I would if it was closer, but I live in walking distance of a different supermarket with a good selection so I don’t bother. Plus I don’t want to give Amazon any more power.
@hyjinx Google broke Nest/dropcam? Please explain. I am actually sitting on the fence between springing for a Nest for my new Google Home or getting a very highly rated no storage camera for 1/4th the price. I’m balanced between wanting something to network with Home and wanting the storage vs the high cost of Google Nest storage and the comparatively high price of the device. A push one way or the other would be appreciated as I’d like to make the purchase today.
@moondrake Used to have a far better app experience for Dropcam. The Nest app is clunky as hell for video and saving clips fails a significant number of times. I have a lot of Nest cams so I’m kinda invested at this point but it drives me crazy. I am trialling Abode right now and it seems pretty solid so far. I like the convenience but when Google took it over and consolidated everything, it seemed to thrive on neglect. The thermostat was similar. If I started again, I’d go Ecobee.
I have occasionally stopped for a specific item, and I have been wanting to try their hot lunch bar, but mostly I find it underwhelming and overpriced.
It was nice finding whole wheat berries there for grinding our own wheat for bread, but it was 8x more expensive than other sources, and its much easier to find that elsewhere now. Even Bob’s Red Mill, a pricy brand, was about half the cost of Whole Foods wheat the last time I checked.
@duodec I noticed the same think about Bob’s Red Mill versus Whole Foods; my wife uses almond flour instead of wheat flour due to a gluten allergy and cost is a large factor.
@thismyusername - Can we have a sous vide thread? Because I got an s-v cooker and it seems to me to be the biggest pain in the kitchen. What’s the big deal? Or how do you GET a good deal out of it?
@aetris Don’t let the haters get you down. A SV thread would be nice, and there are some tips here in the forum from before if you search. No time to make a useful thread start right now, but look at Serious Eats and ChefSteps for some good stuff. Also find the sous vide egg calculator online, you can make amazing eggs to just about any spec.
check out the guide at serious eats (linked below) the biggest key is to make sure you don’t over-cook when you are finishing them.
I happen to have an infrared searing burner on my grill so I can pull this off with little effort (I just flip them every 10 seconds until I get the crust I want) but friends who have tried it tend to overcook due to letting it finish too long.
You have to remember it is already cooked… you are just using the Millard reaction to make a crust, not cook it. Old habits are hart to break I guess.
You can do all sorts of things with sous vide with other proteins but to be honest the only one that really stands out as an advantage for me is the steaks.
@thismyusername The best steaks I’ve ever had save for one time at a big name steakhouse (dry aged, the whole bit, over $100 entree) done in my own kitchen with an immersion circulator in a 3.5 gallon bucket. It has made it worth buying the expensive steaks from the premium butcher again because I can’t screw them up and overcook them.
Prior my best steaks were ribeyes cooked Alton Brown method in cast iron alternating between burner and 500 degree oven; they were good.
If its nice out we sear on the grille, otherwise on a blazing hot cast iron pan. The steaks are just amazingly good.
We’ve tested sous vide for fish, pork, and even a roast. It does ok for fish and pork. The roast (a big one cooked for 32 hours!) was uniformly perfect throughout after pan searing the outside.
@thismyusername, @marilyn80s, @duodec - I have tried it and find it hard to get good results, though I haven’t dared trying steaks having ruined two chops in different ways. I find it hard to get a bag that seals properly, properly sealed bags bob to the surface, the overcooking thing you’ve mentioned…
@aetris yea I am not sure of the chicken and pork via sous vide… I am too good at timing the chicken on the grill… and I mean pork chops… flip flip done.
I am sure there are some neat tricks that can be done with chicken and pork but I consider my sous vide setup a steak endeavor.
I use a foodsaver to seal mine, the only time I have ever had an issue with floating was the beef rib experiment. As it heated over time they inflated (I am thinking due to the bones? i have no idea) and I had to mechanically force them under… they were still pretty damn good… not sure if the energy usage made them better or worse than crock pot ribs however. In a later experiment I double bagged them and had no puffing issues.
tl;dr: use a foodsaver for non floating bags and stick to steaks its the perfect steak machine
@marilyn80s Who wants to smoke something overnight or longer? Who wants to cook low and slow when they could broil it, or nuke it in the microwave? Who wants to make an 8-10 hour crock pot stew when they could do ‘stew’ so much faster?
I was skeptical but saw enough reviews form people I trust to risk it, and I’m glad I did. We may never make another roast that way, but it was perfectly cooked, uniformly pink all the way through, obviously flavored by the seasonings that were in the bag with it, and with a tasty crust. And the steaks are awesome.
If I pick up some $25 apiece prime steaks from the butcher, I do not want to risk overcooking them.
Sous vide is slow. But for some foods its worth the wait.
@duodec I hate to cook. I start cooking when I am hungry (as otherwise food isn’t appealing to me) and there is no way I’d cook something that takes this amount of planning ahead. On the other hand if someone showed up with it all ready done I wouldn’t turn them away because I didn’t have to do it (grin).
My mom said she was a failure as a mom because none of the girls grew up liking to cook. I told her no, she was successful as she brought us up such that we didn’t feel like we had to like to cook just because we were female.
@marilyn80s Me too. And I get to live it in the hours between sealing up the steaks and dropping them into the 136 degree bath (where do you live that that is boiling?) and then unpacking and searing them. Total time spent by me as opposed to by the steak in the bath is equivalent to or less than that needed to do a proper grill or flatiron steak, and requires less attention.
No matter. Let’s eat. Me, my sous vide and seared steak and you however you take yours.
@marilyn80s I don’t do sous vide, but I do use my crock pot a lot. I look at it as taking less time than cooking stovetop as I don’t have to mind it, and not as waiting 18 hours for the food, but as cooking today and not having to cook for several days after. So I can prepare a pot of soup in half an hour on Sunday while minding the supper I’m cooking, set the crock pot on low and forget about it. Monday, there’s hot soup. Tuesday and Wednesday, there’s cold soup, just warm it up. Thursay and Friday there’s frozen soup, or save it for next week.
@Kidsandliz That is almost funny because of the long standing stereotype, TV, hollywood, etc that women did most of the cooking (at the home/school level) but men were (mostly) the pro cooks/chefs.
I agree with you on the ‘enjoy’ part; Its a lot easier to make kids hate something than enjoy it when work is involved. If I had kids and failed to teach them how to cook, that would be a failure. That is basic “duty” level parenting, IMO. If they didn’t enjoy it but could do it when needed, c’est la vie. Its the same level of basic knowledge as being able to change a spare tire or replace a fuse (reset a circuit breaker) safely.
I wish now that I had been able to take cooking courses in college (engineering track left no time for fun courses). We learned to cook and grille growing up though I admit it wasn’t something we really enjoyed. Now I do 90% of the cooking and grocery shopping, and most of the experimenting. And it is fun. It’ll be even more fun once we can retire and not have work eating 50-60 hours a week. I can’t wait!
@moondrake Sounds great! I don’t have the skill to reliably produce properly cooked steaks (neither of us like rare, both prefer medium side of medium rare) so they end up overcooked a lot. They’re still edible but doing that to an expensive cut hurts!
We do soup, stew, chicken, and pork roasts, pulled pork, and pork ribs in the slow cooker with great results. Food worth waiting for.
My first sous vide was done in the old crock pot (with low/high manual switch) and a temperature controller (about $25 at Amazon). Worked fine but was too small.
@duodec Because I’m participating in this study/exercise program, I’ve been offered a chance to take this cooking class for free. I’ve already signed up.
@moondrake Good grief skills I’d mostly never bring myself to use. Hope you enjoy it and glad some people do because I do like when people cook nice stuff. Me, though, I hate to cook. I only do it because the other choice is to starve (not enough money to eat out which is realize is the choice behind door number 3 although at this point I don’t think I could bring myself to spend money that way). My cooking skills - bake, fry, put in a pan on the stove, microwave. Use whatever knife is at hand except for bread which works better with serrated. Need a freezer that is larger than the fridge because the grocery stores think all families are families of 64,000. The end.
@moondrake Sprouts? Better prices? They definitely have a decent selection, but it costs an arm and a leg if you want to normally grocery shop there. Sooooo expensive.
@ThorsBanHammer Not ours. Their produce prices are giveaway cheap, only Big 8 (local Meximart chain) challenges them for produce price and quality. Their dairy is competitive. Regular meat prices are fairly high, but they have decent sales. Whole Foods produce, when I’ve priced it, has been the most expensive in town, usually by far. My friend and I ate at their hot food bar for lunch and it was delicious, but we spent about 2x as much as we’d have spent in a mom and pop restaurant. We’re pretty spoiled here, you can get a good sit down meal for under $6, several places I frequent (Mexican, Italian and Chinese) include entree, sides, soup or salad, dessert and iced tea at that price.
@moondrake we have one that just opened, haven’t checked it out yet. before the one closer was like shopping in a slum, maybe because they took away a good place to shop for older people and single folk and brought in their own more expensive bs.
@ThorsBanHammer around here sprouts does tend to compete with normal grocers… generally less expensive than WF… but of course still way more than walmart.
There isn’t one close to me. I’m pretty loyal to Publix anyway. I’ve tried other stores like Trader Joe’s, Aldi’s, Fresh Market… There’s a few things I like from the individual stores, but Publix is my go to.
@narfcake it could be any time of day, any day of the year except for about 12 hours or so on Christmas day… and Meijer (regional, Michigan-based chain) would be open.
Great store with great loss-leaders and excellent produce!
@narfcake we used to live walking distance from a supermarket open late like that (and another branch that was 24 hrs). doing grocery shopping with no one around was amazing. but then we moved and i found a store i liked better with better prices…but man, shopping around other people? lots of other people? that was a terrible shock to the system.
@narfcake neat! yeah, the places i shop are small. even the whole foods i go to doesn’t have hardly any bulk bins like lots of their stores do. i mean, i don’t really need them for anything? but it is cool.
and MA has really ridiculous liquor laws still so while there are stores that both food and beer/wine/liquor, it’s rare-ish. (in before someone mentions trader joes as i avoid that place like the plague.)
@lseeber Originally, they were just located in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, and Oregon. They’ve since expanded to Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, and Texas.
@aetris My foray to WF might have been on Wilted Produce Day. It was certainly Crabby Employee Day. Perhaps I shouldn’t whitewash the whole store based on one bad experience? NAH!
Nearest one is like 180 miles away where I used to live. Here we have the smallest walmart grocery section on the planet (that must buy other walmarts’ left rejected produce as everything I have bought there so far is tasteless), a tiny Fred’s and and even tinier Save a lot. Gotta go 90 miles to find a decent grocery store. When I was up there for a medical apt I took a cooler, stopped at Kroger and did find that adding ice to the cooler meant the test half gallon of ice cream made it home more or less OK (so next time I am buying more of it) but I am not making that trip just to buy food. Too expensive and in this temp job I don’t make enough to cover how much more expensive that would make food cost.
@Kidsandliz This is what they call a food desert. I’m really sorry to hear this. How do you do it? Is it possible for you to move somewhere else with more opportunities for you?
@Kidsandliz That’s how we are. I can drive 15 miles to Walmart (there’s that taste again) Or double that to Publix. Now there is a Whole foods in the city I visit weekly (55mi) so I can stop in there, like you, with a cooler and get a few items. Other than that, we now have a Dollar General near us.
@marilyn80s I have a full time (incredibly crappy paying) temp job which is better than what my situation used to be (although not by much - the major up side is COBRA which will be marginally cheaper than individual health insurance BUT DC won’t be able to take it away from me due to pre-existing conditions. I’ll only have it a month - 3 mo wait for it to kick in and this job is for 4 months, but it was worth moving and taking it for that alone).
I do not have an impulse to expand my shopping horizons. In fact, I like to avoid shopping altogether when I can. So I don’t seek out new grocery stores, well, ever. And if I did, it wouldn’t occur to me to purchase avocados. And if I did, they’d probably go bad before I ate more than one of them.
@InnocuousFarmer And hopefully you would never be tempted to make avocado ice cream if you bought some. I can tell you first hand (and no this was not my idea, I voted against making this and voted for making it with one of the many berries in the grocery store), that it takes like a freshly mowed lawn smells. If ice cream could have grown mold in the freezer it would have.
We buy most of our non-perishables from Walmart.com. It usually arrives within 2 days and everything is very well packed, almost too well. Unlike Target where the boxes are of poor quality, half ripped open by the time we get them and most cans are dented. I realize dented cans do not make the food taste any different, (amazing, I know!) but if I was shopping in the store, those cans are in a bin at a discounted price. Jus sayin.
@bloondie2 we find the produce at both Walmart and Target to be almost inedible.
And price-wise we are lucky to have very competitive local alternatives with high quality food and service since we generally detest both those stores.
@RedOak I agree, their produce is crap. That’s why we only get the non perishables. Green Giant peas are Green Giant peas, no matter where you buy them. I’m not a huge fan of either those stores. We do the online for convenience. We get everything else from Publix. I have never shopped at a market where the employees are so attentive, helpful, nice. They do whatever they can to make your shopping experience a pleasure. Though sometimes it’s the other shoppers who can be so miserable or rude. This place is like Disney, you can’t be in a bad mood there!
@RedOak I’m a firm believer in giving positive feedback when I’ve been given above average service. Too often people are only given negative feedback and perhaps that’s why they’re unhappy in their jobs and it’s very much reflected in their work. Though, tbh, i find that people in the south are way nicer than the north (southern New England - I’m not trying to offend anyone, this is just my experience) A couple of kind words go a long way. We should strive to build people up, not tear them down. (I’m getting off my stool now)
My husband has a very restricted diet because of a combination of IBS and allergies. Whole Foods had a few things that he could eat that nobody else has. In one case the supplier had an exclusive deal with Whole Foods. Now those things are gone and the stock managers of the grocery line and the specialty foods line both claim that they’ve never heard of them. Most of the other things that I have gone to Whole Foods for in the past are now available in the regualr neighborhood supermarkets. Whole Foods is in the process of losing all of the shopping I did there because without those special diet foods I just don’t have a reason to walk in the door.
I usually try to get my produce there. Grains (that I can’t get elsewhere) and occasionally meat at Earthfare. Most of the other stuff I try to get at Publix.
i chose “all the time, it’s great” but what i mean by that is i go there at the same time on the same day each week and i do like it very much, but i only go for a few things. they have certain items we like that i cannot get at my ‘regular’ grocery store (market basket), as well as better prices on the few things i choose to buy organic (milk, eggs), and better fruit if it’s not summer and i’m not buying apples. (produce is more expensive but it’s worth an extra quarter or a dollar if i end up eating it all vs. throwing some or half of it away.) i also get all my seafood there, although only when it’s on sale because i can’t afford it otherwise. one of the cool things about the amazon takeover is that now you can get salmon for $9.99/lb consistently (supposedly) which is nice.
the one i shop at is quite small though, and i’m there on a thursday afternoon so there’s rarely many other people there. the staff has always been really nice to me and helpful when i needed them. i’ve shopped at other branches that weren’t so nice. i can acknowledge that prices on some things are outrageous (especially any of the serve yourself ‘bars’) for no reason, but most of the stuff i buy is pretty fair.
I have a local coöp that I really prefer to shop at, but that is impossible during the week. If I really need something midweek, or if I won’t have time during the weekend to get out, Whole Foods on my lunch break is the most convenient alternative. It’s a confusing, two-story Whole Foods, but the people (mostly GWU students, I reckon) are friendly and the beer selection is always on point.
Shopping choices:
Costco. 10 minutes away. Kirkland stuff is pretty good quality usually. Their meat department is the best around.
Fred Meyers. 10 minutes away. They have a great selection of food & various beers, and you can buy a pair of pants, a complete kitchen cookware set and a S&W .357 at the same time.
Albertsons. 6 minutes away. I go here if I’m in a hurry, it’s the closest and right on the road leading to my house. They have the smoked Hemplers bacon I like. They kinda turned into a Safeway lately. Long lines & worse selection.
Any other store is a long drive.
I go to a grocery store 30 minutes away for a better Mexican food selection. Their flap-steaks are sooo good (like thin skirt steaks). Put on red-hot grill for 4 minutes each side. Carne Asada!
@daveinwarsh Hilarious. Around here we Anglos enjoy the excellent, diverse selection of Mexican food but bemoan how hard it is to find an American style steak, as beef’s usually cut Mexican style 1/4" thick. This week Albertsons had big 2" ribeyes on sale for $6.77lb and small 2" sirloins wrapped in extra thick deli pepper bacon for $5lb and I snatched up a bunch for my lovely new freezer.
Lidl is a different German chain (and Aldi’s largest direct competitor), operating more than 10,000 stores in 28 European countries. It’s currently entering the United States market, with plans to open about a hundred stores this year.
They weren’t stale or moldy. They merely tasted bad (owing to the recipe, presumably).
By the way, these were prepackaged bagels (of a brand that I don’t recall, possibly a private label). It was obvious from their temperature that they’d recently been removed from a freezer and defrosted (a common practice, and not one that typically poses a major problem).
A large proportion of the store’s inventory comprised well-known national brands, all priced very competitively and nowhere near their sell-by dates.
I mention this because the name “Grocery Outlet” evoked something very different in my mind. It sounds like a dumping ground for old/damaged stock, but that isn’t the case. It just has lousy bagels.
Kidsandliz
The refrigerator has a few things.
I like to make a big pot of soup or chilli, but most meals are quick
Sandwich or a salad for $7 and the time id be cooking and cleaning I’m making money in the garage.
We have a newly constructed giant-ass Kroger in my Indiana town of 45,000 (Columbus, if you’re curious), and it and Aldi satisfy most of my shopping needs. I take biweekly or monthly trips to Indianapolis or Cincinnati for Trader Joe’s, Costco, and rarely Whole Foods or Fresh Market. The chain I’m most enamored with at the moment, though, is Fresh Thyme Farmers Market. They’re popping up all over the Midwest, and the quality of products, especially produce and fresh meat, is near what Whole Foods is for a much lower price.
Oh, and I know Sam’s Club is generally thought of as evil, but the best beef and pork I can get without spending an arm and a leg at the local farmers market directly from the farmer is there, and pretty much the only place I can find pork belly, tri-tip, and decent baby back ribs.
one of those new bigbox Kroger opened near us (we already have lots of regular Kroger and “high end” Kroger)… the kind that sells clothing, etc… Total fail as competition for Meijer or Walmart. Embarrassingly poorly operated. Lots of empty shelves (not just under stocked - never stocked shelves), poorly organized, shaky produce, etc… feels like a place considering going out of business!
We have several locations for all the stores you mention plus several local “boutique” brand stores - our experience with Fresh Thyme is mediocre. If you hanker for exotic health foods, they have them. But the prices are not great for most stuff. And for a place with a name like that, their produce is really unremarkable - reminds me a bit of Aldi-style low end produce. The examples are smaller, less fresh, and unless on sale, more expensive than the competiton. Because it is on the way home from church, we can sometimes fill some of our produce needs with their weekly loss-leaders. But I’d never go out of the way to shop there. Perhaps it depends on the local management.
My brother has a friend who was a mechanic for a BMW dealership. So he got all the training and certifications - at least as of the time he worked there. Got tired of getting a tiny piece of the action and the rat race - “if you don’t find something to fix on the car you make zero $”… since there was no salary or hourly pay.
Anyway, my brother has space at his business that he allows the guy to use rent free to do BMW (and other) repairs. The deal - the guy does all my brother’s family’s auto work labor-free… and they sometimes buy BMW’s with burned out this or that for a dime on the dollar, repair them and sell them. They split the profits.
@RedOak
That’s a great deal. That’s the way to get ahead.
In high school I wanted a 69 Chevelle, bought it. The next year bought a 69 Impala SS427. Around that time I discovered my best friend’s dad just started restoring cars. I’ve learned a lot from him. I’ve been dealing in antique cars since '93.
@meh427 … cool. And another user name stands explained.
(BTW, you’re aware you can respond directly to a comment by tapping the “Reply” link under that comment, right?.. your response then ends up right under the original comment.)
I would if it was closer, but I live in walking distance of a different supermarket with a good selection so I don’t bother. Plus I don’t want to give Amazon any more power.
@awk
Can you name a single retailer that declined in quality after Amazon acquired it? I think not
@Rowsdower woot?
@RiotDemon
?
You mean
@Rowsdower That was clever.
@Rowsdower,
@awk didn’t say anything about “quality”.
@awk, do you exercise the same power caution with Google?
@RedOak
No dije nada serio
@RedOak Google’s never broken anything I loved (to my knowledge).
@moondrake with google it’s more that they pervade your privacy.
And have really sucky user interfaces like Amazon.
Google tends to buy or invent stuff, get tired with it and either shut it down or sell it. Kinda like Microsoft in that respect.
So far they haven’t ruined Waze.
@moondrake Nest/Dropcam.
@hyjinx Google broke Nest/dropcam? Please explain. I am actually sitting on the fence between springing for a Nest for my new Google Home or getting a very highly rated no storage camera for 1/4th the price. I’m balanced between wanting something to network with Home and wanting the storage vs the high cost of Google Nest storage and the comparatively high price of the device. A push one way or the other would be appreciated as I’d like to make the purchase today.
@moondrake Used to have a far better app experience for Dropcam. The Nest app is clunky as hell for video and saving clips fails a significant number of times. I have a lot of Nest cams so I’m kinda invested at this point but it drives me crazy. I am trialling Abode right now and it seems pretty solid so far. I like the convenience but when Google took it over and consolidated everything, it seemed to thrive on neglect. The thermostat was similar. If I started again, I’d go Ecobee.
Where is “even if they were close I would not shop there?”
I prefer Aldi. Great prices.
@melonscoop Aldi FTW
@melonscoop the Aldis around us suck in just about every way.
And if we wanted to send our food $ to Germany rather than our home state chain we could do it at higher quality than Aldi via Trader Joe’s.
And at least Trader Joes is a American company owned by Germans.
I have occasionally stopped for a specific item, and I have been wanting to try their hot lunch bar, but mostly I find it underwhelming and overpriced.
It was nice finding whole wheat berries there for grinding our own wheat for bread, but it was 8x more expensive than other sources, and its much easier to find that elsewhere now. Even Bob’s Red Mill, a pricy brand, was about half the cost of Whole Foods wheat the last time I checked.
@duodec I noticed the same think about Bob’s Red Mill versus Whole Foods; my wife uses almond flour instead of wheat flour due to a gluten allergy and cost is a large factor.
I heard an ad saying that they had the chicken on sale.
I went in and there was no chicken on sale.
There was also no steak on sale.
I went next door and got some good tenderloin steaks on sale.
They are waiting to be sous vide prepared tonight.
edit: thanks too google cache I found the chicken sale ended yesterday… oh well.
@thismyusername - Can we have a sous vide thread? Because I got an s-v cooker and it seems to me to be the biggest pain in the kitchen. What’s the big deal? Or how do you GET a good deal out of it?
@aetris you don’t.
@thismyusername That’s a lazy man’s way of cooking anything. So tasteless.
@aetris it’s a fad.
@aetris Don’t let the haters get you down. A SV thread would be nice, and there are some tips here in the forum from before if you search. No time to make a useful thread start right now, but look at Serious Eats and ChefSteps for some good stuff. Also find the sous vide egg calculator online, you can make amazing eggs to just about any spec.
@marilyn80s LOL clearly you have not tried it yet. since my discovery of it, I will never go back to any other method for steaks.
@aetris you cannot beat it for steaks.
check out the guide at serious eats (linked below) the biggest key is to make sure you don’t over-cook when you are finishing them.
I happen to have an infrared searing burner on my grill so I can pull this off with little effort (I just flip them every 10 seconds until I get the crust I want) but friends who have tried it tend to overcook due to letting it finish too long.
You have to remember it is already cooked… you are just using the Millard reaction to make a crust, not cook it. Old habits are hart to break I guess.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-steak.html
You can do all sorts of things with sous vide with other proteins but to be honest the only one that really stands out as an advantage for me is the steaks.
@thismyusername The best steaks I’ve ever had save for one time at a big name steakhouse (dry aged, the whole bit, over $100 entree) done in my own kitchen with an immersion circulator in a 3.5 gallon bucket. It has made it worth buying the expensive steaks from the premium butcher again because I can’t screw them up and overcook them.
Prior my best steaks were ribeyes cooked Alton Brown method in cast iron alternating between burner and 500 degree oven; they were good.
If its nice out we sear on the grille, otherwise on a blazing hot cast iron pan. The steaks are just amazingly good.
We’ve tested sous vide for fish, pork, and even a roast. It does ok for fish and pork. The roast (a big one cooked for 32 hours!) was uniformly perfect throughout after pan searing the outside.
Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
@thismyusername, @marilyn80s, @duodec - I have tried it and find it hard to get good results, though I haven’t dared trying steaks having ruined two chops in different ways. I find it hard to get a bag that seals properly, properly sealed bags bob to the surface, the overcooking thing you’ve mentioned…
@duodec who wants to cook something for 32 hours??? Hell to the no. Sous vide is lazy, slow, and just unimaginative.
@aetris yea I am not sure of the chicken and pork via sous vide… I am too good at timing the chicken on the grill… and I mean pork chops… flip flip done.
I am sure there are some neat tricks that can be done with chicken and pork but I consider my sous vide setup a steak endeavor.
I use a foodsaver to seal mine, the only time I have ever had an issue with floating was the beef rib experiment. As it heated over time they inflated (I am thinking due to the bones? i have no idea) and I had to mechanically force them under… they were still pretty damn good… not sure if the energy usage made them better or worse than crock pot ribs however. In a later experiment I double bagged them and had no puffing issues.
tl;dr: use a foodsaver for non floating bags and stick to steaks its the perfect steak machine
@marilyn80s
When I was a kid we cooked our food FAST in a microwave with a cup of salt… AND WE LIKED IT.
@marilyn80s Who wants to smoke something overnight or longer? Who wants to cook low and slow when they could broil it, or nuke it in the microwave? Who wants to make an 8-10 hour crock pot stew when they could do ‘stew’ so much faster?
I was skeptical but saw enough reviews form people I trust to risk it, and I’m glad I did. We may never make another roast that way, but it was perfectly cooked, uniformly pink all the way through, obviously flavored by the seasonings that were in the bag with it, and with a tasty crust. And the steaks are awesome.
If I pick up some $25 apiece prime steaks from the butcher, I do not want to risk overcooking them.
Sous vide is slow. But for some foods its worth the wait.
@duodec there’s not one piece of meat worth waiting 18 hours prepared boiled in a bag. Thanks but I’ll pass. I have a life.
@duodec I hate to cook. I start cooking when I am hungry (as otherwise food isn’t appealing to me) and there is no way I’d cook something that takes this amount of planning ahead. On the other hand if someone showed up with it all ready done I wouldn’t turn them away because I didn’t have to do it (grin).
My mom said she was a failure as a mom because none of the girls grew up liking to cook. I told her no, she was successful as she brought us up such that we didn’t feel like we had to like to cook just because we were female.
@marilyn80s Me too. And I get to live it in the hours between sealing up the steaks and dropping them into the 136 degree bath (where do you live that that is boiling?) and then unpacking and searing them. Total time spent by me as opposed to by the steak in the bath is equivalent to or less than that needed to do a proper grill or flatiron steak, and requires less attention.
No matter. Let’s eat. Me, my sous vide and seared steak and you however you take yours.
@duodec I just sear my steak. A little olive oil, a hot skillet, and ring the dinner bell.
@marilyn80s I don’t do sous vide, but I do use my crock pot a lot. I look at it as taking less time than cooking stovetop as I don’t have to mind it, and not as waiting 18 hours for the food, but as cooking today and not having to cook for several days after. So I can prepare a pot of soup in half an hour on Sunday while minding the supper I’m cooking, set the crock pot on low and forget about it. Monday, there’s hot soup. Tuesday and Wednesday, there’s cold soup, just warm it up. Thursay and Friday there’s frozen soup, or save it for next week.
@Kidsandliz That is almost funny because of the long standing stereotype, TV, hollywood, etc that women did most of the cooking (at the home/school level) but men were (mostly) the pro cooks/chefs.
I agree with you on the ‘enjoy’ part; Its a lot easier to make kids hate something than enjoy it when work is involved. If I had kids and failed to teach them how to cook, that would be a failure. That is basic “duty” level parenting, IMO. If they didn’t enjoy it but could do it when needed, c’est la vie. Its the same level of basic knowledge as being able to change a spare tire or replace a fuse (reset a circuit breaker) safely.
I wish now that I had been able to take cooking courses in college (engineering track left no time for fun courses). We learned to cook and grille growing up though I admit it wasn’t something we really enjoyed. Now I do 90% of the cooking and grocery shopping, and most of the experimenting. And it is fun. It’ll be even more fun once we can retire and not have work eating 50-60 hours a week. I can’t wait!
@moondrake Sounds great! I don’t have the skill to reliably produce properly cooked steaks (neither of us like rare, both prefer medium side of medium rare) so they end up overcooked a lot. They’re still edible but doing that to an expensive cut hurts!
We do soup, stew, chicken, and pork roasts, pulled pork, and pork ribs in the slow cooker with great results. Food worth waiting for.
My first sous vide was done in the old crock pot (with low/high manual switch) and a temperature controller (about $25 at Amazon). Worked fine but was too small.
@duodec Because I’m participating in this study/exercise program, I’ve been offered a chance to take this cooking class for free. I’ve already signed up.
@moondrake Looks interesting. Basic but thats what I’d need to take too. I hope you enjoy it!
@moondrake Good grief skills I’d mostly never bring myself to use. Hope you enjoy it and glad some people do because I do like when people cook nice stuff. Me, though, I hate to cook. I only do it because the other choice is to starve (not enough money to eat out which is realize is the choice behind door number 3 although at this point I don’t think I could bring myself to spend money that way). My cooking skills - bake, fry, put in a pan on the stove, microwave. Use whatever knife is at hand except for bread which works better with serrated. Need a freezer that is larger than the fridge because the grocery stores think all families are families of 64,000. The end.
I like how NOBODY thinks it was better before amazon bought it.
I don’t even know if there’s one within any sorta distance approaching reasonable. I know, to the internet!
One 60’s Batman transition but with a Google logo later!
There are technically some in the area. Far outside how far I’d be willing to travel for slightly cheaper grapes, though.
I prefer Sprouts. Better prices, better selection, and they’ve been here for many years.
@moondrake I also hit sprouts on my shopping route. They have the good butter there (Straus Family Creamery).
@moondrake I love Sprouts! I lucked out about a year ago when one opened within walking distance.
@moondrake Sprouts? Better prices? They definitely have a decent selection, but it costs an arm and a leg if you want to normally grocery shop there. Sooooo expensive.
@ThorsBanHammer Not ours. Their produce prices are giveaway cheap, only Big 8 (local Meximart chain) challenges them for produce price and quality. Their dairy is competitive. Regular meat prices are fairly high, but they have decent sales. Whole Foods produce, when I’ve priced it, has been the most expensive in town, usually by far. My friend and I ate at their hot food bar for lunch and it was delicious, but we spent about 2x as much as we’d have spent in a mom and pop restaurant. We’re pretty spoiled here, you can get a good sit down meal for under $6, several places I frequent (Mexican, Italian and Chinese) include entree, sides, soup or salad, dessert and iced tea at that price.
@moondrake we have one that just opened, haven’t checked it out yet. before the one closer was like shopping in a slum, maybe because they took away a good place to shop for older people and single folk and brought in their own more expensive bs.
@moondrake Sprouts is definitely way better.
@ThorsBanHammer around here sprouts does tend to compete with normal grocers… generally less expensive than WF… but of course still way more than walmart.
We got one in my town. I’ve been once, they didn’t have what I was looking for.
I just hope getting a whole foods means we may also get a Trader Joe’s.
@djslack We do Trader Joe’s over Whole Foods when we travel the 40 miles to shop at Sam’s Club.
There isn’t one close to me. I’m pretty loyal to Publix anyway. I’ve tried other stores like Trader Joe’s, Aldi’s, Fresh Market… There’s a few things I like from the individual stores, but Publix is my go to.
Why is there no option for “no, I think it’s dumb”?
@Al_Coholic Because I’m pretty sure the owner of MEH only shops at WholePaycheck for his family.
Now and then for health food stuff that you can’t get since whole foods ran all the health food stores out of business.
It’s midnight right now. WinCo is open. Whole Foods is not.
Guess which market gets my business?
@narfcake Fuck yeah, WinCo kicks ass.
@narfcake it could be any time of day, any day of the year except for about 12 hours or so on Christmas day… and Meijer (regional, Michigan-based chain) would be open.
Great store with great loss-leaders and excellent produce!
@narfcake we used to live walking distance from a supermarket open late like that (and another branch that was 24 hrs). doing grocery shopping with no one around was amazing. but then we moved and i found a store i liked better with better prices…but man, shopping around other people? lots of other people? that was a terrible shock to the system.
@RedOak I’ve heard about them. Huge supercenter type, akin to the Fred Meyer of the Pacific Northwest.
30+ years ago, we had Gemco here in SoCal.
@jerk_nugget There’s no shopping alone at WinCo, no matter what time. It’s also about 100k sq.ft.
/image WinCo bulk foods
/image WinCo bulk seasoning
/image WinCo honey
/image WinCo produce section
/image WinCo beer cooler
(Ignore the last pic. Bad /image. Bad!)
@narfcake neat! yeah, the places i shop are small. even the whole foods i go to doesn’t have hardly any bulk bins like lots of their stores do. i mean, i don’t really need them for anything? but it is cool.
and MA has really ridiculous liquor laws still so while there are stores that both food and beer/wine/liquor, it’s rare-ish. (in before someone mentions trader joes as i avoid that place like the plague.)
@narfcake Never heard of WinCo before.
@lseeber Originally, they were just located in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, and Oregon. They’ve since expanded to Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, and Texas.
http://business.time.com/2013/08/07/meet-the-low-key-low-cost-grocery-chain-being-called-wal-marts-worst-nightmare/
https://www.forbes.com/.../millionaire-grocery-clerks-the-amazing-winco-foods-story/
@narfcake that Forbes link generates a 4-0-Forbes error. The pun made me sad.
Here’s a new link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryjosephs/2014/11/05/millionaire-grocery-clerks-the-amazing-winco-foods-story/
@djslack Whoops. Sorry!
(blame the goat.)
@narfcake
this one?
/image goat
@narfcake Wow, this story makes me want to change my answer from no to yes on the do you play the stock market thread.
@narfcake Ah… well that would be why then. Not my neck of the woods.
Why would I want to pay a lot more for much lower quality stuff than is at my local Wegmans?
@Lighter - I prefer Wegmans too but I wouldn’t say the quality is lower at WF. The prices sure are higher, though!
@aetris My foray to WF might have been on Wilted Produce Day. It was certainly Crabby Employee Day. Perhaps I shouldn’t whitewash the whole store based on one bad experience? NAH!
@Lighter Wegmans is impressive - discovered them when our daughter was attending school in Ithaca, NY. Alas, only an east coast chain.
We’re very happy with our local regional, Meijer, tho.
Nearest one is like 180 miles away where I used to live. Here we have the smallest walmart grocery section on the planet (that must buy other walmarts’ left rejected produce as everything I have bought there so far is tasteless), a tiny Fred’s and and even tinier Save a lot. Gotta go 90 miles to find a decent grocery store. When I was up there for a medical apt I took a cooler, stopped at Kroger and did find that adding ice to the cooler meant the test half gallon of ice cream made it home more or less OK (so next time I am buying more of it) but I am not making that trip just to buy food. Too expensive and in this temp job I don’t make enough to cover how much more expensive that would make food cost.
@Kidsandliz This is what they call a food desert. I’m really sorry to hear this. How do you do it? Is it possible for you to move somewhere else with more opportunities for you?
@Kidsandliz Have you tried to shop online to buy non-perishables? Amazon?
@Kidsandliz that is a sad conundrum - we have several big Walmarts around us and their produce does truly suck.
We have property in a rural community with a Save A Lot - pretty sucky store. Thankfully there is a well run local grocery as well.
@Kidsandliz That’s how we are. I can drive 15 miles to Walmart (there’s that taste again) Or double that to Publix. Now there is a Whole foods in the city I visit weekly (55mi) so I can stop in there, like you, with a cooler and get a few items. Other than that, we now have a Dollar General near us.
@marilyn80s I have a full time (incredibly crappy paying) temp job which is better than what my situation used to be (although not by much - the major up side is COBRA which will be marginally cheaper than individual health insurance BUT DC won’t be able to take it away from me due to pre-existing conditions. I’ll only have it a month - 3 mo wait for it to kick in and this job is for 4 months, but it was worth moving and taking it for that alone).
I do not have an impulse to expand my shopping horizons. In fact, I like to avoid shopping altogether when I can. So I don’t seek out new grocery stores, well, ever. And if I did, it wouldn’t occur to me to purchase avocados. And if I did, they’d probably go bad before I ate more than one of them.
@InnocuousFarmer And hopefully you would never be tempted to make avocado ice cream if you bought some. I can tell you first hand (and no this was not my idea, I voted against making this and voted for making it with one of the many berries in the grocery store), that it takes like a freshly mowed lawn smells. If ice cream could have grown mold in the freezer it would have.
@Kidsandliz I love green tea that tastes like a freshly mowed lawn smells, but not so much ice cream.
We buy most of our non-perishables from Walmart.com. It usually arrives within 2 days and everything is very well packed, almost too well. Unlike Target where the boxes are of poor quality, half ripped open by the time we get them and most cans are dented. I realize dented cans do not make the food taste any different, (amazing, I know!) but if I was shopping in the store, those cans are in a bin at a discounted price. Jus sayin.
@bloondie2 we find the produce at both Walmart and Target to be almost inedible.
And price-wise we are lucky to have very competitive local alternatives with high quality food and service since we generally detest both those stores.
@RedOak I agree, their produce is crap. That’s why we only get the non perishables. Green Giant peas are Green Giant peas, no matter where you buy them. I’m not a huge fan of either those stores. We do the online for convenience. We get everything else from Publix. I have never shopped at a market where the employees are so attentive, helpful, nice. They do whatever they can to make your shopping experience a pleasure. Though sometimes it’s the other shoppers who can be so miserable or rude. This place is like Disney, you can’t be in a bad mood there!
@bloondie2 we don’t have Publix in our region but we’ve shopped there when traveling and it does seem like a decent chain.
Isn’t it a true pleasure to shop at an establishment where the service is cheerful and friendly?
The stores that figure this out earn our loyalty if they also do the other stuff half-decently.
I go out of my way to thank managers when an individual’s service is a standout!
@RedOak I’m a firm believer in giving positive feedback when I’ve been given above average service. Too often people are only given negative feedback and perhaps that’s why they’re unhappy in their jobs and it’s very much reflected in their work. Though, tbh, i find that people in the south are way nicer than the north (southern New England - I’m not trying to offend anyone, this is just my experience) A couple of kind words go a long way. We should strive to build people up, not tear them down. (I’m getting off my stool now)
My husband has a very restricted diet because of a combination of IBS and allergies. Whole Foods had a few things that he could eat that nobody else has. In one case the supplier had an exclusive deal with Whole Foods. Now those things are gone and the stock managers of the grocery line and the specialty foods line both claim that they’ve never heard of them. Most of the other things that I have gone to Whole Foods for in the past are now available in the regualr neighborhood supermarkets. Whole Foods is in the process of losing all of the shopping I did there because without those special diet foods I just don’t have a reason to walk in the door.
I usually try to get my produce there. Grains (that I can’t get elsewhere) and occasionally meat at Earthfare. Most of the other stuff I try to get at Publix.
i chose “all the time, it’s great” but what i mean by that is i go there at the same time on the same day each week and i do like it very much, but i only go for a few things. they have certain items we like that i cannot get at my ‘regular’ grocery store (market basket), as well as better prices on the few things i choose to buy organic (milk, eggs), and better fruit if it’s not summer and i’m not buying apples. (produce is more expensive but it’s worth an extra quarter or a dollar if i end up eating it all vs. throwing some or half of it away.) i also get all my seafood there, although only when it’s on sale because i can’t afford it otherwise. one of the cool things about the amazon takeover is that now you can get salmon for $9.99/lb consistently (supposedly) which is nice.
the one i shop at is quite small though, and i’m there on a thursday afternoon so there’s rarely many other people there. the staff has always been really nice to me and helpful when i needed them. i’ve shopped at other branches that weren’t so nice. i can acknowledge that prices on some things are outrageous (especially any of the serve yourself ‘bars’) for no reason, but most of the stuff i buy is pretty fair.
@jerk_nugget Whole Foods is consistently the best source of fresh seafood anywhere within 100 miles of me, but I can’t afford it as often as I’d like.
Oh, I can’t wait until I get my first drone-delivered salad.
@PocketBrain chopped lettuce salad, right?
I have a local coöp that I really prefer to shop at, but that is impossible during the week. If I really need something midweek, or if I won’t have time during the weekend to get out, Whole Foods on my lunch break is the most convenient alternative. It’s a confusing, two-story Whole Foods, but the people (mostly GWU students, I reckon) are friendly and the beer selection is always on point.
Shopping choices:
Costco. 10 minutes away. Kirkland stuff is pretty good quality usually. Their meat department is the best around.
Fred Meyers. 10 minutes away. They have a great selection of food & various beers, and you can buy a pair of pants, a complete kitchen cookware set and a S&W .357 at the same time.
Albertsons. 6 minutes away. I go here if I’m in a hurry, it’s the closest and right on the road leading to my house. They have the smoked Hemplers bacon I like. They kinda turned into a Safeway lately. Long lines & worse selection.
Any other store is a long drive.
I go to a grocery store 30 minutes away for a better Mexican food selection. Their flap-steaks are sooo good (like thin skirt steaks). Put on red-hot grill for 4 minutes each side. Carne Asada!
@daveinwarsh Hilarious. Around here we Anglos enjoy the excellent, diverse selection of Mexican food but bemoan how hard it is to find an American style steak, as beef’s usually cut Mexican style 1/4" thick. This week Albertsons had big 2" ribeyes on sale for $6.77lb and small 2" sirloins wrapped in extra thick deli pepper bacon for $5lb and I snatched up a bunch for my lovely new freezer.
@moondrake freezers are good. Loss-leader-load-up.
Our area is supposed to get a Lidl (sic)?
German chain
@meh427 Aldi.
https://www.aldi.us/
@narfcake
Lidl is a different German chain (and Aldi’s largest direct competitor), operating more than 10,000 stores in 28 European countries. It’s currently entering the United States market, with plans to open about a hundred stores this year.
https://www.lidl.com/
@Rowsdower @meh427 Welp. I did not know that. Thanks!
I started grabbing a few things from
Grocery outlet
Single guy here so no real worries about stocking a refrigerator.
@meh427 if you do not stock a fridge do you then waste all your money eating out? Last I knew eating was not an optional activity.
@meh427
I recently stumbled upon a Grocery Outlet store nearby and was impressed by the prices.
Worst bagels I’ve ever tasted, though. Practically inedible. But I’ll be back for other stuff.
@Rowsdower bagels are not bagels unless they are done right!
@Rowsdower the bagels were inedible…I’d be super wary about purchasing other items. Just FYI.
@marilyn80s
They weren’t stale or moldy. They merely tasted bad (owing to the recipe, presumably).
By the way, these were prepackaged bagels (of a brand that I don’t recall, possibly a private label). It was obvious from their temperature that they’d recently been removed from a freezer and defrosted (a common practice, and not one that typically poses a major problem).
A large proportion of the store’s inventory comprised well-known national brands, all priced very competitively and nowhere near their sell-by dates.
I mention this because the name “Grocery Outlet” evoked something very different in my mind. It sounds like a dumping ground for old/damaged stock, but that isn’t the case. It just has lousy bagels.
narfcake
Yes we have an Aldi.
We’re getting a Lidl
@meh427 I can see the puns by Aldi… Lidl is just a lidl Aldi.
Kidsandliz
The refrigerator has a few things.
I like to make a big pot of soup or chilli, but most meals are quick
Sandwich or a salad for $7 and the time id be cooking and cleaning I’m making money in the garage.
@meh427 printing it?
We have a newly constructed giant-ass Kroger in my Indiana town of 45,000 (Columbus, if you’re curious), and it and Aldi satisfy most of my shopping needs. I take biweekly or monthly trips to Indianapolis or Cincinnati for Trader Joe’s, Costco, and rarely Whole Foods or Fresh Market. The chain I’m most enamored with at the moment, though, is Fresh Thyme Farmers Market. They’re popping up all over the Midwest, and the quality of products, especially produce and fresh meat, is near what Whole Foods is for a much lower price.
Oh, and I know Sam’s Club is generally thought of as evil, but the best beef and pork I can get without spending an arm and a leg at the local farmers market directly from the farmer is there, and pretty much the only place I can find pork belly, tri-tip, and decent baby back ribs.
@jasonbaldwin
one of those new bigbox Kroger opened near us (we already have lots of regular Kroger and “high end” Kroger)… the kind that sells clothing, etc… Total fail as competition for Meijer or Walmart. Embarrassingly poorly operated. Lots of empty shelves (not just under stocked - never stocked shelves), poorly organized, shaky produce, etc… feels like a place considering going out of business!
We have several locations for all the stores you mention plus several local “boutique” brand stores - our experience with Fresh Thyme is mediocre. If you hanker for exotic health foods, they have them. But the prices are not great for most stuff. And for a place with a name like that, their produce is really unremarkable - reminds me a bit of Aldi-style low end produce. The examples are smaller, less fresh, and unless on sale, more expensive than the competiton. Because it is on the way home from church, we can sometimes fill some of our produce needs with their weekly loss-leaders. But I’d never go out of the way to shop there. Perhaps it depends on the local management.
let us consult the mehcronomicon:
“Thou shalt always buy whole foods. Because fuck those stores that try to sell you half a grape. So say we all.”
@carl669 … clever…
@RedOak
Ha funny for both
You should do their television spots
Never thought of printing it - just spinning wrenches.
@meh427 Very handy skill.
My brother has a friend who was a mechanic for a BMW dealership. So he got all the training and certifications - at least as of the time he worked there. Got tired of getting a tiny piece of the action and the rat race - “if you don’t find something to fix on the car you make zero $”… since there was no salary or hourly pay.
Anyway, my brother has space at his business that he allows the guy to use rent free to do BMW (and other) repairs. The deal - the guy does all my brother’s family’s auto work labor-free… and they sometimes buy BMW’s with burned out this or that for a dime on the dollar, repair them and sell them. They split the profits.
No option for just no? There’s one near me but don’t rely care to go in there… Bought 1 apple once cost me almost 5 bucks effe that
@ragingredd would you go in to pick up an amazon package if it would show up by 9am the next day?
@thismyusername at the rate Amazon is building distribution centers, they’re probably close to having as many of those as these are WF locations.
@RedOak
That’s a great deal. That’s the way to get ahead.
In high school I wanted a 69 Chevelle, bought it. The next year bought a 69 Impala SS427. Around that time I discovered my best friend’s dad just started restoring cars. I’ve learned a lot from him. I’ve been dealing in antique cars since '93.
@meh427 … cool. And another user name stands explained.
(BTW, you’re aware you can respond directly to a comment by tapping the “Reply” link under that comment, right?.. your response then ends up right under the original comment.)
@RedOak
Thank you, new information to me. I’ve used it a few times.