Now at Western Beef: Lamagna ricotta cheese!

I'm so excited. I was walking around Western Beef yesterday with a basket too full to add anything and I spotted Lamagna ricotta cheese. This stuff is the best. It was the first ricotta I had in my life and no other kind has ever lived up to it. Its curds are ever so slightly bigger. And it tastes much better. Other ricottas don't really taste like anything. When I make my Christmas Eve feast for my family, I make sure I use this. You can't even find it at Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh, but now it's at Western Beef! (Lamagna's from just outside of Pittsburgh.)

It's baked ziti season now. What timing. You'll never find another ricotta cheese in my refrigerator again. Unless you come over right now because I still have half a container of some inferior brand that I have to use up so I can go buy Lamagna. I should have a toast party too.

Bogopa and Food Bazaar

Finally, I know what that means! The New York Times is the best.

He would eventually open a chain of supermarkets under the corporate name Bogopa, which in Korean means “yearning for you,” in low-income neighborhoods.

 One of those stores, the Food Bazaar on East 161st Street in the Bronx, is enormous...

I'm so glad I know.

I also like thinking about moving to another country and naming a brand "yearning for you." I don't say yearning enough as it is.

2 Months Later: Still Olive Oil

Nowhere has put a big can of olive oil on sale in the last two months! I did buy a can of pure, but I need extra virgin too. So I've been buying it at Trader Joe's. I just got back from there.

There was a line to get in the door. That used to happen when Trader Joe's first opened and had only one store, but I haven't seen it since. But I biked 4.5 miles to get there so I just waited in it. I sure bike far for that.

I manage to spend more at that store than any other grocery store. I got extra virgin olive oil ($7), coconut oil ($5.5), 2 cans of cannellini beans ($.9 each), farro, bulgur wheat, gorgonzola, asiago, and parmesan. And frozen broccoli and frozen kale. And capers. I already had capers, but I forgot. I wanted frozen peppers but they didn't have any. Oh, and soy sauce because I noticed we were out of soy sauce this morning.

I guess I'll make polenta for dinner so I can use up some cheese and get to fry an egg in my cast iron skillet. I should make another post soon about my cast iron skillets. I love them.

Olive Oil

I still haven't recovered from the 4th of July, but I'm getting there. I read the NY Times food section last night and it made me think positively of food again. Maybe I'll cook someday.

I need olive oil soon. Since I buy 101 oz cans, it makes a big difference if I can get them on sale. I wish I knew which brands I liked most. C-Town has Cento on sale, but the review on Amazon said it's not good. I can't remember if I've liked that. I'm sure I've had it. I currently have Filippo Berio, which isn't bad. If I run out and can't find a sale, I'll buy a bottle at Trader Joe's to tide me over.

I'm tired of grocery shopping!

This is not a common feeling for me. I still have two more trips.

I have to go to Key Food for bacon bits, orangeade, penne, and buns.

Then later, once some hunks show up to help, I have to go to Associated for ice.

Happy 4th of July.

More grocery notes

I went shopping! Boy do I love a party because I get to buy so many groceries.

I don't even know how much the daikon was, but they had them at Jesus. They're huge.

Braunschweiger is $2.49 for half a pound. In Pittsburgh, it's that much for a pound. I need it for my banh mi dogs.

Western Beef was the best! Limes are 10/$1, which is the best price! Tomatoes, miraculously, were $0.49/lb! They looked good too. Everything I'm making is tomato based, so I feel blessed. Loaves of Italian bread are 3/$2 as always, so I got some now so they'll be stale by Thursday for my panzanella. Ketchup was $2 for 38 oz, which seemed pretty good.

I bought a lot of beans at Associated. I got lost in Associated because of their expansion, so I might avoid there for the rest of the week while they figure things out.

I'm making Dylan come over to learn me how to pickle carrots and daikon for the banh mi dogs. Later today or this week, I'm making Agnes come over to bake 6 or 8 or 12 dozen cookies for ice cream sandwiches.

Notes on Grocery Prices for the 4th of July

Key: WB = Western Beef, KF = Key Food, CT = CTown, FB = Food Bazaar, J = Jesus, A = Associated

Hot Dog Buns: 12 = $1.5 WB, 8 = $1 or $1.39 CT, 12=$1.5 KF
Hot Dogs: 8 chicken $1.79 CT, 8 beef $2.5 WB, chicken $1.25 WB, beef $3 KF, beef $3 A
Cheez Whiz:
Bacon Bits: $1.79 KF
Sour Cream: $2 WB, $2 A, $2 KF
Carrots:
Daikon:
Vinegar:
Oil: 96 oz $5 WB
Eggs:
Celery: $1.5 WB
Beets:
Chick Peas: $1/can KF,
Parsley:
Basil:
Penne: $1/lb A
Mozzarella: $3.49/lb WB, $5/lb KF
Tomatoes: $0.88/lb WB,
Cucumbers: $0.66/A, $.66 KF
Avocados: $2 KF
Bread: $0.66/loaf WB
Water melon: $0.49/lb at WB, $0.49/lb A
Corn: $0.4/ear WB, $0.4/ear A
Charcoal: 18lbs $5 WB
Aluminum pans: $0.33 WB
Ice: $3 16lbs WB
Apple Juice: $1.88 WB, $2 KF
Orangeade:

A sad postscript to the Fresca tale + Party Plans

The last two times I've gone to C-Town looking for Fresca, they've been out :(

But I'll move on. I'm having a 4th of July party in 6 days and making a lot of food. It's going to require all my grocery skills to minimize costs. I'm going to make hot dogs 3 ways, plus hot dog salad, beet salad, chick pea/orzo salad, pesto pasta salad, and probably some other things. Probably pimento cheese. I don't know what the three ways of hot dogs will be yet. Definitely baked potato dogs. Maybe taco dogs? Banh mi dogs?

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.

A Fresca tale

C-Town added a new room (which I'll write about later) and has room for Fresca now. So I asked them to carry it. Then I went to the beach and drunktweeted them a picture of the Waist Watchers fake Fresca we were drinking. So they got it and tweeted me back that it was in and on sale until Thursday.

When I went to buy it, the price rang up without a sale. So I tweeted my receipt and said they forgot to tell the cash registers about the sale. C-Town said "I owe you a Fresca" and asked for my address to have it delivered. That was funny, so I allowed it. I also said I'd be home all day because I tried using my key as a bottle opener and I broke it. Later that day when they delivered Fresca, there was a surprise bottle opener/corkscrew thrown in! Wow.

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.

Tahini

I never bought tahini before because I think it's probably expensive. Yesterday I bought 16 oz of Krinos tahini for $4.99 at Western Beef. That was cheaper than I expected. But I don't know. How much do other people pay for tahini? My siblings were no help.