Grocery-Shopping

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!