After I went to the eyeglass place Wensday, I had some food-shopping to do. One place is Nick's, which is a small combination liquor/butcher/deli store with a small amount of fresh produce and some canned/jarred goods. It has a mainly Italian food orientation.
They always have some meats on sale, trimmed and custom-cut. Among this week's sale was Delmonico at $10.99/lb. I bought half on one cut 1" thick. I'll divide those in half and freeze them individually. 4 oz of steak is all I need at dinner (surrounded by several veggies and a salad). Bought 2 lbs of large frozen shrimp for $10.99.
Their small produce row is nice. Only place I can find truly ripe Golden Delicious apples. And I know they sell certain produce (celery hearts, bell peppers, summer squash) at much better prices than my Safeway store, so I buy those there. And they are the only place I can find good eggroll wrappers. And Claussen pickles.
They also accept special orders of wine by the case (and at a discount). In order 4 cases at a time of Mondavi Private Selection 750 ml Merlot. They call me when the order arrives and even load it for me when I pick it up. The store manager even knows me by name. Well, I buy mostly filet mignon, ribeye, and delmonico. So he ought to remember me! 😁. But really, he is friendly to his customers (and a good businessman).
One odd thing about the wine orders... Most of the liquor staff just write down my choice/name/phone number in a small receipt pad. But there is this one guy who insists I write it down for him. Well, my printing is not great these days, and trying to do it on a shopping cart handle is worse.
So I sat down and typed the info into Word. Copied it 5 times in a page, printed it, sliced the copies up, and put them in my wallet. Tried one out Wensday. The guy looked at it and said "that works".
I stopped buying from their deli counter though. When Boar's Head deli meats were recalled last year, they wouldn't stop using that as their main meat source. And I don't trust Boar's Head deli meats anymore.
My other store is Safeway. There are 2 in town, so I just go to whichever is more on my errand path. The have the best produce section I've found. And I can download digital coupons to my store loyalty card. They have really good discounts on those.
Their meat is ridiculously expensive, yet sometimes kind of tough (which I why I get mine at Nick's). Their deli meats are more expensive, but they don't sell Boar's Head, so I trust it better. And since my lunch is a half sandwich (surrounded by celery/carrot/cucumber/pickle sticks), the higher cost doesn't mean much.
Safeway also gives "points" for purchases. You can use them on your grocery bill, but I have never figured out how the calculate that. But they have their own gas station and sometimes I accumulate enough points to get 50 cents off per gallon. That's nice!
So I got home and put all the groceries away. Took an hour. Today will be cooking day for sausage, mixing day for meatloaf, and storing day for uncooked steak. I should explain that. I pre-cook sausage, chicken and pork and freeze them. I never pre-cook steak! Steak needs that "fresh from the grill or air-fryer taste" taste...
It was a good shopping day!
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