Grapefruit juice...or the lack thereof

We don't buy grapefruit juice all that often, but recently, since it is one of my children's favorites, I went looking for some. The bottled variety was available, but there was no frozen concentrate. Ok, this didn't happen at the store I shop at the most often, but it does seem to have the best price on cheese that I've seen around, and the butter prices are better than most as a rule, and really good with the occasional coupon. So, I thought, it's a fluke. It's just this store.

Until, out of curiosity, I checked to see the availability of frozen grapefruit concentrate at our local national chainstore. There was none.

Then there is the bag-your-own variety of store that my husband needed to stop by because of something we had forgotten to purchase. When he called to tell me that he would be stopping by, I asked him to check to see if there was any frozen grapefruit concentrate available.

Again, nothing.....

Anyone else notice this in their area? I guess I can't really claim that there is no availability when it comes to grapefruit juice, since the bottled variety is still available, (at a somewhat hefty price) but I was surprised at the lack of the frozen variety, and am wondering--is it too expensive to produce in this form anymore, or have there been weather problems, crop problems, or something else that makes it impossible (at least as far as I have seen) to find now?

Paying attention at the cash register...

Can pay off if you actually are paying attention at the cash register, or really cost you if you aren't. Take today for example--I picked up a package (1.25 lb.) of ground turkey (would have picked up a 3 lb. package, but more on that later) and made my way to the cash register with other purchases. I thought the price on the package was $2.98.

Imagine my surprise, when, as the last product scanned, the turkey rang up at $4.58.

So I asked about it. The poor cashier, who had just put the closed sign on her register, asked me if I wanted her to check it. I did. So off she went. And she was gone quite awhile. When she returned, she said that the turkey at a different fat content level was the one at $2.98, but since there was no sign posted for the package I wanted to purchase, they decided that they would let me have it at the price of the other type. Quite the savings, if the $4.58 was the price it will be when they do find the sign...

I had planned to pick up a 3 lb. package, since I usually brown it and freeze it, and since we had been using our frozen meat, I had not noticed until now that there were no 3 lb. packages available. And no space marked for 3 lb. packages, making me wonder how long this had been going on, and if there were any plans to bring back the more economical package sizes. The turkey available was a different brand. So, I asked someone pulling a stocking shelf out from the back what the deal was--were we ever to see the 3 lb. packages again at this shopping location? The long and short of it was that he didn't know.

And hence, I don't know either. I do have one back up location for buying the 3 lb. packages, so I certainly hope it is stil available, and at a better price than $4.58 for 1.25 lbs...what are prices like where you are at?

And on the first note, makes me wonder how many times I have been overcharged without realizing it--through my own fault (misreading or misattributing signs) or otherwise...

Price check

Just wanted to mention a couple of prices that I have seen go up recently:

--The candy in the cashier lane.
Sometimes when my children go shopping with me, I will let them choose a treat from the shelves next to the checkout stand. Alas, I found out this week that the price on such treats has gone up nearly 50% when you consider the treats that are usually the ones being considered-- $.50 or less. Now, for the same treat, the price is $.74. Still under a dollar, but 50% is a big jump...

--The 12-pack Ramen noodle package

For quite some time, the price on this product has held steady at $1.68. Then, recently I saw that these boxes are now priced at $1.98. Granted, you might be able to find it at a lower cost, but I'm just talking about comparisons in the same store where I remember the previous price--prices are going up, up, and up... Still, not a high-priced item, but more is more...


Any price increases that have particularly caught your eye lately?

A new recipe tried, and the importance of good utensils...

I got a message in my comments recently about a new food blog called My Food Storage Cookbook. You gotta love food storage recipes that include the actual directions for using things like powdered milk/eggs, etc. So, one of my children and I tried out the German Spaetzle recipe today...

And that's where the importance of good utensils come in. Those, or at least expect to need a lot of practice if you're going to attempt to use the alternative method of preparation. We used powdered milk, powdered eggs, followed the excellent directions, and everything went well, including the test tablespoon in the boiling water. I loved the fact that the directions included the option of using a food storage bag with a corner stripped off to make the noodles if you don't happen to have a pastry bag handy.

Just turns out that I'm not that proficient of forming noodles via food storage bag. Yet.

The flavor of our version of the German Spaetzle was great, it's just that I had short, stubby "noodles". I'm sure that a pastry bag would have worked better--as sure as I can be, considering that I haven't used one that much. But my guess is that if I practice these some more, which I am planning to do, I will get better at the food storage bag alternative, or at the pastry bag method, if that's the route I choose to go. Can't underestimate the importance of practice...

Anyway, saw a couple more recipes over there I'm looking to try in the future, among them the Creamy Chicken Enchilada Recipe (which I will wait to try until it gets cooler, since it needs to bake for an hour) and the Italian Chicken Recipe, which looks like it would be a good option any time of the year. And that's only a couple of many recipes, with the author supplying sources, and a great way to organize your preparation efforts. There's a lot to check out if you are interested, so you might want to check it out. I know I'll probably head back for more info soon...

Hope that everyone is having a great summer, and that your garden is going well--in ours the radishes have done well, and there is great hope for the carrots. Looking forward to our raspberries ripening. Take care, and if you are in an area that is hot, hot, hot, try to stay cool, cool, cool..... :)

Happy Birthday, America!

Have a safe and happy 4th of July! Sending gratitude to all who defend and uphold our freedom, because freedom is never free...

Wheat: a recipe, and cooking options

A great big thank you to Kristen at Harried Homemaker, who posted a recipe for Wheat Berry Spinach Salad, which looks really, really good. (Makes me wish I had planted spinach this year--wondering if it's too late at this point...) Gotta love more ways to use those wheat berries than just grinding them into flour.

When I saw that the salad recipe required cooked wheat, the first thing I thought of was the thermos method of cooking wheat, directions for which can be found here, at the Hillbilly Housewife website. Still, gotta love more options, so I e-mailed Kristen to ask how she cooked her wheat. She uses a pressure cooker, (which I don't have) but was kind enough to also include the following links on how to cook wheat:

---If you prefer to use a crockpot, you might wish to look here. (Thanks again, Hillbilly Housewife!)

---If you prefer to use a saucepan, you might wish to look here. I'm not familiar with this website, but sure appreciate the recipe!

Oh, yeah, gotta love having more options! Especially when it comes to wheat berries--and gotta love that people with expertise will share information!

Changing the subject, our little jalapeno pepper plant disappeared--the one that one of our children named "Jeff". As in, there is literally no sign of it anywhere, so it's not that it shriveled up due to mistreatment or bad weather or the like. Supposition around here is that one of the animals ate it, though why they would want to is beyond my understanding... We will probably return to the Farmer's Market and get another plant to try again. I hope everyone else's plants are still in their garden... :)

What would you do?

At our local national chainstore, they've been doing quite a bit of remodeling lately. Not too long ago I was in line at the cashier and an alarm went off--really screechy, accompanied by flashing lights up in the ceiling. I was second or third in line, and briefly wondered if I should just abandon my cart and run like crazy out of the door. It had all the classic signs of being a fire alarm system going off.

Everyone, including the cashier, acted like nothing was happening. So I stayed in line.

Yeah, but not exactly being the shy type when it comes to asking questions, when I did get the chance to get my purchases rung up, I asked the cashier what that alarm had been, because if memory serves, it had finished going off by then. She basically said that they had been having problems with the system, but if it had been the real thing (i.e., there actually had been a fire) someone would have come over the intercom and said so.

Interesting. Interesting, too, that when I went to pull my car out of my parking space a couple of minutes later, I had to wait as two massive fire engines went by in front of me...

In a conversation that I had with someone soon after, the person pointed out that the logic that the cashier used was backward--that it would make more sense if, after the fire alarm started going off, that it was the policy to come on the intercom only to announce that it was only a test, if that was what it was. If there were a fire, there would be a good chance that the intercom wouldn't work at all. This person said they would have left the cart where it was and exited the building.

What would you have done in this situation?

I never heard of any fire and/or fire damage associated with the alarm going off that evening. There have been a couple of times that an alarm has gone off while I've been in that store since then, and one was because someone leaned against a secured exit or something, and that time there were no lights flashing as the sound went off. It's something that has made me think twice about shopping there, because if it goes off that many times when I have actually been there, how many times does it go off?

Fires are tricky, and can spread quickly. I have heard about a casino fire in the 1980's where people died because, as I understand it, they were sitting in the casino, and the fire spread so fast through the ceiling that it just collapsed. The person that was talking about that fire said they weren't even sure if the alarm had gone off in that situation. Sometimes, there is no warning. But if there is a warning, there is no telling how fast the flames are going through the building, and that's why acting quickly to get out of harm's way (even if it is not immediately evident) is crucial. It seems like it would be best to have decided before you ever get into such a situation what you are going to do if that situation arises.

Yeah, standing around acting like there was nothing wrong was not the best choice in the situation outlined above, but it was made all the easier by the fact that no one else seemed worried about it. But just because you aren't worried about it doesn't mean nothing will happen---in fact, it seems to be human nature for everyone to think that nothing like a store fire will ever happen to them....

So, would love to hear any responses, but hope that at least everyone will take the time to figure out so they know for their own personal benefit what they would do if a fire alarm went off while they were shopping. The emergency would be a lot less devastating in this instance if people knew what to do to avoid being caught in a store/hotel/building that is not home fire. What would you do?