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Ingredients via Internet

JoNorvelleWalker

By JoNorvelleWalker
in Kitchen Consumer

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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Anyone tried Amazon Fresh?  I just noticed amazon changed the subscription pricing from $299 a year to $14.99 a month (for amazon prime members).  Delivery is free on orders over $40.

 

I know there are a few of us here who don't have vehicles and who have difficulty with grocery shopping.  For me this could be a lifesaver, particularly in winter.  Not to mention the Berkshire pork, Italian sausages, Bell and Evens chickens, and the vast array of seafood and cheeses I see on amazon.  Well, the cheeses are a little lacking, but include several varieties I crave that I can't buy at my local store.

 

Last time I ordered, a quality market in this area would deliver to me for $20 per order, no matter what the order size.  One has to phone in the order well ahead of time, and they don't have everything in stock every day.  And you have no idea what they have unless you ask.  Maybe not even then.

 

Amazon's suppliers vary by region, of course, but I was particularly impressed by the array of fish and shellfish available to me.  Live or cooked lobsters in all different sizes.  Making up the $40 amount for free delivery is not the hard part.

 

Thoughts?

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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quiet1

quiet1

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1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Anyone tried Amazon Fresh?  I just noticed amazon changed the subscription pricing from $299 a year to $14.99 a month (for amazon prime members).  Delivery is free on orders over $40.

 

I know there are a few of us here who don't have vehicles and who have difficulty with grocery shopping.  For me this could be a lifesaver, particularly in winter.  Not to mention the Berkshire pork, Italian sausages, Bell and Evens chickens, and the vast array of seafood and cheeses I see on amazon.  Well, the cheeses are a little lacking, but include several varieties I crave that I can't buy at my local store.

 

Last time I ordered, a quality market in this area would deliver to me for $20 per order, no matter what the order size.  One has to phone in the order well ahead of time, and they don't have everything in stock every day.  And you have no idea what they have unless you ask.  Maybe not even then.

 

Amazon's suppliers vary by region, of course, but I was particularly impressed by the array of fish and shellfish available to me.  Live or cooked lobsters in all different sizes.  Making up the $40 amount for free delivery is not the hard part.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Not in my area yet, but when I lived in England and was basically stuck at home with my disabled husband (he couldn't be home alone and going out with him was a multi-person production not wasted on groceries often) the online grocery delivery services that started up were a huge benefit. Occasionally we got something odd, but overall it worked out well, and it was nice to not have to rely on asking people to pick something up while they were doing their own shopping, since when we'd do that we tried to keep it to stuff easy to grab, not fresh produce that requires picking out good specimens, etc.

 

I can see the one issue for me being that with the delivery I did still like to go to the store on occasion to browse and see what was up - online it can be difficult to find the information you want (or impossible, in the case of feel or smell) and that meant I rarely bought stuff from delivery that I didn't already know about. New varieties of produce and the like would wait until I went to the store myself.

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

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Neither Amazon Fresh nor Instacart are available in my area yet.  

Amazon queried my address book when I logged in to see if Fresh was in my area so I learned it's available for my friends about 15 miles to the east of me and also 12 miles northwest, so perhaps there is hope.

A while back, I was especially intrigued by the option of using Instacart to get items from Costco but no dice for me out here in suburbia-land.

 

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Anna N

Anna N

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 I have a grocery delivery service.   The cost is $10 per order. Orders must exceed 40 something dollars. I can't deny in some ways it's a lifesaver. But in addition to the delivery charge most of the groceries are more expensive then I could buy in the supermarket. There is so much that I consider perfectly normal to find in my grocery cart that they do not carry. Off the top of my head I can mention kohlrabi, celeriac, lemongrass, and the list goes on. I will occasionally order ground meat or chicken from them but beyond that meat is not an option for me.  There is no way to indicate that I would like a one and a half inch steak nor a 5 1/2 pound prime rib.   I buy my meat when somebody's kind enough to take me grocery shopping in person.  I find a lot of nonperishables are cheaper on Amazon for me and I do order them.   I long for the day when they ship fresh groceries in my area.  

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

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Rosie...based in Ithaca, NY... which is an online shopping, same-day delivery, or in-store pickup system which has currently been adopted by 20-some stores across the country, including one in my area, delivers for a reasonable fee.

  • Deliveries within one mile: $3.99
  • Deliveries of 1 - 2.9 miles: $4.99
  • Deliveries of 3 - 4.9 miles: $6.99
  • Deliveries of 5 - 6.9 miles: $7.99
  • Deliveries beyond 7 miles in supported zip codes: $9.99

I'm about 9 miles from the store.

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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Well, I placed an order with amazon fresh.  A lovely cheese I saw earlier this week and the Berkshire chops were no longer in stock.  Worse, I was hoping for delivery tomorrow but that was not to be.  Not till a couple days.  Which means I have to go out in the snow and try to make it to the store tomorrow.  Which sort of defeats the purpose.

 

But I did order some lobster and two Bell and Evens organic chicken breasts that are not available locally.

 

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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Since the amazon delivery was delayed I eventually made it to the store this afternoon.  On the way home I fell down an embankment in the snow and ice and mud.  No bottles of rum were broken.  But it did mean traipsing home in wet pants.  Two and a half miles round trip.

 

Shoprite offered many, many things, but no russet baking potatoes.  So I added potatoes to my amazon order.

 

However since I was now craving the Cabot cheddar that went out of stock on amazon I ordered a pound of Cabot cheese directly...

 

http://www.dakinfarm.com/Cabot-Cloth-Bound-Cheddar,3267.html?b=d*19275

 

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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My amazon fresh delivery arrived as promised, right on time.  Organic potatoes looked OK, ones I might have picked out in the store.  Limes were small, but pretty ones.  The artichoke, which cost a dollar -- well, 99 cents, actually -- was as large as or larger than the ones in the store that are selling for $2.50.  Looked better too.

 

Bell and Evens chicken is Bell and Evens chicken, not much to say there.  I'll have to reserve judgment on the Camembert and lobster.  I did note the Camembert was pasteurized but I guess all Camembert is pasteurized sold in the US?

 

Lastly I got a can of organic whole berry cranberry sauce.  The local Shoprite used to sell both organic whole berry and jellied cranberry sauce but about a year ago dropped the whole berry and now just sell the jellied.  And in their wisdom Shoprite just discontinued the straws I use for mai tai's so I have to see what amazon can do for me.

 

Amazon delivers their items in large totes.  They pick up the totes when they deliver your next order, so unlike with purple carrot there is little packaging waste.  This is all well and good but the totes take up an awful lot of room in my apartment.

 

Ah, idea!  I'll store the totes on the stair landing!

 

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Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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paulraphael

paulraphael

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23 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Amazon delivers their items in large totes.  They pick up the totes when they deliver your next order, so unlike with purple carrot there is little packaging waste.  This is all well and good but the totes take up an awful lot of room in my apartment.

 

Storage aside, I'm glad to hear they do this. One of the many many sources of my Amazon guilt is the packaging waste.

 

Do they use the reusable totes in all their markets?

 

Re: camembert, yeah, in the U.S. cheese has to be pasteurized unless it's going to be aged a minimum of 60 days, presumably so the cheese salts and acids can kill all the pathogens (which just this minute I read is an arbitrary standard, adopted in 1949 without any evidence ...)

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Notes from the underbelly

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Anna N

Anna N

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@JoNorvelleWalker

 

My grocery delivery service is going to be testing new containers for delivery. Currently my groceries arrive in sturdy cardboard boxes which fold flat, are easy to store and amused my four legged guest no end.  Don't know at the moment what the new container might be but it's possible I should find out tomorrow evening.  

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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8 hours ago, paulraphael said:

 

Storage aside, I'm glad to hear they do this. One of the many many sources of my Amazon guilt is the packaging waste.

 

Do they use the reusable totes in all their markets?

 

Not sure, but I expect amazon would be standardized how they do the business.  Interestingly amazon fresh is not available a few hundred yards (meters) north of where I live.

 

I've also looked further into The Lobster Place:  apparently a NYC company that claims to offer the largest assortment of seafood in the US.  My dinner tonight is the remainder of last night's lobster Newberg.

 

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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weedy

weedy

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Lobster Place is an excellent market in Chelsea Market, Manhattan. 

They certainly seem to have everything. 

I've taken home fish from there many times when working in the building (at Sterling Sound) but I have never mail ordered from them. 

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paulraphael

paulraphael

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18 hours ago, weedy said:

Lobster Place is an excellent market in Chelsea Market, Manhattan. 

 

I think they're now the best in the city. It's nearly a 2-hour round trip for me but it's where I get just about all my seafood. 

 

If you're in the city you can have them deliver via Amazon ... something I haven't tried yet.

Notes from the underbelly

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

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3 hours ago, paulraphael said:

 

I think they're now the best in the city. It's nearly a 2-hour round trip for me but it's where I get just about all my seafood. 

 

If you're in the city you can have them deliver via Amazon ... something I haven't tried yet.

 

Amazon Fresh or regular amazon?

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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lindag

lindag

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Speaking of re-useable totes.  I buy dog food from a source in Seattle.  It is shipped to me every six weeks in a box with dry ice (the food is frozen - Darwins).

The boxes are large and very sturdy and are returnable to Darwins.  You only need to re-seal the box and add the return label included and set it out for your UPS guy.  No charge for the return.

It helps keep the shipping costs down and I appreciate that.

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Anna N

Anna N

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On February 14, 2017 at 3:24 PM, Anna N said:

@JoNorvelleWalker

 

My grocery delivery service is going to be testing new containers for delivery. Currently my groceries arrive in sturdy cardboard boxes which fold flat, are easy to store and amused my four legged guest no end.  Don't know at the moment what the new container might be but it's possible I should find out tomorrow evening.  

 Well my groceries arrived yesterday evening in the same old, same old cardboard boxes.   Perhaps my neighbourhood was not in their test area.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

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paulraphael

paulraphael

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I just discovered Despaña in NYC, which is the motherlode of mind-blowing sherry vinegars.

 

I visited the brick and mortar shop but they sell everything online. Get a bottle of the Montegrato Pedro Ximénez vinegar, and curse me later for your new addiction. I've been drinking it straight, and have just formulated an ice cream recipe from it.

 

They also have a whole lot of Iberico and Serrano hams at startling prices that are probably worth it. 

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Notes from the underbelly

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Kerry Beal

Kerry Beal

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On 2/28/2017 at 0:14 AM, paulraphael said:

I just discovered Despaña in NYC, which is the motherlode of mind-blowing sherry vinegars.

 

I visited the brick and mortar shop but they sell everything online. Get a bottle of the Montegrato Pedro Ximénez vinegar, and curse me later for your new addiction. I've been drinking it straight, and have just formulated an ice cream recipe from it.

 

They also have a whole lot of Iberico and Serrano hams at startling prices that are probably worth it. 

Ran across Despaña while out walking in NYC with fellow chocolatier @carol lang - very impressed with what they had.

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