November and Nandina

Ah, November.

We needed long sleeves today, the high being a cool 67 degrees. Clouds were moving in by the time we set off on our shopping spree, but we were still glad to have an insulated bag in which to carry meat groceries.

A shopping spree of groceries? Oh, yes.

With our now-limited income, shopping for food has become an interesting puzzle of how to best feed ourselves and preserve our bank account. Fortunately, Modesto is actually closer to us than Manteca, and Modesto has some interesting places for food procurement.

Now it is a fact that we're within walking distance (albeit a stretch) of our city's supermarket. However...

Proximity does not always equal savings.

Our local SaveMart does have tomatoes "on-the-vine" -- but at $2.99/pound. Sprouts Farmers' Market had them at $1.88/pound, and since we had to go there for white American cheese (local SM stopped carrying a tasty brand) we got the superior-tasting-sourced tomatoes for less, and stumbled into a great sale on green bell peppers, too. And cranberries, for less than half the price at our market here in town.

We were in Modesto for a doctor's appointment, so why not use the gas for shopping?

Proximity does not always equal taste.

While our local SM does have some decent meat, I cannot deny that -- Winco in Modesto carries Hormel brand pork, which is so flavorful and tender that you can just about faint from the first bite of it ... and it's cheaper, which, I guess sounds like an irresistible force. We bought pork chops for two dollars less a pound, and ground pork, which Bernie will mix up with spices into a superb sausage blend. Also, Winco carries beef heart at $1.68/pound, and you would not believe how rich and delicious beef heart stew is, especially with Bernie's home-made pasta noodles (which also save us some $$).

Oh, and then there was the Harris Ranch Beef issue. We were introduced to Harris Ranch beef through a sweepstakes by our local SM -- I won $50 in coupons for the stuff -- and we never looked back. By and large, we don't eat any beef unless it is Harris Ranch. We even took a HR Choice New York strip steak and matched it against a USDA Prime NY strip steak -- not even close. The Harris Ranch steak was incredibly better, for $9 less a pound. Sadly, our local SaveMart has stopped carrying HR beef, so we had to go source it elsewhere. Grocery Outlet in Modesto at least carries the ground beef, so we went there for our opportunity for hamburgers later this week.

Proximity does not equal value.

We bought eggs for years at the place out the road, Den Dulk Poultry, because the eggs were super-fresh, super-tasty, and cheap. Six bucks got us five dozen eggs. Then something happened out there, and suddenly, the eggs were ... not so good. Thin shells, watery whites, flabby yolks. Also, customer service went downhill like a speed slalom. Today's shopping included Trader Joe's, where the eggs have been a little more expensive, but a lot better in quality. And when we mentioned that we'd had some cracked eggs in our first dozen from them a couple of weeks ago, Trader Joe's practically threw an extra carton of free eggs into our shopping bag in apology. Wow. Sharp contrast compared to Den Dulk, who, when we once had a couple damaged eggs in a flat, said we'd have had to bring the rotten eggs (have you ever smelled a rotten egg, and if you have, would you ride in the same car with it? No.) back to get replacement eggs. Trader Joe's wins; plus, their lettuce and bagged greens last longer in the fridge than the local supermarket's do. Unspoiled goods means more bang for the buck.

That said, I still love shopping for the everyday stuff at our SaveMart. I really like the employees there, and we were able to pick up sale beef for canning at about $2.50/pound, which is nothing to sneer at. And I like their store brand stuff better than brand name stuff.

So, Nandina, pictured above. Winter color in its berries, and evergreen grace in its foliage. I really like Central California in the fall.

The Ago, Again

When I was a kid, there was Winter, with freezing temperatures appearing in our area in mid-September and continuing until the third week of May or so. (Not constant, of course there were warmish days and thaws and freaky hot spells.) Every house had a basement, and those basements were climate-controlled coolers. Thus you bought your bushel of apples from the orchard owner in September, and stored them in the constant coolness of the cellar. Carrots and cabbage might also have been stored there in that way. And your potatoes from your garden.

Last year, potatoes from my garden got the fridge in the garage to keep cool enough to eat as we used them up. If I buy a big bag of apples, it's likely to be in there, too, beside the carrots.

Mom did keep some carrots in her little refrigerator. We never ate cooked carrots, but if my sister and I whined for snacks, Mom could always say, "Eat a carrot." Carrots were not a staple, but an expedient.

But there was never spinach dip (or fresh spinach, for that matter) or kalamata olives; no hummus or refried beans, or chimichurri, or garlic cloves; no avocados, no sour cream, no Greek yogurt. A 16-oz jar of mayonnaise, yes, but not a big-ass jar of it like we have -- mayo was used only thinly, and mostly in macaroni salad or BLTs. I'm not certain we always had a jar of it open.

All those specialty items needed no room in Mom's little fridge.

And as my mother had no use for corned beef, she would never have bought up five packages of uncooked corned beef as I did a couple weeks ago when it was on sale for $1.88/lb. They took up a lot of room in the garage fridge. Also, from a discount store in Modesto, I buy my sandwich cheese five pounds at a time, which also takes up room. In addition, the bottom shelf of that old GE holds two flats of eggs (that would be about 4 - 5 dozen) -- I buy them cheaply from the poultry farm out the road.

Not only did Mom not cook any extra-big batches of stuff, or keep or make specialty stuff, she also didn't shop per se. She got what we needed (plus her morning ration of sweet stuff, which oddly enough, I don't do) and that was that. I, on the other hand, ran into a "Today's Special" at the store in which they were trying to get rid of legs of lamb for a jaw-dropping $3.99/lb, down from the $7.99 it was a month ago. I brought home two whoppers that about filled the garage fridge before I deboned them and froze the meat.

Today we re-filled the garage GE with a slab of spare-ribs the size of a Radio Flyer wagon, for tomorrow's dinner. And fresh corn on the cob, which was also on sale. Crazy. Mom is probably looking down from her space in the afterlife and yitching, "That's why you're all fat!" But she had no interest in food, really, and even as a spirit, likely has no understanding that those ribs will be lunch for a few days (the corn will all go) or that the brisket I trim off the top of the rib-slab will become pulled pork for sandwiches ... or tamale filling.

My guess is that by tomorrow night, we'll find enough room in the inside refrigerator for what remains of the ribs. And have some room to spare.