brands are good enough. Since I am specifically looking for that, I might as well write about what else is on sale everywhere this week.

Bravo: Canned clams are $1.99. I like when they are $1.69 though. Heinz bbq sauce is $2 but they don't carry the kind I want (Carolina). A blue cheese wheel is $6/lb, but I needed that last week and I still have gorgonzola after overpaying for it. No tea.

Brooklyn Harvest Market: What is wide meat?

Herbal teas are on sale ($3 for 20 bags) but I bought that for $2.50 earlier this week.

C-Town: This is the same stuff as Bravo.

Food Bazaar: Beans are $1/lb but I have been stocking up too much already. A dozen large eggs are $1.

Green Corner: Lemons are 7/$2. I could make limoncello but my roommate started drinking my spirytus and I think he's probably now dead. Lipton tea is on sale for $4 for 100 but that doesn't seem good enough.

Key Food: A cauliflower is $2. Mushrooms are 3/$5 for 8 oz. Heinz bbq sauce is also on sale here but they don't have Carolina either. Pepsi is 3/$4 for 2 liter bottles. I may just get some Super Pepsi for my caffeine to get me through the weekend. McCain frozen french fries are 2/$5 and I kinda want them. This ad says buttermilk is $1.69 but I don't believe it. A 15 pack of Natty Light is $10. Tetley tea is $3.49.. maybe I can do that.

Oh.

Ozzie's: Luigi Vitelli pasta is 88¢. Cauliflower is $2 here too. This circular seems too short. It probably has a lot of the same stuff as Key Food.

Western Beef: Everything is cheaper somewhere else.

So I guess I will go to Key Food (or Ozzie's?) for Tetley tea.

UPDATE: I went to Ozzie's for tea and Natty Ice. I almost got Bromley's for $3.29 but I decided to spend 20¢ more to see if Tetley's is great.

Coffee and Inflation Measures

I bought my instant coffee today. I haven't had any since the end of December. I like Café Bustelo and I like paying $4.99 or $5.49, but places only had it for $6.39, so I quit drinking coffee. I had some at my parents' house over Christmas, but I never had any around here. I drank tea or pop instead.

About a month ago, there was a lot of talk about whether social security benefits (and tax brackets) should be changed. They're both tied to inflation, but the question was whether to change to a different way of measuring inflation. The current way is that if the price of my instant coffee goes up, inflation goes up. This is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The other way to measure it is to take into account that when the price of coffee went up, I started drinking less of it and drank more tea. Since my expenditures didn't go up as much, this measure would show less inflation. It's called the Chained Consumer Price Index (C-CPI). Detractors of it like to exaggerate and say this method lets you substitute cat food for beef. (Changing to C-CPI is just a way to cut social security benefits and the longer you live, the more they're cut. And social security is basically the most solvent government program we have, so tell anyone who wants to cut benefits either directly or sneakily to go pound salt).

Anyway, back to groceries. I got some ham for the first time this year. Gideon gave me a ham for my birthday, so I couldn't buy more ham. I got some eggs so I can make quiches and omelettes to use up all my dumpling filling leftovers. I was surprised by how hard it was to find chick peas. I want to make hummus, but I need to buy olive oil first. And I got some red pepper flakes.

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.

3 grocery stores

I went to 3 grocery stores and I still forget to buy mint tea. I should be shot.