More Food

TODAYS RATING:
Total expenditures: $0.00

Tonight we had fried catfish, baked potatoes, and orange slices, and I just made homemade chocolate chip cookies. It was so good, I can even think of sushi without salivating... almost.

I did have a moment this evening when I was browsing my bookshelf and I thought longingly of the Half-Price Bookstore in Kansas City. But it's a little difficult to covet material possessions when you're still tripping over unpacked boxes on your way to the bathroom.

The Salmonella Factor

TODAYS RATING:
Total expenditures: $79.53
Made purchases at:

• Hays Grocery

Today was grocery day. This is where the rubber meets the road. Besides rent and revolving debt payments, most of our monthly budget goes toward food. You may have gathered from my previous posts that my husband and I have fairly eclectic tastes when it comes to food. I've mentioned sushi, fish, fresh produce. Our list of favorite home-cooked meals also includes panang, chicken pot pie from scratch, orange-marinated pork tenderloin, brie and salami on fresh baguettes... you get the picture. Since we've moved to Helena, we've eaten a lot of Hamburger Helper and turkey sandwiches.

There are three main grocery stores in Helena-West Helena. Wal-Mart Supercenter, Kroger, and Hays Grocery. Kroger and Hays both qualify as three-star businesses, although if I knew more about how they treat their employees one or both of them might be demoted to two stars. Kroger is a national chain, but individual locations may be run under franchise agreements. I haven't researched this issue, but I'm fairly sure the Kroger here is a franchise. Hays is a family-owned regional chain spread throughout eastern Arkansas.

In the three weeks we've lived here, my husband and I have developed a preference for Hays, even though the Kroger is within walking distance of our house. Neither store has everything that we shop for, but Hays has more of what we buy regularly than Kroger. For some reason, though, we can't seem to go to either store without spending about $80. And that $80 does not go as far as it does, say, in Kansas City. And, particularly after today's shopping expedition, I have begun to be concerned about the quality of food I'm getting.

Today the major items on my list were fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, chicken, and corn dogs for the Monkey. I left the store with no fresh vegetables, and some doubts about the fish, chicken, and corn dogs I had purchased. I was pleased to have found apples and oranges that seemed to be in good condition and at a good price. But when I got them home and put them away, I discovered rotten places on two of the oranges. I also saw that the apples I had so carefully inspected in the store were wrinkled and mushy on the bottoms.

The reason I left the store with no vegetables was because I refuse to pay $2+ per pound for in-season vegetables that look as though they've been sitting in the root cellar since last September. I'm not talking about blemished skins or the occasional pest. I've shopped organic before and I'm comfortable with produce that is less than pretty. These vegetables weren't organic. They were old.

Most troublesome, though, was my experience with the frozen meats. For some reason, Hays Grocery does not organize their merchandise so that, for example, all of the fish is in one section, all of the chicken in another section, and all of the corn dogs in another section. Instead, they have open coolers scattered throughout the store with a little bit of everything in each of them. This is not a problem in itself, so long as the coolers are in good working order. Apparently, though, some of the Hays coolers aren't able to cope with Arkansas summer. In three different coolers, I reached my hand in to grab purportedly frozen meat and came away with animal juices dripping down my elbow. In two coolers, bags of chicken had been stocked next to boxes of corn dogs. The chicken had thawed and the corn dogs were soaked in bloody chicken juices. I'm not a fan of having my stomach pumped, so I opted not to buy anything from that soggy melange. I did finally find three coolers of fish, chicken, and corn dogs respectively where everything seemed unthawed and properly sealed. I'm hoping it wasn't foolish of me to trust those appearances, because I did end up buying tilapia fillets, catfish nuggets, chicken breasts and thighs, and a box of corn dogs for my picky son.

So, this brings me to my dilemma. Clearly quality control is an issue in at least one of the more "local" groceries in my town. It could be that to stay in the black, the smaller grocery stores have to cut corners on things like replacing produce and maintaining the coolers. It could be that, because this town isn't on a major national thoroughfare, it is too expensive to have the supply trucks come very often. I don't know what the reason is. I don't know that a reason is necessary. Maybe my standards are just too high. I understood, on an academic level, that "shopping local" means accepting what is available locally and not judging it by the homogeneous national Supercenter-esque standards I'm accustomed to. Surely that doesn't mean eating rubbery squash in August, or chicken-soaked corn dogs any time of year?

What is the answer? I reported the leaky chicken to the manager. Could it be that it's just that no one has ever complained before? If I ask for fresher apples and oranges that haven't rotted in the bag, will someone at Hays have a Eureka moment? I don't know. Still not shopping at Wal-Mart. Memphis is looking more and more appealing.

Coke Habit

TODAYS RATING:
Total expenditures: $5.57
Made purchases at:

• Conoco gas station

A rainy Saturday, and almost a 5-star day simply because we were too lazy to get out of the house. But the rain cleared around 5:00, and my splitting headache told me it was time to buy groceries so that we could get some Coca-Cola in the house. After we had loaded in the car, we decided we would go exploring a bit before we got perishable items in the car. I was desperate for caffeine, though, so we stopped first at the convenience store. Two large fountain cokes for me and the husband (and fellow Coke addict), a caffeine-free root beer for the Monkey, two Moon Pies, and a Snickers later, and we were on our way.

As far as Saturday evening drives go, it was both pleasant and enlightening. We discovered most interesting elements of our beautiful, tragic town. An abandoned Coca-Cola bottling plant gone to seed. A marshy riverfront park on the other side of the levy. A little-maintained city park, complete with an empty pool, that made synapses fire like mad in this brain o' mine. By the time dusk fell, we were exhausted in that limp-limbed, done-nothing-all-day way. So, we put off grocery shopping until another day and went home.

Ready, Set, Launch

TODAYS RATING:
Total expenditures: $0.00

Off the Wal officially begins with this post. My husband, a brilliant and gifted designer, created this blog and posted "The First Post" shortly after we moved into our new home. Unfortunately, I was not as inspired as he, and so I've put off the finishing touches and my own first post until today.

Don't be fooled by the five-star rating. The temptation is great to make the hour drive to Memphis for some good sushi, or even to find a grocery store with a decent seafood department, an ethnic food section with something besides Ramen noodles and taco seasoning, and fresh produce that doesn't look like it was dragged here from California by a herd of camels.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. It is rather baffling, though, that in the Delta in August you can't get more wholesome-looking squash and tomatoes, and the potatoes (trucked in from Idaho) are $3 per bag. I wouldn't complain about the Idaho potatoes if the cotton t-shirts had "Made in Helena" stamped on them, but we're not even using the local resources we've got. You can occasionally find someone selling garden vegetables from a pickup truck, at least. So, before I rush off to Memphis (which we can't afford to do right now anyway), I will ask the manager at Hay's grocery to please stock fresh salmon, and plan to bring back some Gulf seafood when we visit the family in Mobile.

In my imagination, the produce section at the Wal-Mart Supercenter is a vision of vivid primary colors and unblemished vegetable flesh, and the fish department stocks mahi-mahi steaks and fillets. But, while the long highway to Memphis beckons alluringly, I am not tempted to patronize Wal-Mart to satisfy my urban cravings. The catfish here, at least, is plentiful and fresh.

The first post.

TODAYS RATING:
Today, I shopped at

• Fred's (national chain),
• ACE Hardware (locally owned national franchise), and
• Kroger (regional franchise supermarket).

I should note that I also went to a locally owned furniture store, but they didn't have what I needed and sent me to ACE Hardware. Their first suggestion was that I try Wal-Mart, of course.