Several Topics

This weekend I'm heading up to Troy, NY to visit a Price Chopper. I'm told it's the Publix of the Northeast.

Yesterday I walked into Key Food because I was hungry for egg salad and I knew it was $3.99/lb at C-Town. I figured it'd be comparably priced. I was wrong. $5.99! After that, I tried to find something else to put in my basket, but I couldn't find a thing. I was ruined.

I'm told that the Key Food in Park Slope is great because they place happy 80s songs and people bop.

Kennywood and Giant Eagle

Hmmm. My dad said he thinks he can buy tickets to Kennywood at Giant Eagle for $19 or so.

I had a dream last night that I wanted to wake up at 8:00am and go grocery shopping, but it was 9:30 already. So I woke up and it was a little after 8:00, so I did go grocery shopping. But not until about 9:30. I went to C-Town first. The sales did not impress me. I got a pork roast, which I'm going to make for dinner. There were no frozen pizzas at all on sale. I spent about $14. The previous three times I have gone grocery shopping, I spent somewhere between $13 and $14. I'm pretty consistent.

I went to Key Food after I stopped at home to get my free Coffee Mate. I got the amaretto flavor. I like it. I went to the Jesus vegetable store on the way back to get vegetables to cook with my pork roast. The vegetables are cheap and look good. For a while they weren't as cheap as Key Food and looked gross. I got carrots ($0.50), radishes ($1), mushrooms ($1), and scallions ($0.25). The quantities were "more than I'll need" for all of them.

I don't even know how to cook pork. I didn't know how to cook French toast or bacon either, but that's what I made for breakfast.

Free Coffee-mate!

I haven't updated very much recently because I've worked long hours at work and the deals at C-Town have been awful. I paid full price for a 2-liter bottle of Tropicana Orangeade! (I mixed it with Trader Joe's 3 Buck Chuck Merlot and had a delicious concoction.)

The other day I was at Key Food and when I paid, the cashier printed out coupons. One is for a free thing of Coffee-mate! I can't wait to pick it up.

Trader Joe's posted which credit cards it accepts now: Visa, Mastercard, and Discover. No Diner's Club.

Good Lady

She's smart.

Storemade Roast Beef

I went to C-Town on Tuesday and did all the buying I had wanted to do at Key Food when it disappointed me. And I spent $25, just like I expected. My best find was "storemade roast beef." It's the kind that is generic and not Boar's Head. It isn't homemade. Other stores might call something that's storemade homemade. But C-Town is scrupulously honest. Unless they didn't make it in the store. I am untroubled by that.

I think I'm going to the Trader Joe's Wine Shop tonight. Maybe Nora F will ring me up! I better get a different kind of wine so she can tell me about it. Or the same kind of wine so she can say "have you tried this before?" and I'll say "that is what you asked me on Monday." And I'll say that with all the off-the-cuffedness of someone who decided at 2:45 pm what his lines would be that evening.

Nora F. is a Great Cashier

I went to Trader Joe's Wine Shop after work (again) today. I got a bottle of Three Buck Chuck Merlot, a bottle of Pinot Grigio ($3.49 I think, but maybe it was a dollar more), and a bottle of San Giovese something ($3.49). My cashier was Nora F. again. Nora F. was my cashier the first time I ever went. She wasn't the next time, and maybe not the next time if I've bought wine four times. I lost count. She was my cashier again today and she is a good one. When you buy something from her, first she asks for your id. She has to do that because the wine shop is in an NYU dorm. They all do that at Trader Joe's, so I don't hold that against them. Then she asks you if you've tried one of the wines you're buying before. The first time she asked me if I had ever tried the Charles Shaw. I hadn't. I think I bungled my answer to the question though. This time she asked me if I had ever bought the Pinot Grigio. She said it was one of their best sellers and for $4, you can't go wrong. She's right. My first time, I tried to pay with American Express, but she said that is "like the only credit card we don't take." I wonder if they take Diners Club. I wonder if they take Discover. I'd like to pay with Discover, but I've been using Mastercard.

I have definitively bought wine 3 times. I remember how many times I've used my Mastercard. I have a sharper mind for credit cards than for grocery shopping, even.

By the way, before buying wine, I went to Walgreens to buy L'Oreal Studio Effects Whipped Filth for my hair. It was $4.49, but I decided to buy it because that seemed about right. The lines were way too long though, so I left. I bought my wine, then I went to Duane Reade. It was $3.99 there, and there was almost no line!

Stay Out of Key Food This Week

What a disappointment! I expected to go in and spend $25 or more, but I only spent $5. I got some braunschweiger ($2), 2 boxes of pasta (buy one get one free, $0.99 each, limit one per family), Diet Coke ($1.50) for Pachelbel, and some bananas ($0.59/lb). Some pierogies were on sale, but I already had pierogies. The frozen pizza sales were not that good. McCain fries were on sale, but I still have some, and I decided if I'm going to buy brand name frozen potato products, I'm getting Ore-Ida from now on because Ore-Ida's based in Pittsburgh. My frozen beef ravioli were $2.99 for a box, but there were only 2 boxes, and both had brown ooze on them. I wanted to buy a bag of frozen onions (on sale for $0.99) but I couldn't find them. I should have gone to C-Town.

The Jesus vegetable store had 4 tomatoes for $1. Maybe I should have got them so I could make insalata caprese. But I didn't, so I'll just have to look at this picture of it.

Slithery Onions

I ate those onions last night. They were quite good. They reminded me of slimey onions, and they were slightly better than the slimey onions I made one day (er, month) by accident. Here is the recipe:

1. Chop up some onions for something.
2. Don't use them all.
3. Put the left-overs in a plastic sealable bag and put it in the refrigerator.
4. Find it 3-4 weeks later and put it on a sandwich.

Perfectly fermented and slimey. I miss those days.

Here's another fun thing you can do with an onion: cut it in half and put it in a bowl of vinegar and leave it in the corner of your room. I don't know why you would do this though. I just do it out of instinct.

Why I haven't been posting

In short, I haven't been shopping. Easter was on Sunday, so Pachelbel and I did a lot of shopping for that, but we didn't get any deals. Since then, my refrigerator has been full and I've been eating leftovers. However, at the recommendation of my boss, I picked up some Sabrett push-cart style onions for hot dogs. I haven't tried them yet, but I imagine they're good--he's a hot dog connoisseur. Except he doesn't like ketchup.

Toothpaste

I was debating which toothpaste to get when I was at Price Chopper last night, and I saw this Aquafresh one on sale for $2.50. It has micro-active foaming action. And it foams so much! I love it! I'll never use anything else.

Cheese, Trader Joe's Wine Store

I bought 2 lbs of mozzarella! I don't even know what I'm going to do with it yet.

I went in the Trader Joe's Wine Store today. There was so much cheap wine. I'll never buy wine anywhere else. I'm not that big on wine, so if it's not cheap, I won't buy it at all. I bought 2 bottles of white and 1 of red. The red is Charles Shaw (i.e. 3 buck chuck 'round these parts.) The only trouble was that they don't take American Express. I was so depressed that I didn't even go into the regular Trader Joe's store, even though there wasn't a line to get in today. I was also carrying three bottles of wine and 2 balls of cheese though.