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Food in the time of a pandemic

haresfur

By haresfur
in Food Traditions & Culture

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

Posted
Posted

I had a hunger for Castelvetrano olives.  I was not ready to place an order from Supermarket Italy, as I have not yet unpacked the last delivery.  I no longer remember what is there, so I will certainly be surprised.

 

Anyhow I ordered Sanniti Whole Castelvetrano olives from amazon.  Rather, I ordered from a third party seller on amazon.  What I received was an unlabeled, unmarked jar of olives that may or may not have been Castelvetrano.

 

The amazon automated voice assistant is designed to drive kind gentle people postal.  Once I spoke to a human everything was fine.  I received a refund.  Now I'm wondering if it is proper to donate the unlabeled olives to the food bank.  Fifteen years ago when I was in hard times and had nothing to eat I would not have been so picky.  (Though at least one donation I received back then was beyond the pale of hunger.)

 

I'm now off to place an olive order from Supermarket Italy.

 

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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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Kim Shook

Kim Shook

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I had a hunger for Castelvetrano olives.  I was not ready to place an order from Supermarket Italy, as I have not yet unpacked the last delivery.  I no longer remember what is there, so I will certainly be surprised.

 

Anyhow I ordered Sanniti Whole Castelvetrano olives from amazon.  Rather, I ordered from a third party seller on amazon.  What I received was an unlabeled, unmarked jar of olives that may or may not have been Castelvetrano.

 

The amazon automated voice assistant is designed to drive kind gentle people postal.  Once I spoke to a human everything was fine.  I received a refund.  Now I'm wondering if it is proper to donate the unlabeled olives to the food bank.  Fifteen years ago when I was in hard times and had nothing to eat I would not have been so picky.  (Though at least one donation I received back then was beyond the pale of hunger.)

 

I'm now off to place an olive order from Supermarket Italy.

 

You can try, but I know that our Food Pantry requires everything to have a label and an expiration date.   You might check to see if any local churches have Roadside Pantries (like the Little Free Libraries).  We have one at our church and we aren't nearly as picky.  

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Kim

Kim's Cookbook

What Fresh Hell is This?

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JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

You can try, but I know that our Food Pantry requires everything to have a label and an expiration date.   You might check to see if any local churches have Roadside Pantries (like the Little Free Libraries).  We have one at our church and we aren't nearly as picky.  

 

I'm told that glass is not desirable.  Still very strange that amazon would ship a jar with no label whatsoever.  The jar is fully sealed, looks clean, and the inside is clearly olives.  I may try one.

 

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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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  • 2 weeks later...
DesertTinker

DesertTinker

Posted
Posted
49 minutes ago, Kim Shook said:

Not people food, but this was the canned cat food section at Food Lion - an otherwise fairly well-stocked location:

IMG_8298.thumb.jpg.088841b0b0fbb78f493a01d7fc264cb7.jpg

Poor kitties ☹️.  

The cat food aisles in all our stores here look just like that. Dry food is pretty readily available, canned has been a real struggle to find for the last two years. 😱

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weinoo

weinoo

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, DesertTinker said:

The cat food aisles in all our stores here look just like that. Dry food is pretty readily available, canned has been a real struggle to find for the last two years.

 

Chewy looks pretty loaded with food.

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Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

Not people food, but this was the canned cat food section at Food Lion - an otherwise fairly well-stocked location:

IMG_8298.thumb.jpg.088841b0b0fbb78f493a01d7fc264cb7.jpg

Poor kitties ☹️.  

I am just aughing at the Red Wine sign that looks like it is at the pet food????

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heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted

Yesterday's weekly jaunt to the Kroger affiiate was kinda full of nekkid shelves. Accomanied by not so lovely prices. I know I can order online but there was nothing I really HAD to have - just that seeing empty shelves is a bit jarring. Produce has remained well stocked. Delicious Argentine Bing cherries - $5/lb but worth it.

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JeanneCake

JeanneCake

Posted
Posted

I've done a few in-person grocery shopping trips; fully masked and right when the store opens at 7 am.  I'm out by 7:30.  Different things have been out of stock, sometimes I wonder if it's just because of the time I'm there (they haven't stocked the meat cases, or the produce yet).

 

A major grocery chain here (market basket) has a habit of no gaps on the shelves.  So you take one or two items off the shelf and the shelf is empty behind the single line of seltzer bottles at the edge of the shelf.

 

There was Near East Rice Pilaf boxes on the shelf with taco shells.

 

In the section for granola bars, it was a wall of Nature Valley granola bars (single file!!)  because there were no other brands available.

 

I'm noticing the pasta section doesn't have the usual selection of brands but the shelves are well stocked.

 

plain cream cheese seems ok; but the flavored ones are in short supply.

 

We like this spicy pork noodle soup that uses ramen noodles and I noticed this week there is only the 12-pack boxes of shrimp flavor.  which reminds me that I need more gochujang and black vinegar

 

 

 

 

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BeeZee

BeeZee

Posted
Posted

I’ve noticed the local supermarkets adopting a similar strategy, fill the shelves with what you’ve got, rather than having gaping holes (except canned cat food, which continues to be scarce). In May, our state goes to a ban on single use bags at check out, so I have started using my own bags to get in the habit. However, last trip I somehow left a couple of items behind, missing from the bags when I got home. Either I missed them at the end of the conveyor belt in the transition from bagging to paying, or they wound up in the cart and not in a bag, and I didn’t notice in the transfer from cart to car. I am rushing to get out of that place ASAP and probably overlooked them. So annoying.

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"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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rotuts

rotuts

Posted
Posted

@ Market Basket this AM :

 

no ground turkey , of any brand.

 

Meat selections very lean , plenty of gaps

 

2 jars of Heinz mushroom gravy , snapped them up

 

have nor seem mushroom gravy for months.

 

very odd about the ground turkey .

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BeeZee

BeeZee

Posted
Posted

Today’s missing product at Shop Rite (of the items I shop for) was whipped cream cheese. Not a single tub of any brand, and the shelf space was being filled by various flavors of spreadable Philadelphia Brand, which makes me think it isn’t expected back for a while. Not having bought it for a couple of months, not sure if this is an ongoing issue.

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"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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Kim Shook

Kim Shook

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, BeeZee said:

Today’s missing product at Shop Rite (of the items I shop for) was whipped cream cheese. Not a single tub of any brand, and the shelf space was being filled by various flavors of spreadable Philadelphia Brand, which makes me think it isn’t expected back for a while. Not having bought it for a couple of months, not sure if this is an ongoing issue.

For some reason, cream cheese of all kinds seems to be experiencing shortages.  According to Googled articles it is a combination of unexpected demand and a cyberattack (!!!) against Philly cream cheese! 

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Kim

Kim's Cookbook

What Fresh Hell is This?

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BeeZee

BeeZee

Posted
Posted

Today at Whole Foods there were only 3 containers of whipped cream cheese (their own brand). I'm pretty happy using spreadable goat cheese, so I'll wait it out.

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
Posted
37 minutes ago, heidih said:

My friend here from Havasu, AZ was shocked to see dry pasta varieties at Trader Joes. Her shelves there at various markets are bare?!

My TJ's has always had the dry pasta shelves stocked rather than bare but the number of varieties has been way down.  They just spread out what they’ve got!  Haven’t seen spaghetti, linguine or fettuccine in quite a long time until my last visit when they had some multi-color spaghetti.  Still no plain stuff. 

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DesertTinker

DesertTinker

Posted
Posted (edited)
50 minutes ago, heidih said:

My friend here from Havasu, AZ was shocked to see dry pasta varieties at Trader Joes. Her shelves there at various markets are bare?!

Even here in Yucca Valley, about 150 miles east of you, at Vons, Stater Bros and WalMart, shelves are frequently bare of pasta (aside from the less used shapes like orzo), what’s available, if any, are the wheat alternative versions. If one shops early on delivery days one has more or less unlimited choice.

Edited by DesertTinker (log)
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kayb

kayb

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, Kim Shook said:

For some reason, cream cheese of all kinds seems to be experiencing shortages.  According to Googled articles it is a combination of unexpected demand and a cyberattack (!!!) against Philly cream cheese! 


y’all searching for cream cheese, come to Jonesboro. Will trade for access to olives.

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Don't ask. Eat it.

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Shelby

Shelby

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, weinoo said:

I guess most of this stuff is just dropped off, from wherever it comes, in NYC; I've seen no shortages; not cream cheese, not pasta, not olives, not buttermilk, not tp, etc.

Yeah because no one wants to piss off you NYC people!

 

 

😬

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