Tag Archives: shopping

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CSA, grocery store oddities and…. pie.

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Our neighbor’s farm is still churning out a bounty.

 

 

 

This week it was fresh basil, beets, parsley, Boston lettuce, giant scallions, heirloom zucchini and a large radish.

But oh, what a beautiful radish it was…

 

 

Who knew they could be so gorgeous!

This week at my local grocery store…

 

 

Seriously, are we back to hoarding paper towels now?

WTF.

It’s enough to make me want to grab a pitchfork and storm someone’s pantry. The world is not ending Karen… you don’t need 72 rolls of Bounty.

On another note, this –

 

 

Parmesan style what?

And why in hell would anyone buy fake cheese.

 

 

For all we know that stuff is grated styrofoam.

Sprinkle it on your spaghetti or cushion that garden gnome you’re mailing to Aunt Edna.. it’s nothing if not versatile.

And finally…. pie.

But not the fruit or cream variety.

 

 

Shepherd’s Pie, one of my husband’s favorite comfort foods.

 

 

Made with ground lamb thank you very much. If it’s beef, it’s Cottage Pie.

It shouldn’t surprise you to know the husband ate every drop of these two dishes. I’ll cook it, but rarely eat it. Too bland by far.

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Things there are no explanation for.

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  1.    The grill cover that came with our new grill.

 

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Mind you, it’s custom made for this particular grill so it’s not a matter of fit.

So why on earth would a cover, that’s ostensibly used to protect the metal from the elements, have an opening of netted mesh where the metal controls are located?

Why?

2.    Mexican toilet paper.

 

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I live in Maine, which is as far as you can get from Mexico and still be in the United States….

 

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So why were these the only brands available on the grocery store shelf this week?

Why?

3.    Why is there a squirrel on top of my bicycle in the garage?

 

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If your answer is  “You don’t ride it, so why shouldn’t he?” that’s technically correct, but doesn’t explain how he got in the garage or why he wouldn’t rather use that special car wash broom attachment my husband had to have but never used instead. He had to walk past 2 dirty cars to find the bicycle…. and that’s just rude.

Why?

4.  Why is there coffee all over my kitchen cabinets?

 

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Not the lower cabinets mind you, where I could understand a little spillage…. but the upper. Did Micheal J. Fox sneak in for a cuppa while I wasn’t looking? Was the husband gettin’ jiggy with it while I was in the shower?

I don’t drink coffee, so no. I didn’t catch a glimpse of a bare chested Jason Momoa on the television and have a muscle spasm.

 

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Photo for reference purposes only.

Really.

And to think it only took me an hour to choose that particular shot. 😈

 

So…. why?

If you can explain any of these unexplainable circumstances, I’d be most grateful.

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CSA and grocery store horrors.

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This week’s offering from our CSA was a little lean on our end because there were a lot of things we don’t eat and elected to let our neighbor take.

 

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Cilantro, bok choi, kale, turnips, spigarello, fennel, and kohlrabi? We passed.

But the chard was rainbow colored…

 

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So there is that.

And in the continuing saga of bizarre grocery items found on my local shelves…..

 

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Every possible mutation of pasta imaginable are still being pushed.

 

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As is the ever present  (and still disgusting)  kale.

Delicious? I doubt it.

Crazy good? Not possible.

Stop the insanity and put kale back where it belongs…. in a rabbit’s colon. Other than the trash can, that’s the only proper place.

 

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Thankfully there was one sane product line of which I took full advantage.

 

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Let the grilling begin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Enough with the substitutes.

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In the last three months I’ve seen pasta fly off the grocery store shelves.

Pandemic shopping fever has wiped them clean at times and all that was left were substitutes.

Kale linguini?

Not if my life depended on it.

Squash angel hair?

Thank you, no.

So imagine my horror when I saw this in the refrigerated section this morning.

 

 

Tofu fettuccine and spaghetti.

What fresh Hell is this!

I picked up a package and it felt like slimy rubber…. which is probably what it tastes like it as well.

 

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It’s just wood.

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No, not that kind of wood.

The kind that my husband wanted to replace this:

 

 

Our deck railings, which are rotting in a few places.

I’ve tried to talk him into ripping the whole deck out and putting in Trek composite…. yours truly is tired of staining every 2-3 years…. but no. He got half of the deck wood at a yard sale, for free.

It must be preserved.

Did it match the existing wider deck planks?

 

 

No. But you’re not supposed to notice that.

So…. we shopped for wood and different railings.

 

 

If you’ve never shopped for wood with my husband you don’t know what you’re missing.

 

 

He used to run a quality assurance shop for helicopters in the Marine Corps and he takes quality seriously.

Does it surprise you to learn that we spent more than an hour searching for 2 pieces….. and he didn’t find any he liked?

 

 

It shouldn’t.

But I did come home with new bronze deck balusters.

 

 

To be continued….

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Grocery store funnies.

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Lately there’s always something photo worthy at the grocery store.

Since the viral apocalypse, I’ve been seeing weird things on the shelves. Every day items have been replaced with generic and no name brands.

And when it comes to no name brands?

You can’t get any more nameless than this toilet paper.

 

 

Not wasting money on advertising slogans here. No sir.

Another weird sight?

 

 

A line of products approved by a skinny earth friendly butcher.

Beefy flavored stroganoff?

I’ll pass.

Chickenless Buffalo chicken?

Nope. It’s all yours.

But at least the pad Thai had authentic rice noodles. Because there’s nothing worse than wannabe rice.

And okay, I get it…. vegans have to eat. But it always makes me chuckle the lengths they’ll go to to approximate the taste of meat. If they don’t want to eat animal flesh, fine. They can stuff themselves with kale. Heck, I’ll gladly give them my share.

But enough with the winking plant protein butcher.

He’s not fooling anyone.

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Grill shopping.

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The unthinkable happened last week.

Our beloved… and only 3 years old damn it… Weber grill died. Not wanting to spend a summer without one, we immediately went hunting for it’s replacement.

I wanted a small one without a side burner, so naturally all the husband looked at were large ones with side burners.

Ah, marriage.

 

 

Have you been grill shopping lately?

Holy crap!

I’ve paid less for cars.

 

 

Here’s the husband taking one for a test drive.

Literally driving it…. he spun it around a corner and had it up on 2 wheels.

Because Christ, at over a thousand dollars? That bastard better taxi us to the pub on its day off.

I found one I wanted.

Really wanted.

 

 

It came with wine!

But no. The husband dragged me to 5 other stores and ended up choosing one from Tractor Supply.

 

 

Large?

 

 

Oh yeah.

 

 

Much larger than we need, but it has stainless steel grates and radiant embers.

What the hell are radiant embers?

I have no idea….

But I bought some lovely filets and we’re going to find out tonight.

 

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Grocery store oddity.

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Yesterday was a relatively uneventful trip…. which is almost anticlimactic at this point. It’s been such a rich source of blog fodder these past few months.

There was ample toilet paper, meat and soup so maybe the panic buying is finally subsiding.

There was however this sign –

 

 

And while I consider my vocabulary larger than your average bear’s, aseptic juice did give me pause.

To my mind the words and septic and juice are not a good mix, for obvious reasons.

Because if I’m thirsty? I don’t usually head for the tank out back that holds our bodily wastes.

 

 

But thankfully the word aseptic has a different meaning:

Aseptic processing is a processing technique wherein commercially thermally sterilized liquid products are packaged into previously sterilized containers under sterile conditions to produce shelf-stable products that do not need refrigeration. 

Whew… that was close.

My Ocean Spray cranberry almost got crossed off the list.