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2001.november.28 ---------------- yesterday, to make potato soup with ellen, i had to run to the store for some butter. i tried the little place three doors away, but the only dairy they had was a gallon of milk and a lot of chihuahua and ranchorito cheese. so i walked down the block to pete's, which had three or four kinds of vegetable oil spread, but no butter. so i bought some imperial margarine, pouting. i ate enough vegetable spread when i was vegan, and have recently discovered the joys of butter. why don't any of the stores near me carry the real deal? maybe next time i'll check los artistas. 2001.november.27 ---------------- somehow, i've gathered enough permalinks to justify putting up a links page. 2001.november.25 ---------------- this weekend i needed some lemonade to mix with my jack, but it was after nine, and pete's was closed. so we walked to los artistas, west instead of east, where i was pleasantly surprised to find they sell lemonade by the two liter. 2001.november.21 ---------------- After yesterday's beast of an all-day feast, i'm posting a couple recipes: the (s)mashed potatoes and atomly's recipe for bbq seitan. 2001.november.20 ---------------- last night, while making mashed potatoes, i needed to buy soy margarine for the vegan batch and milk (yuck) for the regular batch. so i ran to jimenez to pick up the necessary items, thinking pete's might not carry soy margarine. i think milk is gross and don't usually purchase it, but decided this would be an interesting opportunity to compare jimenez to the chicago food basket. this is a pretty neat sight run by the city of chicago, where "every week [department of consumer services] investigators visit 24 large chain, mid-size and small grocery stores throughout the city to record the prices of items that include bread, milk, orange juice, eggs, peanut butter, meat and cereal." the most recent data they had posted was for the week of november 8th. i paid $2.69 for a gallon of dean's skim milk; the site reports that to be two cents below the average price, with the most expensive gallon ringing in at $3.45 and the cheapest at $1.79. neat! 2001.november.19 ---------------- on saturday damien took me to family fruit market, up by milwaukee and cicero. yeah that place is great! the produce selection wasn't as cheap as stanley's, but it was much more diverse and just generally of higher quality. they also have a lot of imported groceries that i was way too tempted to stock up on. but what kicks ass about family fruit market is their deli. i didn't let myself fully explore the possibilities, but i'm sure ellen and i will be going back to scope more thoroughly, especially since i haven't found a good place to buy meat yet. the deli had two kinds of fresh mozzarella, a big loaf and medium-sized balls. i got the latter format, for about half of what i'm used to paying for it, and it was the best fresh mozzarella i've found in this city so far. i had to make salad caprese two days in a row, it was that good. other stuff i got:     + a bag of vanilla almond coffee     + 1 can of goya garbonzos     + 4 plum tomatoes     + a 10 pound bag of potatoes     + some fresh basil     + 6 balls of fresh mozzarella total: $15.25 the extra potatoes are for our company thanksgiving dinner tomorrow afternoon. i'll be mashin' them up tonight in two batches: regular and vegan (with margarine and rice dream instead of butter and milk). 2001.november.14 ---------------- yesterday, on the way to have dinner with old roommates, smellen and i stopped in at the hyde park coop. i used to shop at this place all the time when i lived two blocks from it, but it's been over a year and a half, and my grocery habits have changed since then, so it was quite the excursion. there are several coops in hyde park and no real corporate grocery stores; however, the coop we went to yesterday has always felt more corporate and less coop-y to me, since it's more expensive and members only get discounts on a dozen or so days each year. they do have an impressive stock of vegan eats: tons of tofu, seitan, tempeh, vegan cheese, rice and soy milk, etc., and also sell alcohol. we only made it halfway through the store, thus missing the deli, which i remember being pretty kick ass. i got:     + a bottle of bordeaux     + 2 boxes vanilla enriched rice dream     + a bag of potatoes     + bag of spinach     + fancy wafer cookies     + a bag of split peas (to make soup with)     + 1 can of beefaroni     + 1 can of chunky soup (sirloin burger)     + a big thing of miso paste     + a big thing of laundry detergent     + a tofu block-sized thing of seitan total: $40.46 the wine and detergent were both high-end items, and i had a couple splurges, but i still felt like i was paying more. it felt corporate. while there, i found myself comparison shopping with pete's, or jimenez, both of which beat the hyde park coop every time, sometimes by 20-30%. afterwards, we enjoyed a lovely lasagna dinner and lobster pot salad as prepared by tonette and julian. thanks, guys! next time, it's our turn. 2001.november.12 ---------------- sunday morning began with my roommate, mandy, bringing home a whole bunch of baked goods from this bakery by the california el stop that i've been meaning to check out: panadaria la central. she got five pastries, two cookies, and a loaf of bread for under three dollars. looks like i'll be stopping by there after work sometime this week! 2001.november.07 ---------------- this isn't really grocery-related, but it's food-related, and a good resource that i'd like to see grow, so i'm blogging it: jen's vegan in chicago page. it would've been nice to have a resource like this when i was vegan. 2001.november.06 ---------------- i put up the recipe for pizza quesadillas, my newest what-food-do-i-have-to-eat-i'm-h000ngry invention. 2001.november.05 ---------------- yesterday afternoon we possied up and went to maxwell street market (now on canal) where you can get pretty much anything, as long as you can find it. as far as markets go, maxwell street has to be my favourite. there's so much stuff that's so obviously stolen, or shitty, and awesome, so much junk and randomness among which you can find amazing bargains and unique pieces, if the time is taken to look. i got some good ripe tomatoes for salad caprese, dryer sheets, ground cinnamon from the spice lady, TUBE SOCKS, churros (plain and strawberry), and a brown ski jacket. other people i was with bought stuff, including a talking master p. doll, telephone cord, a bag of dried mangoes, harry potter sheets, lemon pepper, a tray of lighters, armor all car wipes, and mexican coca cola in a glass bottle. because of maxwell street, i'm adding a markets section to the reference of shops i frequent. 2001.november.02 ---------------- check out the recipes page. 2001.november.01 ---------------- so i finally found out the name of the little store four doors down: carniceria y fruteria roman. both light bulbs in my closet burned out, so i ducked in there to get some. no luck: eight feet or so of prayer candles but no light bulbs. at least i remembered to spot its name on my way to pete's, which had about forty feet of prayer candles (and the light bulbs). past months are now archived.