Things you never thought you’d ever need to know!

eieileen wrote:Anyone have any leads on whole wheat or bread flour in the city or shipped? I have struck out everywhere I've looked online or in grocery stores. Got plenty of unbleached AP but hoping to fill up on some others.

I've read that some bakeries will sell you some flour.

My son-in-law's best friend used to work at the Oak Brook Costco. He informed us tonight that two of their employees have the COVID-19 virus and one of them is on a vent. Not sure if they'll be closing. Guess we won't be shopping there for a while.

Two of the employees at the Evergreen Park Walmart died. Because of this Walmart has implemented a national policy where only 20% of the capacity of the store is allowed in the store at any one time. Target and Home Depot are also limiting the number of shoppers in the store too. Walmart has sanitized the Evergreen Park store, but has not closed down the store.

As soon as I turn on the TV this am, Walmart commercial with their store team members singing, "Lean On Me." Get ready for Wally's media blitz. They need the tv to tell Irma J. and Henry B. Murica what a wholesome "employee first" company they are. I mean, the employees are singing, plain as day, on the the TV. Employees have to enjoy their work to sing, I mean singing means happiness, right? Seriously, what other group of employees have you ever heard about singing while they were....Oh wait.

Frankly, I'm surprised Wally didn't choose the song "Wade In The Water" or "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" or something similar. (The a$$hole in me wants to think there was a POC in the advertising boardroom that got a "say" in the song choice - lol.)

Now, go order some more stuff for pickup or whatever. Wally needs your money. All that stuff's been swept under the rug. The TV told you so.

I'm not so foolish as to think there aren't many sides to the story, including consumer demand being a reason for stores being open, and employees wanting / needing to earn. I just wonder how many of the execs of these businesses are on the ground helping, or are they in the confines of their cushy home office of one of their yachts.

Don't do a web search for David Geffen's recent gaffe, if for some reason you need to believe I have to be some kind of wacko conspiracy theorist.

I still shop, too. I'm part of the problem. I'm actually jonesing to go to the stores. I do about 99% of the grocery shopping for our household. We are lucky to be in an area with Jewel, Tony's, Aldi, Costco and several lil fruit markets a stone's throw away from the house, and when I go into the office, I pass a Mariano's or two. It's easy for me to pop into a grocery store and grab sale items, or just grab items for dinner on the way home. Picking fresh veggies and fruits, and watching for clearance items is kinda my thing. I was kinda hoping to score a bunch of clearance corned beef briskets after St Patrick's day (sad face.) Now I'm using Instacart and hitting the fruit market down the street once a week.

eieileen wrote:Anyone have any leads on whole wheat or bread flour in the city or shipped? I have struck out everywhere I've looked online or in grocery stores. Got plenty of unbleached AP but hoping to fill up on some others.

Mariano's New City had plenty of KA bread flour yesterday, I think it was priced at $5.49 a bag or something close to that. I think they had KA whole wheat as well but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Coogles wrote:

eieileen wrote:Anyone have any leads on whole wheat or bread flour in the city or shipped? I have struck out everywhere I've looked online or in grocery stores. Got plenty of unbleached AP but hoping to fill up on some others.

Mariano's New City had plenty of KA bread flour yesterday, I think it was priced at $5.49 a bag or something close to that. I think they had KA whole wheat as well but I'm not 100% sure about that.

To save someone else a trip, New City was entirely out of flour when I went last night. They might have gotten stock in for the weekend, but it went quickly.

gastro gnome wrote:To save someone else a trip, New City was entirely out of flour when I went last night. They might have gotten stock in for the weekend, but it went quickly.

During these times,

It is best to be at the shops for the opening bell. The larger stores have their own warehouses and they re-stock overnight.

pairs4life wrote:

gastro gnome wrote:To save someone else a trip, New City was entirely out of flour when I went last night. They might have gotten stock in for the weekend, but it went quickly.

During these times,

It is best to be at the shops for the opening bell. The larger stores have their own warehouses and they re-stock overnight.

I agree that being there at opening is likely the best strategy to find stuff on the shelves. I think other people are more likely to show up at the opening bell for the same reason. Since my primary goal is avoiding being in a place with lots of people, I have preferred to go when I think stores are less crowded (e.g. the stores that are open until 10 on the weekends). I realize that may mean that products may be out. It's a tradeoff I'm fine with.

I went to Mariano's at 8 am yesterday. There was no AP flour left. Walmart only had two twenty five pound bags of flour. I did not want that much. Costco had no AP flour. I finally got lucky at Target. I bought one of the three bags of unbleached flour. I was really happy to find it since I don't like making 100% whole wheat pancakes/waffles. Time to venture into the world of online shopping for groceries.

Harrison Poultry in Glenview has announced that they are closing the retail space and is now doing curbside pickup.

So I know where my next chicken and eggs are coming from.

http://www.harrisonspoultryfarm.com

Giovanna

Ordered some cheese from https://www.mariekegouda.com/. It was about $10 for a pound of cheese, shipping included. Not sure how they make any money on this, but I hope they know what they're doing.

The cheese was shipped Priority Mail the next day and was at my place within 48 hours. Unfortunately, the confirmation email said they'd contact me when the order was shipped, but they did not. More than understandable in the current circumstances, but since I haven't been getting my mail as much these days, by the time I picked up the package the cheese had spent 4-5 days unrefrigerated. Point being, this may be my last post. Also, check your mail when you have a food shipment coming, since places may not be running at optimum efficiency these days.

cilantro wrote:Ordered some cheese from https://www.mariekegouda.com/. It was about $10 for a pound of cheese, shipping included. Not sure how they make any money on this, but I hope they know what they're doing.

The cheese was shipped Priority Mail the next day and was at my place within 48 hours. Unfortunately, the confirmation email said they'd contact me when the order was shipped, but they did not. More than understandable in the current circumstances, but since I haven't been getting my mail as much these days, by the time I picked up the package the cheese had spent 4-5 days unrefrigerated. Point being, this may be my last post. Also, check your mail when you have a food shipment coming, since places may not be running at optimum efficiency these days.

Maybe give this a try: https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/p ... art.action

Tells you about impending deliveries that day with envelope scans of what is incoming. I'm not sure if they scan packages or not.

Appreciate that, but I do already get the informed delivery emails. This package was never listed, although I seem to recall at least one previous Priority Mail package was, so this could just be a case where several things went wrong at the same time. It’s good cheese, though! (He posted, dyingly.)

Lincoln Park Whole Foods this morning was best shopping experience since Feb - not very crowded, almost every shopper and all the employees wearing masks and observing distancing, and almost every item in stock (no yeast, but amusingly little jars of marmite they had labeled "natural yeast" or something and placed on the baking shelves - will have to see about bread with that). hot bar is closed but they have increased numbers of packaged meals etc. the bakery didn't have the kind of loaf we usually get - rep said they have limited their selections.

Thanks to a friend I found out about Top Box Foods!

I ordered the Easter Garden Box a few moments ago.

You can also donate if you are outside of a region they service.

Additionally, they deliver to SNAP recipients.

I want to support anyone who makes it easier for those who are SNAP recipients during this period of social distancing to have good, nutritious food delivered to their home just like I am fortunate to have delivered.

This is super important so pass along through your networks.

Order your food today! And it will be delivered on Friday.

Top Box Foods

Speaking of delivery for Top Box Foods....

Hunter Riley had a choice: Watch his delivery trucks sit idle because of the coronavirus or use his trucks and workers to lend a hand those dealing with the fallout from the disease. His company, Schlep, is doing deliveries for free for the Red Cross, Lakeview Pantry, Cradles to Crayons and Top Box Foods.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/health- ... ow-new-use

Hi- I just called them up and they do deliver as far North as Dempster in Evanston, and it looks like they deliver to Oak Park too.

Jewel has replaced the blue tape marks with red decals on the floor to help with spacing, and one-way arrows in the aisles that 30% of the people appeared to be ignoring. (*sigh*)

Whole milk (expiration date April 12) was 69c/gal. Eggs, paper towels and TP still limited to 1/customer. Still no signs of any disinfecting cleaning products at all.

JoelF wrote:Jewel has replaced the blue tape marks with red decals on the floor to help with spacing, and one-way arrows in the aisles that 30% of the people appeared to be ignoring. (*sigh*)

Whole milk (expiration date April 12) was 69c/gal. Eggs, paper towels and TP still limited to 1/customer. Still no signs of any disinfecting cleaning products at all.

My daughter shopped at the Southside Elmhurst Jewel. It was a nightmare. No one wearing masks, not keeping safe distances. She had a much better experience at Target early in the week.

pairs4life wrote:
I ordered the Easter Garden Box a few moments ago.

TopBox Foods

Thanks to this tip from pairs4life, I ordered an Easter Garden Box that was delivered yesterday. Everything looks to be of excellent quality: spinach (1 bunch), collards (2 bunches), garlic (1 head), carrots (1 lb.), yellow onions (3 lb.), russet potatoes (5 lb.), sweet potatoes (4 medium), Granny Smith apples (3 lb.), celery (large head), scallions (1 bunch). All for $18, which includes delivery.

I live in a condo building in Printers Row. The driver called when she arrived, set the box outside in front of the building door, then waited for me to pick it up and give her a wave.

I'm thrilled to support this service that helps folks who receive SNAP have easy access to healthy food! And it's great to be able to wait a little longer before having to venture out to grocery shop.

Crazy ass in my store today, I say crazy ass because last time I helped her she wanted a large chunk of Cabot clothbound cut and "forgot" to pick it up. First, Cabot clothbound is some shit cheese, a wannabe Vermont cheddar in the Neal's Yard school of things. You want Montgomery, Hafod, or Isle of Mull, not effing Cabot bandage-wrapped, that flavorless monstrosity. This woman came back in today and wanted me to open a fresh quarter of the Cabot. Fine, I needed to cut it anyway. Then she proceeds to harangue me when it fractures as this cheese tends toward. She says it looks weird. And, I want to say go fuck yourself, that is what this cheese does. Why don't you use the machine, she says, and no, I am not because I have already cleaned all of my tools and am about leave. I will use a saber. I ask her, please, refrain from touching the cheeses unless you intend to buy the piece you touch. She says, I shit you not, oh, it is okay, I already had Corona virus and recovered. OH HELL NAH. She keeps pulling down her mask to speak. Then, and this is where I nearly lost my mind: she reaches over the counter with a bare freaking hand and touches the damn cheddar. Thank god a store manager saw her do it and rushed over to intervene before I went apeshit. Another store manager reprimanded her for not wearing her mask. Only one rule: it is not all about you.

Christopher Gordon wrote:store manager reprimanded her for not wearing her mask. Only one rule: it is not all about you.

Totally agree, of course, and here's a related incident, but from the other side of the counter.

We’d rarely shopped at Oak Park’s Carnival Grocery; it seemed like a fine store, but places Pete’s Fresh is simply closer so that’s our default. However, because the folks at Carnival will collect an order for you, and provide curbside carryout and delivery if necessary, we decided to order some groceries from them. When we picked up our groceries at the store, we were pleased that the cashier was wearing a mask, just as we were.

After stopping at Carnival, we went shopping at another store for a relatively expensive (over $600) item. None of the salespeople in the store were wearing masks. Failure to wear a mask, in a job with lots of customer contact, is not only antisocial but unhygienic. Though the store had what I wanted, I left without buying anything.

A few days later, I called the store and asked, “Are your employees wearing masks yet?” The man who answered replied “No,” and his voice betrayed irritation. For my health’s sake (and I am in a vulnerable group, for you see, I am very old), I’ve decided not to do business with that store until at least the end of this epidemic, though perhaps never again.

Some might argue that masks are hard to come by, but even a bandana across the nose and mouth is better than nothing, and it sends the message that you care about your customers, which is the foundation of good customer service.

When a store’s employees are not wearing masks, the message sent is that the store simply doesn’t care much about their customers except as a source of revenue. If that’s their attitude, okay, but they’re not getting my business until they wise up and put on the damn masks.

I feel like I am suffocating in my precious N-95. I wear nitrile gloves to and from work. I don regular latex at work. We are required to be masked up before we clock in. I am astounded/horrified when I see, say, a father with two little girls in tow none of which are protected in any manner. Our smoked fish guy, F, says, you never mind about them, taking care of yourself, that is key. Also, my friend in Hong Kong tells me to suck it up and get friendly with my mask. They are ahead of the curve.

Instacart -
Does anyone have a firm grasp on how their pricing per store truly works? I'm new to their service, and have only done three orders so far. One from Costco, one from Tony's and one from Aldi.

Costco order: Sale prices from Costco's flyer were honored.

Aldi order: Organic eggs were subbed for regular eggs. The driver left the store receipt in one of the bags, and we saw that at the store, the regular egg price was charged to the Instacart shopper, but we were charged the organic egg price by instacart. 99c vs 2.49. The shopper also subbed broccoli for cauliflower for our order. We chose the "no substitution" option for all of our items.

Since we saw that Costco's sale prices were honored for our order, we tried Tony's this week. Our Ton's sale ad showed:
B/S chicken breast @ 1.49lb (jumbo pack only)
Chicken wings@ 1.99 lb (jumbo pack only)
Turkey Hill cream 4.99 bogo.

In the comment section of each of the chicken selection, I reiterated that I would like the pkgs marked "jumbo" because they had a different price than the non jumbo pkgs. The site allowed me to select the jumbo pkgs as well. In the comment section of the ice cream, I noted that the ice cream was bogo. I selected 2 diff flavors, expecting 1 of each flavor. I let the shopper know that I didn't want 4 pkgs, just one and one.

What I got:
A jumbo pack of chicken breast at 3.99lb (3.99lb was the price on the Instacart site for the Jumbo pkg)
A jumbo pack of chicken wings at 3.99lb (3.99lb was the price on the Instacart site for the Jumbo pkg)
2 Turkey Hill ice creams at 4.99 each.

The chicken's packaging shows the correct sale price, ie., breast is 1.49lb, wings are 1.99lb on their respective packages.

Now, that being said, please understand, I'm not mad, AND, the shopper was great. Wife 1.0 and I both thought about tipping the shopper even more after we got the order, because she got it correct, and even sent us a few IM's while she was shopping to better understand the order.

So, I read about "partner" stores, and I also read their disclaimers about prices, and it's all just very generic. I get that INSTACART'S prices may vary, that's fine and dandy, but what's the rhyme and reason for getting sale prices from one store, but not the other?

If they are pocketing the difference of store prices subtracted from Instacart prices, I'm totally ok with that - it's still a nice service. I just wonder if there's any way to tell when that will happen. 3.99lb for chicken wings or breast is not in my wheelhouse. Neither is 4.99 for a container of standard ass ice cream. I would not have ordered them. Live and learn - no big deal. Still think Instacart is a good service.

This Instacart help page may help: https://www.instacart.com/help/section/200758534

Retailers set the prices of items available for delivery on the Instacart platform. While many retailers offer the same in-store prices on Instacart, others set different prices on the Instacart platform than in-store prices.

It then goes to show you how you can see each store's pricing policy.

Darren72 wrote:
It then goes to show you how you can see each store's pricing policy.

Yup, that's the part that is vague. I looked at Costco's "Info," Tony's "Info," and Aldi's "Info." They all had basically the same line - "Prices May Vary" - which is totally understandable, in that neither entity (Instacart or the store) wants to be hampered by any responsibilities of pricing. I just wondered if there was a way to pinpoint which stores I could get sale prices from via instacart. From their verbiage, it's kinda like, "The store is responsible for your prices, but expect to pay the price on the instacart application, but if the store sets the correct sale price in some system, you'll get the sale price" (?)
For the Aldi and Costco orders, the sale prices were better than the Instacart application price shown, and we were charged those better prices. For the Tony's order we got none of the sale prices, even though the two chicken items had the sale prices on the packaging that arrived.

As my wife says, "Just deal with it, other people don't shop for groceries like you do."

cilantro wrote:Appreciate that, but I do already get the informed delivery emails. This package was never listed, although I seem to recall at least one previous Priority Mail package was, so this could just be a case where several things went wrong at the same time. It’s good cheese, though! (He posted, dyingly.)

Informed Delivery for packages is hit and mostly miss. I use an app https://www.slice.com/ that is pretty good.

I've found out that since the pandemic. I am spending 25% more on my groceries.I try to limit myself to one trip a week or less to the store. Last Thursday when I went to Jewel I needed plastic wrap. Glad wrap was on sale, but they were out of it, and so I ended up buying Saran Wrap which was not on sale. A few weeks ago the Breyer's strawberry ice cream that was supposed to be on sale they were out of, and they were out of the Kemps I wanted, and so I ended up getting Edy's and paying $5.99 for it. I try to buy low fat ice cream or frozen yogurt.

The sales at the grocery stores right now are not nearly as good as they normally are, and they won't issue rain checks. It is hard enough to find toilet paper at any grocery store let alone any that is on sale. I don't spend any more time in the store than I have to. At least both Jewel and Whole Foods have more registers open right now, so you don't have to wait in line.

I heard that half of the covid cases in South Dakota originated in a pork packing plant run by Smithfield. The plant is now closed.

I have heard that some people have been satisfied with pick up at Walmart. If you decide to do that though, slots start opening up at midnight, and if you wait until you wake up the next morning to sign up for a slot, the chances are good that there won't be any slots available. Hope this helps, Nancy

gastro gnome wrote:If anyone needs to stock up on delicious (and fairly local) smoked meats and charcuterie, Smoking Goose in Indianapolis is having a sale.

Thanks to this tip, our Easter dinner yesterday was a wonderful ham from Smoking Goose. Appetizer was their pimento cheese. Potatoes Anna (recipe from Smitten Kitchen) and steamed asparagus rounded out the meal.