Grocery Shopping

[lindag]

Just now, kayb said:

I have gotten quite spoiled to the Aldi grocery delivery service. Is it worth $3.99 for me to sit in the couch in my sweats and click and order and pay, and they bring my groceries two hours later, in the freezing cold or the rain? Yes, yes, it is.

 

Absolutely, it sure has been working for me although it's not as sophisticated here.  I pay $4.95 for curbside pickup.

But I love not having to get out of my car.  All our stores (the major ones) have the same arrangement.

 

 

[heidih]

I use delivery because I can't medically drive right now. A friend and I do farmers market on Sundays. I love grocery shopping (run like life threatened at a mall!)  Instacart does well in how they select produce for example but not everything is listed and that is frustrating. Meet some interesting delivery people. Wasn't gonna meet  Nipsey Hussle's childhood bestie elsewhere.  The situation has also afforded me the opportunity to introduce friends to ethnic markets that they did not venture to because they were unfamiliar with the ingredients. 

[chromedome]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/man-finds-live-scorpion-in-bag-of-bananas-from-costco-1.4246595?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

[heidih]

Well bananas are notorious for transporting non passported "visitors"

[chromedome]

Yup.

When my ex and I first got together, I lived in a run-down house not far from the Vancouver pier where many of the fruit boats docked. We got to see some pretty spectacular spiders.

[gfweb]

On 2/1/2020 at 12:52 AM, liuzhou said:

It always stuns me in supermarket checkouts how many people seem totally surprised that they have to pay and then scramble around trying to remember where they put their cash or other payment methods. Here, 90% of payments are made by cellphone, but only 2% seem to know how their phones work!

 

REALLY!

She stands there watching a whole cart get rung up  AND THEN goes looking for her cash...AND counts out exact change. 

OR WORSE fumbles for her checkbook, finds it, writes the check and then struggles with the math to enter and change the balance in the book.

 

 

[Darienne]

On 2/10/2020 at 6:38 PM, lindag said:

I usually gave my hubby a detailed grocery list.

Otherwise it went like this:  Hubby calling me from the store, “Hey, they don’t have ______”

Me: “Yes they do, ask someone”.

Ed now does the groceries.  Every trip contains at least one disaster...from unwanted huge amounts of something,  to lines on the list ignored, to the wrong type of the product...you name it.  BUT...he's a dear and HE does the groceries.  And yes, he has a phone...but he's not a 'phone user'.  I take care of all the phone business.  He always tells people that he is the custodian and I am the office manager.

[heidih]

Oh I have banned he 97 year old from grocery shopping. He will actually ask someone where an item is BUT always a younger cute female and then he just accepts whatever the often clueless one tells him. Orange marmalade and grape jelly (yuck) are not interchangeable. 

[lindag]

19 minutes ago, gfweb said:

 

REALLY!

She stands there watching a whole cart get rung up  AND THEN goes looking for her cash...AND counts out exact change. 

OR WORSE fumbles for her checkbook, finds it, writes the check and then struggles with the math to enter and change the balance in the book.

 

 

Yes!  I've been behind that woman.

[Darienne]

On 2/12/2020 at 10:00 AM, Darienne said:

Ed now does the groceries.  Every trip contains at least one disaster...from unwanted huge amounts of something,  to lines on the list ignored, to the wrong type of the product...you name it.  BUT...he's a dear and HE does the groceries.  And yes, he has a phone...but he's not a 'phone user'.  I take care of all the phone business.  He always tells people that he is the custodian and I am the office manager.

Ed was out doing groceries a few days ago and on the list was noted 'sliced almonds'.  And he returned with slivered.  Words were exchanged.  The air was cool.  

 

Two days later, he returned the slivers to the store and bought the sliced at another.  And in his wallet he carried the photo I had printed out as per his request:  

[Margaret Pilgrim]

On 2/12/2020 at 6:51 AM, gfweb said:

 

REALLY!

She stands there watching a whole cart get rung up  AND THEN goes looking for her cash...AND counts out exact change. 

OR WORSE fumbles for her checkbook, finds it, writes the check and then struggles with the math to enter and change the balance in the book.

 

 

Husband and I had this conversation.    He said that "old ladies fumble in their change purse and hold up the line."      I looked at him, recounting in my mind the number of men I've stood behind while they scrunch into their front pants pocket to dig out exact change and then another pocket for bills.    But, I decided, he could be right.    So since that day I haven't spent a coin.    I just use easily dug out paper money or credit card, and bring all coin home and dump it in his change tray.  

[mumkin]

I'm fortunate to live 15 blocks from a great neighborhood grocery and about five from a produce market, so I walk. I can only reasonably carry two bags, so I walk to the stores pretty regularly. Helps to keep the meats fresh and my step-count up. As for paying, I'm all-in on waving my phone at the checkout device and not being That Guy holding up the line. Except of course when the register's ApplePay connection is on the fritz (which seems to happen every few weeks) and then I'm totally That Guy Holding Up the Line.

[fondue]

Grocery shopping here in Africa means always having bills in your pocket: You never know when the crab man is going to knock on your door with a dozen kilos of hard-plated racers. Or when someone squatting on the side of the street will have Asian apple-pears (score!!) The man with the zebu herd sells me unpasteurized milk 1.5 liters for 80 cents: He comes by my desk at work every Monday morning.  At church on Sunday I get two dozen freshly-laid eggs from another congregant, who uses the money towards his school fees.  My neighbors are always curious what I bring home in my basket: Baguettes at 05:45? I'm a good Malagasy housewife.  Did you really mean to buy a kilo of mustard greens, Madame?  It's much more than transactional, it's relational here......

[JoNorvelleWalker]

In the midst of plague preparations I observed an amusing interaction at the fish counter.  A woman was enumerating the seafoods on offer to her fascinated toddler.  Pointing out branzini and red snapper, then moving onto shellfish and varieties of clams.  Quite touching actually.

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I'm reminded of shopping for dinner with my then-4 year old granddaughter.    I had some kind of fin-fish in mind but cherub moves sideways to shellfish and chirps, "Scallops, Ama!   We want scallops."   Then, turning to the fishmonger, she asserts, "We want scallops, please."    There went the retirement plan.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Sea scallops or bay scallops?

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Sea....$24/lb...then

Edited March 6, 2020 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)

[lindag]

On 2/17/2020 at 5:55 PM, mumkin said:

I'm fortunate to live 15 blocks from a great neighborhood grocery and about five from a produce market, so I walk. I can only reasonably carry two bags, so I walk to the stores pretty regularly. Helps to keep the meats fresh and my step-count up. As for paying, I'm all-in on waving my phone at the checkout device and not being That Guy holding up the line. Except of course when the register's ApplePay connection is on the fritz (which seems to happen every few weeks) and then I'm totally That Guy Holding Up the Line.

BTDT.

[heidih]

My closest market is a Ralphs (Kroger). I like the spices in the clear plastic packs. The turnover seems high and the quality is more than acceptable. For some reason (space and visibility . wars I suppose), they have one rack on the side of an end cap near the salsas and another in the produce section. Different vendors. They had bulk tamarind pods, piloncillo, and jamaica but those vanished. Granted they had no other bulk bins in the store. I wondered who was buying the spices in a demographic that trends to McCormick when it hit me that the housekeepers  were doing the shopping and "had a clue".  The pepper packet is just enough for my little pepper mill and is decently priced. 

 

 

[MokaPot]

I tried this Nissui brand of shrimp shumai for the first time. I didn't take a photo of the shumais unpackaged, sorry. They do not look as lacy & fluffy as the package photo. But they were good, IMO. Would buy again.

 

@heidih, I've bought that El Guapo brand of crushed chili pepper before as well, packaged like that. Good prices on that brand.

[MokaPot]

Sun brand ramen. Bing cherries, not peak quality yet, kinda small-ish. But not complaining.

[liuzhou]

I went to a local store to pick up some coconut milk. They were out of it. Where the coconut milk usually lives I spotted this and, on a whim,  bought it - just because I'd never seen it before.

 

 

辣椒芝麻酱 - Chilli sesame seed sauce. Ingredients listed are sesame seeds, chilli, soy bean oil, salt, MSG and Sichuan peppercorn. I have no idea what to do with it. There is little information on Google or his Chinese equivalents. Experiment time.

Edited June 28, 2020 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

This morning I needed someting from the same store as in the last post. This time I spotted that the same company with the chilli sesame seed sauce has a companion.

 

On the left is the one I bought last time; on the right we have what is labelled as sesame oil chilli. The on-label image suggests it is intended as a dip.

Hmmm. Yes I bought that one, too.

Will report back.

[liuzhou]

Pig Stomach Mushrooms (猪肚菇 zhū dù gū), some type of clitocybe. Possibly clitocybe geotropa.

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by liuzhou (log)

[MokaPot]

I needed gochugaru (crushed chili peppers, no seeds) and ended up with additional items. Vegetable mandoo (dumplings), shrimp crackers, can of Sajo (Korean brand) tuna, and "dried" daikon (radish) kimchi. The kimchi is good. I think I want to get back into making my own gyoza / mandoo (not the wrappers, though).