I had about a day and a half of relief and happiness after the result of the presidential election was called, and now I am back to feeling stressed, as we see a sizeable portion of the U.S. population refusing to believe the results, and some of our elected officials encouraging them in that; and our president building some sort of barrier around the White House and firing officials crucial to our national security and to a peaceful transfer of power, including the official who stood up to him on the topic of whether the president could turn our armed forces against our own citizens. It’s fine! It’s fine. I have two new hives, and it’s fine.
Well. I am trying not to borrow trouble. Sufficient unto the day, maybe stay offline and read a book, etc. But also, I went grocery shopping today to top up our supplies. I did a two-cart trip a few days before the election so that we could stay put for awhile if needed—but things have stretched on a bit, and we have still not reached the point at which, if there is going to be violence, the violence will happen. (Maybe it won’t happen! Maybe all this drama and wall-building and reality-rejecting and protocol-refusing will just…fizzle out! Maybe it’s fine!) Anyway I topped up our supplies.
One happy thing was that they had Diet Mountain Dew! They still didn’t have the 24-packs, but I bought Paul three 12-packs and he is a happy man. They also had Cadbury Caramello bars and Cadbury Fruit & Nut bars, which are my FAVORITES; all they’d had for months and months were the regular Cadbury bars, which I ALSO like and was very grateful to have, but it was lovely to see the ones I like even better. This was too small a thing to be worth mentioning before (they weren’t Emotional Support items), but it was really nice to see them.
Here is another small thing barely worth mentioning (which I say only in the fear that I will come across as picky and whiny and spoiled; if YOU have “small” things to mention, know that I will be RIVETED, and even MORE interested than in the bigger things): they did not have the little boxes of Gatorade Zero powder packets I like. I am not sporty, as you know, but on keto I have found zero-sugar sports drinks to be helpful if I feel icky. I also drink them if I have had any alcohol, to help reduce after-effects. There were still plenty of bottles of liquid Gatorade Zero and Powerade Zero, so it’s not like I have to suffer without—but the bottles take up so much room in the cart, so the little box was just such a satisfying efficiency, and they haven’t had them for my last few grocery-store trips, which is a little odd because they seem to have a good supply of other powdered drink mixes.
They had SNICKERDOODLE SmartFood popcorn. How can that be good? Yes, of course I bought a bag. I like to store up things like this to eat on my next Day Off.
They had NO crushed tomatoes. They had cans of tomato puree where the crushed ones should be. It’s fine, it’s fine. Even in normal times there are these little occasional gaps!
No familiar all-purpose sprays. No Lysol spray. No sanitizing wipes. There was a woman in the cleaning supply aisle talking aloud to her small child, saying “Let’s see, Mommy needs Lysol. Lysol, Lysol, Lysol. Where IS it? Are we in the wrong aisle?” I wondered if this were the first time in 8 months that she’d looked for it. I imagined her tracking down a clerk and asking where she could find it. Clerks probably thought they were long since done explaining the cleaning-supply situation.
Chicken looked normal: three normal pieces in a normal pack. No ground turkey, though. It’s fine! Even in normal times they were sometimes out of ground turkey.
Very low supplies of vegetarian meat substitutes, no fake chicken nuggets at all, but they DID have the Gardein Beefless Ground they usually don’t have.
Regular chicken nuggets seem to be increasing in variety and availability, though not totally up to normal (no chicken strips today, for example), but so much better than when it was down to dino nuggets and nothing else.
Paper towels were low-ish, and seemed to be only store-brand, but no limit.
I got three bricks of cream cheese, so now even if I don’t go shopping again until after Thanksgiving I can still make the chocolate-crusted pumpkin cheesecake, so THAT’S a relief. That was the only thing I wished last time that I’d gotten. Oh, and also a can of whipped cream. And golden raisins for the spice cake (I mince them so small they don’t even seem like raisins, because I do not very much like raisins but I like how they work with this cake)—OH SHOOT I forgot I need another cream cheese for the spice cake frosting! Well, I think I have a cream cheese in the freezer. And if not, that cake is also good with buttercream frosting.
Flour seems back to normal, and they still had yeast.
They had a big display of canned pumpkin, canned cranberry sauce, stuffing mixes, flour, sugars, and baking chocolate. I’d been a little panicky about baking chocolate when I couldn’t find any awhile back, but since then I’d been able to order it from Target; still, good to see it available again.
Do feel free to put your grocery-shopping notes here! My interest has not diminished.
Our governor is asking people who live in “red zone” counties to do grocery curbside if possible. Well, now my county is a red zone so I have been trying curbside pickup for the first time with mixed results.
On the one hand, it _is_ sort of nice to just drive up and somebody comes and puts all the groceries in the trunk for you.
On the other hand: there are usually little things wrong. Last night, I thought I was buying a one pound block of cheese. Instead, what I wound up with was one pound of cheese _slices_. I will not be able to grate said cheese into the casserole I was planning. :(
Last week, when I got home from our co-op with the curbside pickup, realized that I had gotten bottles of plain Pellegrino instead of the Aranciata flavored cans that I’d asked for. Our little local coop is trying so hard to keep business during the pandemic, so I did not complain or fuss. But then I did not have the orange Pellegrino to make rum cocktails with, boo.
Everybody’s trying their best. Once (I hope it will eventually happen) we are out of the red zone, I will definitely go back to getting my own groceries from inside the store.
If you mince the slices in stacks of 4 or 5, they will come out almost like shredded, and will melt that way.
Ah, good idea! I will try that
I am still amused/annoyed about the fact that they substituted pizza sauce for salsa in one of my curbside pick ups. Those two things have almost zero overlap in usage. That said, I did eventually use it, but not on nachos!!
Aldo was out of English Muffins, but that’s because they had an over-abundance of thanksgiving dinner rolls.
No in-store report, although I had the same experience with the large cans of crushed but the store pick-up people were able to substitute small cans. On the Amazon front, though, the same mammoth package of Charmin I got six weeks ago now re-orders for $41. Ouch. (No, we don’t normally go through that much TP but we did a pre-Thanksgiving weekend family gathering to avoid the inevitable post-Thanksgiving community contamination, and we had seven immediate family adults using two toilets for four days. And yes, we all tested before we got together.)
Ouch! Should have proofread–that was crushed tomatoes, and original price of the Charmin was $25.
I still look with hope for Hormel pepperoni but it is still out of stock. Plenty of Hormel turkey pepperoni though, although it is not the same.
I fear this is going to come off as weird and creepy (and if so, please ignore it and pretend I never said anything), but my local grocery has plenty of regular Hormel pepperoni and I would be happy to send you some if you wanted. I get not wanting to give your address out to internet strangers, but maybe there is a neutral location it could go to? The hospital perhaps? (Now I sound even weirder. I’m not! I’ve just been reading you and Swistle for years…).
ANYWAY, if you’re interested, hopefully Swistle would be able to provide you with my email address and we could set something up.
I am always very interested in your grocery updates. I have been doing grocery pickup for years now and I adore it but I do kind of miss wandering the store and your updates are like wandering the store.
I had to make a quick grocery stop and I took the baby with me (strapped to me, covered by a blanket). Its the first time I’ve had a kid in a store since March, but we really needed draino and diapers ASAP. My husband did the last grocery trip so its been a few weeks for me. What I noticed this time was maskless men. We live in an area with a mask mandate and after the first week or so I’d say people have been compliant. Maybe not covering their nose (stupid, obviously) but with a mask. This time there were several men, no mask at all, glaring at me as if daring me to say something. walking around looking defiant. If I had been alone I might have said something but I didn’t want to get in an altercation with a moron and put my kid at more risk.
However I have been spending some time trying to think of what I should say next time…….
If you or anyone else has any suggestions as to what to say, I am all ears!
My on-going pandemic grocery item hunt is for cans of pork&beans. My kid loves them and I can only find them in stock every 4th or 5th trip but baked beans always seems to be in-stock.
You know what’s been low? Spaghetti Ohs. And still no McCormick Chili packets.
I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but here at the end-ish of fall, I am ready to start doing my grocery orders online and just picking up at the store. I did it once, at the beginning of the March stay-home, and it was terrible. The store had NOTHING that I ordered. I vowed never again.
BUT. You know, cases going up, both kids going to school F2F now (modified), I’m just wanting to limit our exposure. I also have finally realized that shopping with a mask and my reading glasses, without which I cannot read any labels/prices, but with which I cannot navigate in front of me, is just TOO MUCH to manage. It’s suffocating in a weird way — the mask inches up and bumps into the glasses and every time I adjust one or the other, I feel like the whole works is falling down around me. My glasses do frequently fall off the top of my head, down my back. It’s even more exhausting than worrying about the other people in the store.
I encourage you to try again. Delivery and pick-up services have improved enormously and are 100 times better at all the places I shop.
I used to order groceries online with great results before the pandemic, then had the worst experieces in March and April. No delivery slots, very few items, etc. Now everything is back to excellent.
I am stocking up just in case things get bad again but I think stores are much better prepared now. Hope manufacturers will catch up soon.
Good to know. I’m actually kind-of excited to try it again!
Green enchilada sauce has been absent the last three times I’ve tried to order it for curbside and also at a quick in person Walmart trip. Plenty of red but zero green. I placed a curbside order for pick up today and it appears that it is in stock for this order. We’ve also had a terrible time finding canned cut green beans for our dieting Golden Retriever (I know, I know). I usually just buy store brand but throughout the pandemic is been more miss than hit. Pre-pandemic we bought them a case of 12 at a time at Sam’s Club but they haven’t had them at ours since March. I wised up and ordered some from Sam’s online this morning. And the strangest one–paper snack size bowls. Also usually a Sam’s purchase. Not available at in person Walmart or curbside grocery store order. Tacked those on to the green bean order this morning. Please continue the grocery updates–they fascinate me!!!
Cleaning supplies here are still at a premium and you have to go into the store to get them. This is the one thing tat I’ve found consistently absent and frustrating. And this is in two of the major stores.
I have noticed that rice, soup, and beans in all forms are starting to dwindle.
Here’s one thing that makes me squint. Kevin only wants blueberry muffins from Kroger for workday breakfast. Those are not available for pick up. You have to go into the store, where there are STACKS of them. Zero reason why they’re not available for pickup and to add insult to injury the BANANA muffins are available. Can this get any worse? LOL
Honestly: his turnout, when he has called for things, has been abysmal, so popular civil war support is not in the cards (domestic terrorism: yes, although there is not an *extreme* degree of competence in that camp, and the FBI is on it and has been doing things and taking preventative action; an actual civil war by enough of the populace to make the outcome remotely uncertain: no); the military is supposed to be faithful to the Constitution over the president, and any orders to “enough” people to keep him in there would go through a bunch of layers of relatively old, career military people who are aware that they would be destroying a democracy by following those orders; and there has already been a *lot* of peel-off from support for him even claiming voter fraud, which is several magnitudes lower in extreme-ness than him attempting to retain office. Oh! And also! His court cases keep getting tossed out, which helps. (all of them where a decision has been reached, maybe?) And he and his campaign are sketchy on funds [whether campaign loose cash exceeds debt is a definite question], which reduces what is possible for him to do in a variety of directions. So. Yes, stay a bit ahead on grocery things! But honestly… he’s mostly out of options, and most orders have to go through enough levels of command that someone in that stack would say “nope” so… there will be flailing, there will be unpleasantness, and I feel very sorry for everyone who has to work with him or be adjacent to that mess, but he is on his way out and after he is out, much cleanup will be possible. (donate or send postcards to voters in Georgia, though, to make cleanup easier!)
Over here, with ye olde online grocery shopping: rubbing alcohol has been back in stock, which is surprising and pretty fabulous. Regular canning lids (which have been out of stock since… April? – widemouthed lids appeared briefly in August or so) flickered back in stock and then out again (which doesn’t matter personally – we’ve got enough canning lids for our extremely limited needs). Chicken liver is back in stock for the first time since March, although honestly, I am not 100% sure whether that is because they have been out of it or if that is because they never bothered adding it to the database of stuff you can order online. (yes, yes, I know, chicken liver, but: iron. Supplements don’t play well with my GI system, and neither does spinach, so: occasional liver is one way to do this.) Soy Sauce ramen is still AWOL, which was reasonable in April when all ramen was out of stock, but is less reasonable now that the other flavors of ramen has been comfortably back in stock for three months; I’m suspecting it’s *there* but they missed adding it to the database somehow.
And there is all the toilet paper anyone could possibly want. :-)
I would randomly note that given the reported shortage of aluminum, if you rely heavily on aluminum foil, it might make sense to stow some away in the pantry, in case the supply chain problems trickle down to consumer aluminum foil eventually (it would probably just get more expensive, though; this is not the same sort of problem that toilet paper had).
Re: Gatorade Zero powder, that may be one of the things you can order just as cheap online; it’s lightweight and compact. I used to lean heavily on Gatorade powder, but got sick of it and thus swapped to using lite salt [which is potassium plus some regular sodium] for rehydration, and it’s *great* because you can add it to basically any beverage [but don’t cook it after adding the potassium salt, because it gets bitter] but does the friendly electrolyte thing. That said, it’s not a “just add water” thing unless you’re fine with salty plain water, and hangovers or illness are *good* times for “just add water” so there’s that. Also, Gatorade Zero has sucrose in it (somehow?), which is good for electrolyting (regular gatorade has waaaay more sugar than should be in a rehydration beverage, but there should be *some* sugar – a bit – in a rehydration beverage, optimally). Or you can lean on potato chips, which are also an excellent source of potassium and salt, and get your rehydration sugar elsewhere. But, obviously, if the Gatorade Zero packets 1. work really well for you and 2. require very little effort, at a time when very little effort is *extremely* valuable, then maybe check Target for them?
UMMMM excuse you, you’re not allowed to just throw out phrases like “Chocolate Crusted Pumpkin Cheesecake” without a recipe link, MA’AM.
Ha ha! Okay, I’ve added one!
Marion, asking the hard hitting questions I’m looking for! :-)
I’ve been to Costco a couple times recently (Southern CA) and they were low/out of both toilet paper and paper towels. And there was a line to get in!
Your grocery store posts bring me joy! My husband remains our family’s Designated Shopper, and I long for grocery store play-by-play analysis.
My favourite is Cadbury fruit and nut!!! Thankfully I’ve been able to find that regularly but I haven’t found Cadbury mint in a long time which is my husband’s favourite. Maybe they’ve just discontinued it?
Swistle! Would you like me to post you some of the real deal Cadbury’s from England? As I discovered when I lived in the US almost a decade ago, American Cadbury’s (while still good) is Not The Same. Maybe you need the best stuff in your life right now? Let me know!
Oh, Cece knows what she is talking about! My son lived in Scotland for 6 years and I had a steady flow of the REAL Cadbury. It is amazing! Now I rely on eBay to stay stocked.
I think maybe the Trump problem will go away on its own if we just ignore him from now on. Dude thrives on attention so if the media doesn’t cover his bullshit maybe he’ll give up? Idk. I’m going to ignore it as much as I can and just hole up in my happy place.
I’m still doing curbside pick up from a local mom and pop and subsidizing it with a weekly farm box and Target deliveries. I don’t shop Amazon that much but I have had luck getting off brand alcohol wipes and a large vat of Clorox bleach spray that I pour into smaller spray bottles. Target has finally has hand sanitizer available and I just ordered a bunch of bottles. We had been using hand sanitizer my husband panic dumped into a plastic cup from the school where he teaches, before it closed in March, and we’re finally almost out.
The party over country vibe that the Republicans have won’t have the legs they hope it will. It’s un-American to say the least.
I’ve added a new store to my shopping rotation: Wegmans. This store is new-ish to our area and wow!, I’m hooked. Unfortunately, cannot access w/o a car so am dependent on friends to get there, but since my friend is hooked too that’s worked out OK for me. It might be too dangerous for my budget if it were accessible.
That being said, last week was a Wegmans week and everything was kinda-normal levels (except, you know, Lysol spray).
I come from Wegmans ancestral homelands of Upstate NY, and let me tell you, Wegmans for the win. I buy almost exclusively their store brand everything: stock, broth, Italian classics sauce and pasta, cereal, packaged bread, ice cream sandwiches…EVERYTHING.
They have family pack produce, cereal, chips, and crackers that are go-to regulars. Their chocolate bars ($1.99) are a delight.
We moved away from Wegmans and I miss it. It’s been more than 15 years and if we see a Wegmans in our travels we stop in. Maybe get lunch or coffee, wax nostalgic.
Wegmans is literally the best grocery store.
Strangely enough not a big fan of their prepared food (which is what everyone specifically told me to try). Except for the Beef on Weck- that was absolutely delicious.
This is extremely specific, but since the Halloween candy was put out I have been hoping that there would be White chocolate peppermint kisses this year. I was able to buy a bag and direct a woman looking for white chocolate peppermint m&M’s yesterday. I am now switching to curbside or delivery for the foreseeable future.
FYI, in case you are interested in cross-referencing followers/readers, I dedicated a recent grocery report to you via tweet.
I went into Target for the first time in a long time yesterday so I finally can contribute a grocery report!
Toilet paper and paper towels are low here in Northern California. Limited one per customer, I believe. Cleaning supplies were in stock and definitely limited one per customer, but they had a ton of hand sanitizer and I didn’t see a limit sign around there.
Other groceries all seemed typical for that Target.
It was interesting to see them putting out holiday decorations for purchase. The aisles in that section were partially complete, and waking past the empty parts gave me the heebie jeebies. That would have been TOTALLY NORMAL during the holiday transition in a retail establishment but now it’s a reminder of the Ongoing Situation.
We have had random outages, but rice is one thing that’s definitely on the low list. It’s there, if you don’t mind store brand (I do: it always seems buggy), or they have specialty kinds. I have been able to order the big normal bags from target, though. Also, has anyone else noticed the grocery store deli having a much more limited selection of lunchmeat? We usually get it from our local butcher, but I noticed a reduced selection by at least a third on my last grocery trip. I’ve been able to get TP and paper towels from target and costco, respectively.
I’m in Colorado. I went shopping on Saturday and felt a little panicky when some things were seeming to be going out of stock again. Toilet paper had only 2 brands (plus 1ply) and my Costco was out, too. Low on canned veggies and frozen veggies. I had to get interesting different mixes like Italian and fiesta mixed vegetables. And low on canned beans. The pasta was also empty. Some weird refill bottles of hand soap (not a brand I recognized were on a big display and spread over the empty spots on the aisle.) I felt like I should buy it even though it didn’t look like a good brand. But I didn’t. I’ll wait for next time. The trip left me feeling those feelings from earlier times. I hope it improves.
I live in Colorado, too, and what was up with the frozen veggies?!? I was specifically looking for frozen broccoli and there was not a floret to be found! The kind of Italian sausage that I buy is hit or miss, as is jarred Alfredo sauce. And I’ve been looking for rubbing alcohol for weeks now – I knew it was hard to buy in the summer because I tried to find some for my mother in law, but apparently it’s still rare. There were a couple of other weird things but I can’t remember what else I came home complaining about right now.
I shopped Friday, and was unable to worry about what was or wasn’t in stock because of the extreme number of people out in the stores that morning, coupled with the worst mask compliance I’ve seen since my city’s mask mandate began in April. Entire families with multiple adults AND children roving around Costco! Two customers literally leaning up against a Costco display of booze chatting it up with their masks down around their chins! A woman roving around Target completely maskless (but with her kids masked)! People coming right up behind me in line and adding their stuff to the belt directly next to my stuff! My town has two Targets, one of which is relatively empty most weekday mornings, and Friday morning it had the feel of the first week after Thanksgiving break. I was doing a Big Shop (as opposed to a supplementary one), and usually I wander a little bit longer when that’s the case to make sure I haven’t forgotten something much needed or wanted. This time, I had planned to do a little Christmas shopping for stocking stuffers, etc. after I completed my list, and I started to but aborted after picking up a couple of puzzles (puzzles have finally become well-stocked at Target again, after about a 5-month drought) as I realized I just could no longer handle the number of people. Possibly they all had the same idea – start Christmas shopping early – but the whole mood was much more denial of anything like a virus happening, sure we’ll wear a mask if you insist, but if you’re not looking, well, who cares, can’t we just get back to normal? I came home exhausted and extremely discouraged.
The one bright spot was that Target had really beefed up it’s fresh-baked-goods section, which is usually pretty anemic, and which I typically ignore, but sometimes they carry these Archer Farms apple fritters that are better than any grocery store donut has any right to be, and they are my favorite post pandemic-shopping-trip treat. They had stacks and stacks of them this time (I wish I’d gone with my first instinct to get an extra box – or TWO – to keep in the freezer so I wouldn’t have to wait two weeks for another shot at finding them, but oh well), plus a lot of other pastries and cakes and cookies. It felt festive, which was nice. AND they had plenty of whole organic milk. You want to talk trivial, I spent the past week resenting every swallow of coffee as I worked my way through the 2 percent gallon I had to buy on the previous shopping trip, so I am pleased to be all stocked up on whole again for the next couple of weeks, and yes, my coffee today was delicious.
Here in England I’m doing online Tesco deliveries once a fortnight, we are fortunate to get a priority slot as my son is classed as vulnerable. You are limited to 95 items, which is hard when trying to stock up with Christmas bits and pieces, but I’m very happy to send some Fruit and Nut your way!
Frozen veg can be patchy, toilet rolls are low again since lockdown #2 started, but I’ve not noticed anything else being as bad as it was earlier in the year.
I’ve made sure I have all the baking ingredients I need for Christmas. The cake is already made and being fed with brandy every
couple of weeks.
Hoping that the current inhabitant of the Whitehouse is persuaded to just STOP IT ALREADY. I find it strangely fascinating that so many are convinced that most democrats are card carrying Marxists. In reality, even those politicians espousing liberal views on things such healthcare, immigration, gun control and abortion would be more in line generally with the Conservative party in this country, rather than the Labour party. Hardly likely to start flying the red flag and calling everyone Comrade.
I’m at the “screw it everything is a compromise at this point” level of pandemic living right now. Other than the fact that I still can’t get my regular cleaning supplies and I’m unhappy with my floor cleaner options, I’m not sure I could tell you what was missing (or there) last time. I know there were several things I substituted and that I skipped my cold brew because they didn’t have the one I like. And I was excited the humanely raised chicken thighs were there. But, really, my family long ago adjusted to the fluctuation in the pantry and I can’t bring myself to particularly care anymore.
I haven’t noticed much in terms of shortages lately, except for one thing which I am attributing to my store and their frequent supply gaps of strange things, rather than an actual pandemic thing: Just Nuts Chunky Peanut Butter. It’s my favourite. They have all the other Just Nuts pb, like the creamy and sea salt added and honey added. But no chunky. I finally bought the store brand natural chunky peanut butter and – GET THIS, IT IS AN OUTRAGE – the store brand was more expensive. More expensive than the name brand! What the what. It tastes just fine, meh, it’s all fine, but WHY.
There has been no heavy cream the last two times Beth went to the grocery store. North wants it for a tomato-cream pasta sauce they’re making for dinner tomorrow. But Beth bought light cream and I think it will be fine.
This may sound crazy, but:
Fat levels in cream prevent it from curdling on contact with acids and heat; light cream has less protective power. You can reduce the acid level in the liquid part of canned tomato with a pinch (like, an amount half the size of a peppercorn or so) of baking soda. Do Not Use Much. But with a little bit of that alkaline, the acid in the tomato can be reduced enough to allow lower-fat milk products to not curdle.
That said, depending on the recipe, it may already be totally safe to not curdle, and also the cream being really fresh will help it out with not curdling, *and* if it does curdle, you can whiz the liquid/sauce in a blender and run it through a fine-mesh sieve.
So, eh, it might be totally fine as-is between it still being cream and being fresh rather than aged, but a tiny (TINY) amount of baking soda could provide extra insurance if desired.
(also: I forgot to mention the most important part, which is that you add the baking soda to the tomato and mix well *before* adding the cream to the tomato. Sorry for forgetting that!)
I have been doing a grocery delivery service for most of our weekly shopping but I go to our small nearby grocery store and our corner drugstore fairly often. We still seem to have some problems keeping paper goods in stock. The drugstore had my preferred toilet paper as of last weekend, after I hadn’t seen it there for months, but they had only a weird brand of paper towels and no tissues of any kind. The grocery store which is right nearby has a reasonable selection of normal paper products. Why is their supply so different? Mysterious.
Our delivery service had been out of yeast and flour entirely until a few weeks ago and they still do not have a consistent stock of paper products. Their stock has generally been better since about Sept; for most of the spring and summer, even items that were available when I placed the order would turn out to be unavailable by delivery time. Now it’s much more predictable. However, they have reinstated a 50 unique items limit for orders (like they don’t count it as a unique item if you buy five of the exact same yogurt but they do count toward the fifty if you buy five different flavors) which had been in place early on (March – June) but then lifted. It is going to make shopping for the week of Thanksgiving very difficult, since I still need to buy stuff for three other meals per day that week and not just The Big Meal on Thursday. So I am going to have to pre-buy what I can and maybe supplement with an in-person shop at the (much more expensive) nearby store.
My last trip to Costco was pretty crazy– it was the middle of a Friday afternoon, and the parking lot was completely full. Decent supplies of the things I went to get, but the place was packed. Everyone wore masks and most were even wearing them correctly, but it was crowded, people had come with family members, and they were stopping to have conversations. According to the pharmacy staff member, it had been like that all day. She said that people were telling her it was because a nearby town’s numbers had hit the news–they were prepping for another lockdown.
I just did my most recent grocery pickup yesterday.
* The store has started requiring a $35 minimum for free pickup orders. This is no big deal for me, since our typical pickup order is above $150, but is still a change
* The store is not currently sending a text-approval for substitutions, which is resulting in some nuisances. I’d ordered cherry jam for the sake of a recipe and they sent strawberry… which won’t work for the recipe and which we already have a ton of. (So it’s not a waste, just something I would have said “no” to if I’d been asked.)
* Produce continues to be a source of curveballs. This time around, I asked for two butternut squashes. And I did get two… two enormous ones that are larger than any I’ve ever seen before. I now have 14 lbs of butternut squash, which is a major oversupply for our family. On the plus side, nothing was actually moldy upon receipt.
I don’t miss going into the store for the sake of going into the store. But I do habitually feel as if every pickup, I’m getting 1-3 things that I would never have picked for myself, be it moldy tomatoes or a weird kind of bread or these Jurassic squashes.
I’m telling myself that this is a part of the disaster that I can live with, and it is. But I will admit to being really unhappy about the fact we aren’t officially in lockdown yet. Our local numbers are bad and while I prepared for this from last spring…I just wish we weren’t in this spot. I wish that the people who had their kids trick-or-treating had stayed home like we did. I wish that the people who had parties had opted not to. I wish that the people who are–I suspect– planning to gather for Thanksgiving and Christmas were saying, “Not this year.” It’s really disheartening.
“Jurrasic squashes” put a smile on my (properly masked) face.
Apparently Coke Zero fridge packs are (were?) back this week. C was at the store and texted this info to me. However, it seems he only picked up a pack for his office fridge and not home. 🤦🏻♀️ He’s the one who drinks Coke Zero. The kids don’t at all and I only occasionally indulge, so… Hopefully there will still be some fridge packs when I go shopping tomorrow.
But he did bring home a huge bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Trees that I didn’t know I needed until I saw them.
Gatorade zero comes in packets? I wonder if they’re available in Canada! My stepfather has to drink it because of a medical condition (he’s not supposed to drink sugar, but he’s also not supposed to drink plain water as he needs the electrolytes) and it might be convenient for him to have some packets on hand. I’m glad you mentioned this!
My store in California also had no crushed tomatoes last week. Where are all the crushed tomatoes?