I think I’ve been suffering from food shopping withdrawal without even knowing it!  Today I went shopping for the first time since the baby was born; it was so fun to be out and about again!  First I headed to the vegetable store and loaded up on produce – I got a full cart of fruit and veggies for $53.  I want to increase the amount of vegetables we’re eating and decrease the grains somewhat, so I shopped with that in mind.

Then I popped into the kosher supermarket for some eggs and cheese – well, it was supposed to be a quick trip, but I didn’t plan on meeting three people and shmoozing with them all!  So my short trip became a lot longer; I had to remind myself to stop chatting since I don’t want to have an unhappy baby waiting at home.  While I was there, I got a bunch of turkey wings on sale (.79 lb) and a lot of ground beef (3.49 lb).  I checked the prices on turkey gizzards, which I thought I had remembered being expensive – and they are. They were something like 3.69 lb, which is more than I pay for whole turkey or ground meat!  So not an economical choice for me – that just underscores the point that I’ve made before, that there’s no food that is cheap for everyone.  You have to find what’s a good deal in your area and make the most of it.

The cheese wasn’t on sale, so I decided to pass on it.  But when I went by the dairy appetizer section, I noticed the least expensive cheese (they slice for you from large blocks) was cheddar at 5.49 lb.  That beats the $7 -8 per lb. of the 8 oz or 1 lb. blocks.  As I was standing at the appetizer counter, it occurred to me to ask (after 7 years of shopping at this store) if there’s a discounted price for buying a large block of cheese. She told me it would be $1 less per pound – and 4.49 for a pound of kosher cheese is pretty darn good, in my opinion!  I ended up getting a 5 pound brick of mozzarella, which was slightly more expensive (4.69) and a couple of pounds of sliced cheddar at the regular price.  If you buy in the block, they don’t slice it for you, and there isn’t much of a savings if you end up using lots more of it than you would otherwise.  But I’m going to divvy up the 5 lb block into 1/2 lb. blocks to use for meals, and I think that will work well to help me portion it out efficiently. 

In the end my quick little shopping trip wasn’t so quick or so little, but I do have lots of poultry and meat for the month, as well as veggies for the next week or two.  Tomorrow I’m going to do my big monthly shopping and will hopefully get us stocked back up – I haven’t been since a week after Pesach and my supplies have dwindled more than I like.  I’m hoping to find lots of great bargains!

Avivah