long day, and it's only 3pm

I think I'm gonna go take a nap.

Gardening

I planted another round of seedlings:

• bell peppers, scrounged last year from peppers we ate. No idea what these will do.
• tomatoes, three varieties. One leftover heirloom breed from last year, and two hybrids.
• squash, two varieties
• cucumbers, two varieties
• more lettuce
• corn
• I forget the rest but it's on my garden planning sheet

Following the SFG model the tall/vertical/viney stuff is furthest away from the sun with shorter stuff in front of it. Alternated species instead of planting near each other to limit disease and bugs.

Composting

Tore down one of my composting bins for delivery to the (very kind and lovely) MIL. Will throw that in the truck next time we go to see her. Chickens were Big Helpers, which is to say they stood on top of the pile and kicked it everywhere but where you wanted it. They got pretty brave working around the hoe.

Tore down an active pile and sifted the compost before restacking/wetting the remaining big stuff. The filtered/finished compost was fine and clean-smelling, though both are difficult to judge from this pic. About 20# worth.

I learned this sifting trick from composting master Rob. I might make a two-tiered autosifter like he built. Maybe chicken wire for sifting the big stuff and hardware cloth or something for the smaller stuff?

Lucid Puppy 5.2.5

Upgraded the eee netbook to puppy 5.2.5.

Grocery shopping

Trip to Aldi. Completely full basket was less than $90. Put the groceries in the back of the truck (on the cargo platform I cobbled together quickly) and it worked out great.

Review: aldi's

I went to the grand opening on monday but we couldn't buy anything then. Slagel, Townshend, and a couple other local bigwigs were there IIRC.

Went back today to spend some of the household grocery budget. Bought a few things (maria cookies, some of those little faux filet mignon, some tp, etc, but the place was so hammered with people blocking the aisles that it wasn't much fun. Aldi's really needs those small carts like Central Market.

Staff was pleasant and some of the prices were sub-walmart aggressive. The rest were roughly on par with WM. I think I would like to have an Aldi's within walking distance.

churchmouse indicator

Each podcast episode of the (highly recommended) NPR Planet Money podcast starts out with a Planet Money Indicator, an isolated numerical datapoint.

For example, the most recent indicator went like this: "85,000. This is the net number of jobs the economy lost in Dec 2009." They briefly put the indicator in context then start the real podcast.

As I was putting away the two small bags of carefully selected, heavily couponed and compared groceries I bought today I noticed my own indicator, hereafter known as a churchmouse indicator. We have one of the dispensers that holds plastic grocery bags so you can reuse them around the house. For the several years we've owned it it's been so crammed full that we've recycled the bags that would not fit. There are holes on the side of the dispenser that let you pull bags out. There are 8 holes top to bottom. In the past it was full up beyond all eight holes. For the past few months the dispenser fill level has been falling and is now at 1.5 holes. This suggests that the stuff we buy in plastic grocery bags has fallen about 80%.

That sounds about right. That's analagous to the decline in my income in 2009 compared to 2008. I've bet my mortgage (and marital bliss) on my confidence that I can get a teaching job, be an effective teacher, and return to a semi-normal income. So far that confidence has not been justified but we're not yet starving. Perhaps this is The Universe teaching me how to be more in tune with the kids whose families are, financially, treading water.

Further Reading: PM's iPod index and Big Mac index.

Review: Fiesta @ Plano/Buckingham

This is the location where there was a Sack 'n Save before. It'd been empty for a while so I was glad to see someone leasing the space.

The Grand Opening banner was still up and there was a small festival-type setup with a bounce house, etc, in the SE corner of the lot. The PA at the festival was pumping some groovy reggaeton dance tracks.

While I was finding a parking spot the Dear Wife commented that there was a rather serious looking SWAT-style security dudester walking the lot. He had that "tacticool" look I mock most of the time, but he had good situational awareness and handled himself professionally when I spoke with him briefly on our way out later. Thumbs up.

Upon entering the store the first thing I noticed was the polished concrete floors; I love that. Low maintenance, simple, honest, and pretty in a steampunk sorta way. Tortilla station front and center; the tortillas were still warm in the package I picked up. Produce section next in line, and this is (for me) the highlight of a Mexican grocery visit. Grabbed some limes (12/$1) and some kind of pear-shaped squash I can't identify.

The meat section had good-looking meat but I didn't get any today; we weren't going straight home afterwards. I did stop at the cheese shop and bought some queso de Oxaca, which was [mis?]labeled weirdly. When I asked for it by the labeled name (in my cringeworthy Spanish) the counterlady said "Oxaca?" Si, gracias, that's the one. I also picked up some queso de puerco (ie, head cheese) which I've always been fascinated with but never tried. This particular example is highly cartilegenous, so I assume it's mainly snout and ear. Should make a decent sandwich in my brown bag rotation.

Had to look for the bakery area to snag some pan dulce. A so-so display, but I picked up a gingerbread pig cookie. There were two kind of churros; plain and some word I didn't recognize. I picked the latter and since the churros were unexpectedly full of something (dulce de leche?) I will assume the word meant "filled". Wasn't bad but I prefer the plain ones as they are crispier.

The aisle signs were in English only, which seems kinda counterproductive (and maybe rude) if your target consumers are Hispanic. Maybe the bilingual or Spanish ones will go up later. Most of the (young and Latino) checkout staff spoke English among themselves for the most part when no one was in the lane. That brings me to a tip for the timid: if you are trying out a new shop where you don't speak the language, get in the checkout line with the youngest checker. S/he will likely move fluidly between English and the language of the market. Older checkers may be more fun as you gain confidence as they will likely help you with pronunciation and vocabulary if you are trying. The younger kids will just stick to English to get you through the line faster so they can text or play grab-ass.

So how does it compare to El Rancho? Rancho is an experience, an adventure. From the giant wall of pan dulce when you walk in to the tropical-looking food stands inside it scores high on the cultural richter scale. The new Fiesta is a grocery store, neat, clean, and a little boring. It happens to have Mexican food on the shelves but otherwise it could be an Albertsons or something. I find El Rancho more satisfying but it's too far away to become my go-to.




Fiesta Mart
1332 S Plano Rd
Richardson, TX 75081 Map
(972) 994-4300

el rancho puerco

Can't remember if I've raved about El Rancho market up on Coit/SpringValley before or not. Short version: if you've never been to a Mexican groceria before this is your nudge to do so.

How could you resist a place that merchandises the chorizo in their meat department as shown?

Anyhow, the lunch counter is great, fruits/vegetables are cheap, the "homemade" menudo is great in it's tripey squidigness, the pan dulces display is great, the cheese counter is great, and the meat counter looks great but I haven't tried it yet other than to stumble through ordering some fresh chicharones.

Fair and Balanced: a decent Walmart, plus a kosher market

Ok, I was a little rough on Walmart in the previous post. So I thought I'd show'em some love.

I like the Walmart Neighborhood market on the east side of Coit between Belt Line and Arapaho. No big box stuff, only groceries and related gear. The selection is about normal (decent) and the price is about normal (good-to-great) but the overall ambience is really why you would go. It's like walmart and Whole Foods had a baby.

Quiet, not crowded, and good prices. If it weren't on the other side of town from me it might be my go-to grocery.

BTW, the my Chinese connection at work (Speaks Cantonese) says that Tong's, which shares the same parking lot and was thought to be the best authentic Chinese food in the north Dallas area, has sold and lost its luster. :-(


Also in the same parking lot is a relative newcomer, the Milk and Honey Jewish market. A small market full of kshr goods, it also has a lunch counter. I bought some tea and crackers there. Picked up a QBLH newsletter and chatted a bit with the cashier. Turns out his brother owns the place. I'd like to stop in and have lunch some time. The bad pic above is an attempt to show where Milk and Honey is.

Speaking of kshr, my recent forays into Arabic markets has introduced me to halal, which seems to be ritually pure food for Muslims the way that KSHR food is for Jewish folks. I ate some halal marshmallows; they were better-than-average but also cost about 3x as much as a bag of Kraft marshmallows would.

Now that's a pretty good digression. Walmart to halal marshmallows in about 5 minutes.