Shopping, ug

Last week, I did something I've been trying to do as infrequently as possible: I went into the city for some shopping.

I go as infrequently as possible for several reasons: (1) I hate shopping; (2) it's a long ways away; (3) it's increasingly expensive.

It's the expensive part I'd like to discuss today, because last week's shopping expedition was eye-opening.

When I go to the city, I go almost exclusively to hit the big box stores, and I tend to buy the same thing every time (toilet paper, cheese, etc.). The stores I go to most frequently are Winco, Costco, and Chef's Store (formerly Cash'n'Carry, a wholesale restaurant-supply store). And here's the interesting thing: I've been saving the receipts. These receipts give a snapshot of price increases over the last couple of years.

Let's start with toilet paper. We always buy Costco's Kirkland brand. On Oct. 26, 2021, a bundle cost $16.99.

On Jan. 11, 2022, the price had increased to $17.99.

On Aug. 30, 2022, the price was $18.99.

Last week, the price was up to $19.99.

We also enjoy Costco-brand pesto. In March of 2022, the price was $9.49.

The price had risen to  $9.99 by August 20, 2022:

Last week, the same product was $11.99.

How about dog food? We purchase a brand called Nutra Nuggets. On Jan. 11, 2022, the price was $26.99:

On March 9, 2022, the price was $29.99:

Last week, the price was $35.69:

My favorite vegetable is broccoli. For years I've purchased three-pound bags of broccoli florets from either Costco or (preferably) Chef's Store. Last week I went into Chef's Store and gaped at the empty vegetable cooler.

The potato and onion section was also sparse.

When I inquired of an employee about the status of vegetables in general and broccoli in particular, she shook her head. "We haven't been able to get much by way of produce," she said.

This is a store, you understand, that caters to restaurants. When I remarked that it must be causing great hardship to restaurants, she nodded in vigorous agreement. "We're getting about half of what we order," she said. "But with produce, we're getting even less of that."

So, unable to find broccoli at Chef's Store, I tried Costco. Last March, I got my usual three-pound bag for $5.99:

Last week, the only – the only! – broccoli they had in stock was a two-pound bag of organic for $5.99:

This isn't exactly comparing apples to apples, since organic tends to cost more anyway. But the fact that broccoli was scarce or absent from both Costco and Chef's Store was telling.

At Chef's Store, I had mayonnaise on my list. Normally I purchase this in gallon jugs (Don's a sandwich guy, so we go through a fair bit of mayo; plus we repurpose the empty mayo jugs for endless uses). I hadn't bought mayo in a long time, so I don't have paper proof of the earlier cost, but one thing is certain: It sure as heck wasn't $25.35 a gallon. 

After sputtering in shock for a moment, I purchased a gallon of the house-brand mayo for $15.55, which is far closer to the price I had previously paid for Kraft. (I'm not married to Kraft as a brand, you understand; what I'm married to is the wonderful jug with a handle. We reuse these jugs constantly.)

Olive oil was up. In January of 2022, it was $18.99 for a gallon. Last week it was $21.65.

Cheese was up. In March of 2022, it was $16.29 for a five-pound block. Last week it was $18.60.

Dog biscuits were up. In October of 2021, a 20-lb. box from Winco was $22.38. Last week, the same was $26.18.

Then I took myself to Walmart. I seldom shop at Walmart, even on my rare city excursions, but this time I had a mishmash of odd things I was looking for. Interestingly, one of those oddball things was a product called Covermate, which is like a plastic shower cap for food bowls.

We wash and reuse these for years, but eventually they give out. The only place I've ever found them is Walmart, so that was on my list.

I walked into the plastic-wrap aisle of Walmart and stopped short. What was up with this?

Is there a shortage of plastic wrap and bags and food coverings I'm unaware of? (I ended up ordering a few bags of Covermates online.)

Another item I wanted was the Walmart-brand of Loratadine (both Don and Older Daughter have allergies). They had plenty in stock, but I did notice the shortages of cold medicines for both children and adults. That is a shortage I've been hearing about.

I was so glad to put the city behind me and flee back home, let me tell you. It always takes me a day or two to recover from such excursions.

So what are you seeing as far as prices and availability goes? Have you noticed shortages? Let us know.

Nature's Roombas

We have zillions of turkeys around us.

They slowly stalk through the landscape, stopping to peck at anything even remotely edible. They often hang out in large groups, sometimes several dozen but more often ten or so together.

Don was idly watching a flock make its way through our property the other day, and he came away with an observation. "Turkeys are nature's Roombas," he noted. "They cover an entire area, bounce off things, and clean up whatever they find.

Hard to argue. And after my last rant about the Internet of Things, I'd far rather have turkey Roombas around us than robotic ones.

The "smartest" room in the house

Since moving into our new (to us) home, we've had issues with the appliances that came with the house, something we're slowly addressing. We were fortunate to find a simpler washing machine so we could finally off-load the beastly massive and modern Maytag that I'm convinced never properly cleaned the clothes.

Our new (to us) washer is a marvel of simplicity and efficiency. It works like a champ and takes one-third the time to clean a load than the old machine.

In tracing water leaks under the house during our recent plumbing woes, Don removed the unused dishwasher, which spent at least the last two years quietly leaking (I prefer to wash dishes by hand anyway), so that's another appliance we no longer have to worry about.

We've been looking to replace the propane range/oven, since the durn thing has an electronic ignition, which means the oven can't be used during power outages. Did you know they don't make ovens with pilot lights any longer? That's what we had in our old home and loved it. We've been searching for a range with a pilot light, to no avail. The best we can find is a very pricey battery-ignition range. We may not have an option except to invest in one of these.

We're also looking to replace the fancy refrigerator with a plainer model. Not only did this refrigerator leak (because of its fancy ice/water feature), but frankly it has a very poor inside layout, without the option to rearrange the shelves for more efficiency. Grrr. Who designs these things?

Anyway, this litany of appliance woes underscores our determination to KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) our kitchen. Anything that requires complicated hookups – or worse, monitors everything we do – is a no-no in our book. The idea of a "smart" kitchen gives me the shudders.

This is all a lead-up to an article I just saw on the subject of "smart" kitchens. Are you ready for this?

Based on the "kitchen of the future" from the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it seems the newest generation of appliances are not only part of the Internet of  Things, but are "smarter" than ever.

From the article:

"Samsung is bringing us the ability to peek-a-boo at any temperature every time you bake. They are debuting their new Bespoke Lineup kitchen appliances, including this smart oven with a camera inside, so you no longer have to open the door and let out the heat to check how the food is looking as it cooks.

The AI Oven includes a pro cooking system that uses a camera inside of it to tell when your food is burning or ready to be taken out. You can also integrate your oven with the Samsung SmartThings Cooking app to get recipes recommended based on your diet goals or the ingredients you have at home, making cooking even more of a breeze."

I'm sure this appeals to some people, but not me. Essentially it means your oven is hackable. Can you imagine some guy across the planet, sitting in a darkened room in front of his computer and informing me my casserole will be held hostage unless I fork over my bank account?

They're also putting out a "smart" mixer: "The mixer has a built-in smart scale so you can get the precise weight of ingredients to ensure your measurements are exact. The Auto Sense technology can not only tell when your measurements are precise – it can also tell exactly how long to mix the ingredients." 

I have two mixers. One looks like this:

And the other looks like this:

But wait, there's more! How about a mood fridge? "LG's MoodUP color-changing fridge can boldly jump out or fade into the background. LG wants to not only change your kitchen's aesthetic, but they are also hoping to change your mood at the same time. The fridge has 4 panels you can select the colors for or choose a theme like 'season' or 'healing.'"

If having a colorful fridge is not your style, "you can opt for the Lux Grey/Lux White combo instead and just use the fridge for its features, like the built-in Bluetooth speaker or voice recognition. The colors are a way more fun option, though, if you want them to change along with the beat of the music playing from your fridge through the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections.

The fridge's lights also allow fun features like blinking when someone enters the kitchen or alerting you with flashing lights if the fridge door was left open accidentally. The MoodUP name pays homage to the soothing colors you can choose to change the ambiance of your kitchen to a more relaxing vibe. And speaking of vibe, the fridge comes with LG's craft ice maker, so you can cool down your cocktail with a perfectly round, large ice cube."

Maybe it's just me, but all I can think of (besides how unnecessary all this is) is how much more likely these kinds of appliances will break down. Then what? How much will it cost to get them repaired?

It can get worse. Last year, a reader commented: "A friend of mine is separating from an abusive husband. We've had a bit of a rush to disconnect various devices from the internet. For a time he seemed able to surveil his abused wife and kids through the television, or just to turn up the volume remotely. He enjoyed turning on the sprinklers while the wife was mowing the lawn through the IoT sprinkler controller. Had the 'smart oven' not fortuitously decided it needed its entire brain replaced, he could theoretically have turned it on remotely. I'll take the dumb devices any day."

Doesn't this just give you the shudders?

See, this is something that puzzles me. Why do people want this kind of stuff? Are they so helpless or clueless that "smart" technology is superior to human intelligence? I don't get it. I honestly don't get it.

Of course, the ultimate test of a kitchen is how functional it still is during a power outage. That's one of the reasons I loved our old propane range with the pilot light – it worked just fine without power. And a deep-down part of me longs to get an old-fashioned ice box, even as I recognize we would either have to purchase blocks of ice, or go down an entire rabbit hole of building an ice house and freezing our own ice.

It's funny: the "smarter" technology gets, the more I push back against it. As I write this, for example, our wood cookstove is purring along, heating a kettle of water for tea. My kind of stove.

I know I'm a Luddite at heart. Don't get me wrong – technology has its place. I'm using technology to post to this blog, of course. I make my living on a computer. But at what point does technology take over?

After the battle we've had for the past two years with modern appliances, I'm more convinced than ever that low-tech is the way to go. The "smartest" room in the house is one where the cook controls the appliances, not the other way around.

Okay, rant over.

It's the little things

Back in November, I noted we had a rare and solitary bluejay hanging around our neighborhood.

This was something of a minor thrill for the ornithologist in me, since such birds are rare in Idaho. So imagine how happy I was last week to see him (her?) right outside the window at the feeder, gobbling sunflower seeds with greed.

He was a fast bird, so several of the photos I was frantically shooting were blurred. Often he flew away to a nearby tree, then flew back to the feeder.

I was hoping he would become a regular visitor to the feeder, but it appears I'll have no such luck. He showed up twice, a day apart, and that was it.

Such a pretty creature. I hope he returns.

 

A jay at the feeder. It's the little things, y'know?

Lending a hand

You know how it is when you plan a surprise for someone and get that quivery-excited feeling about how they'll react when they find out? Don and I just did that.

Older Daughter, as you may know, has taken over our woodcraft business. Right now she's working on a massive (150-piece) order for a wholesale customer which must be shipped by late January to arrive in time. Because she also works four days a week (Tues-Fri) at a nearby store, she's been burning the candle at both ends. On days she's not working her other job, she puts in ten-hour days in the shop; and on days she IS working her other job, she comes home and puts in another hour in the shop on top of her retail workday.

By this past Monday, she had gotten to the point in the production run called "marking bottoms." This means each tankard's base outline had been traced onto a piece of half-inch oak, which later is cut out and then glued to the tankard as its bottom.

The next steps in the production run are as follows: Strip off the duct tape (used in the assembly process for tankard bodies), then cut the half-inch oak pieces of traced-out bottoms on the band saw, then sand the base of each tankard flat, then arrange the bottoms in stacks of numerical order (to find them more easily), then glue each tankard body to its corresponding bottom, secured with rubber bands until the glue dries.

With this being the start of her workweek at her other job, these steps alone would have probably taken Older Daughter until next Monday to accomplish. So ... Don and I decided to buckle down and do it for her, as a surprise.

Right after she left for work on Tuesday morning, we sprang into action. Even with both of us working, it took all day to accomplish these steps for the 150-piece order. We finished up literally half an hour before she was due home. I hastily cleaned the kitchen (we work at the kitchen table for these steps) to erase of the evidence of our industry while Don took Mr. Darcy for a late walk.

When Older Daughter arrived, she was tired, as always, and didn't notice the pile of neatly glued tankards sitting in the library. Instead she petted Mr. Darcy while she told us about her day.

Then I said we had a surprise for her: Look over there. It took a few moments for the significance of the sight to sink in, and then she was SO happy and grateful!

Yep, it was a fun surprise. Sometimes it's good to lend a hand.

French silk pie

Over the holidays, Older Daughter had a hankering for French silk pie. This differs from chocolate cream pie in that it's less chocolatey (none of us are overly fond of chocolate) and more creamy. Since the local grocery stores were out of this treat, she decided to make it herself, and I photographed the process. (Here's the recipe she used.)

She did ask me to make the pie shells, since I'm better at them.

These I baked and then let cool.

Older Daughter started by breaking up some unsweetened baking chocolate.

She melted it in an improvised double-boiler (metal bowl nested over a pot of boiling water). She also added the vanilla to the melted chocolate.

While the chocolate was melting, she blended sugar with the beaten eggs. Can you see the thermometer in the background? She made sure to bring the egg mixture to 160F so there were no raw eggs in the filling.

After this, she combined the chocolate and the eggs...

...and stirred everything together. Then she let this mixture cool a bit, to about 90F.

While it was cooling, she creamed the butter.

Then she blended everything together.

After that, it was time to whip the cream.

Then it was a simple matter to fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. This is the "silk" in silk pie.

Ta da! A beautiful light chocolate filling, which she poured into the pie crusts.

We set these in our "outdoor refrigerator" (the top of the chest freezer on the porch) to cool.

Later, when the pies were cool, she whipped some more cream for a topping.

The result was certainly every bit as tasty as what you can find commercially. A nice holiday treat!