Exciting News!!!

Right next door to the office where I work a new Hispanic Market opened up, they have fresh produce at a very affordable price!!! Today I purchased beautiful fresh and firm red & yellow bell peppers for .50 cents a piece, limes @ 7 for $1.00, 5 huge garlic bulbs for $1.00!!! They just opened and he promised that he will be getting more varieties!!! I am so excited about being able to purchase veggies on a daily basis and the sheer convienience of it just over-whelms me. I hope they do a tremendous business so they will not go out of business. I am going to tell all my friends and neighbors

Then on the other side of that store is a Bakery / Deli and this morning when I took out the trash I noticed in the cardboard box bin was a box that read Frozen Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough! How horrible, they should be ashamed they charge 2 prices for their cookies! I have been wondering because I never SMELL them frying doughnuts and they have cases full of them so I guess their stuff is all frozen and not made from scratch. When one of our Agents retired we bought him a farewell cake from them and it was the most lousy cake I ever tasted. Wal-Mart puts out a better tasting cake!!! And they do not even offer the whipped icing, it is all this greasy tatseless butter cream crap that is strictly for show only They make a pretty decent sandwich but charge you 3 prices for it.

I can see who will be winning my loyalty between the 2 businesses!!!

That hispanic market sounds wonderful!
At Walmart for 5 heads of garlic I pay about $3.
Bell peppers are outrageous at the store.

I know Janie I could not believe it, I just kept running back over there and was telling all the people who came in our office to go check it out!!! I should be in the advertising business

Peppers here, Red and green bells, 2.89lb. What's a pound of large peppers, maybe 1, possibly 2. Fifty cents a piece was a great price.

The Ironic Chef said:

Peppers here, Red and green bells, 2.89lb. What's a pound of large peppers, maybe 1, possibly 2. Fifty cents a piece was a great price.

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You got that right! I was elated, I am so hopeful it isn't just some kind of low prices since he is just opening, and then WHAM he'll stick the REAL prices on after a few weeks!

The Ironic Chef said:

Peppers here, Red and green bells, 2.89lb. What's a pound of large peppers, maybe 1, possibly 2. Fifty cents a piece was a great price.

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Same price here. Occasionally you can get the green ones on sale for .99

I do most of my shopping at Aldi's which some know is a discount chain that is one of those box-your-own type of joints. Some of their stuff is substandard but much of it's darned fine, too! And the prices are almost always the absolute cheapest in town.

At one time I did most my shopping at Wal-Mart, but I've greatly reduced what I spend there over a couple years because I take issue w/ a lot of their neglected corporate citizenship duties and other political crap... I love Kroger's- but like janie says- they're just too high for me to shop at on a regular basis.

I love those little markets - and you can always find better produce with better prices than you can with any chain!

Wish we had one here!

Cook Chatty Cathy said:

Right next door to the office where I work a new Hispanic Market opened up, they have fresh produce at a very affordable price!!! Today I purchased beautiful fresh and firm red & yellow bell peppers for .50 cents a piece, limes @ 7 for $1.00, 5 huge garlic bulbs for $1.00!!! They just opened and he promised that he will be getting more varieties!!! I am so excited about being able to purchase veggies on a daily basis and the sheer convienience of it just over-whelms me. I hope they do a tremendous business so they will not go out of business. I am going to tell all my friends and neighbors

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I don't think the prices will change, those Hispanic markets are always cheaper. We had one open up near me a couple of years ago. They have all kinds of stuff, spices, produce and fresh meats really cheap. The first time I went there I tried to hide my glee as I filled up my shopping cart. I go there quite a bit now.

If I had to bet, I'd bet Jfain is right.

Ethnic markets tend to be less expensive than supermarkets. Always strikes me as strange, because you'd expect it to be the other way around.

They also tend to have better, fresher produce than their big cousins. In short, you get better quality stuff for less money. What could be better.

You might make a point of learning when they take deliveries, too. For instance, our local Asian market gets its produce on Thursdays. So Thursday afternoon and Friday is the best time to shop if you can arrange it.

Thanks Brook, I will make a point of it!!! I was sure happy at my purchases yesterday. Even ate the best Mango I have tasted in years that I bought there!

Well I really think they mean to sell their products to other Asians or Hispanics. I don’t think it’s their intension to sell it anywhere else. I think that’s why they keep the prices low. More like it was in the old country. If it happens then ok but they aren’t really looking for a racially diverse clientele. I think they for the most part do only get their own ethnic group shopping there because when I walk into the Asian market all 5’10” of me they STARE! They don’t even try to play it cool they just look straight up at me and gawk. I get a similar reaction in the Hispanic grocery. I don’t mind though. I think it’s funny.

Jfain, that sort of thing stops when you become a regular.

When we walk in to the Asian market where we shop we're greeted with a smile and a how are you?

Been my experience that this is true with any ethnic market. When I was growing up there was a small Italian store nearby, and I often saw how their was a coldness towards strangers. But that passed if you shoped there regularly.

In addition, learning a few words of the language helps.

Interesting observations. I enjoy conversations comparing experiences like these...

As someone born & raised in a tiny farmtown w/ pretty much zero cultural diversity- imagine the looks I have gotten over the years on trips back home (where I now live near, again) when doing business in such places w/ friends and sometimes dates of color and various ethnicities (not to mention- the same sex as I) at my side. (insert "Ha!" here, if need be!)

I should say too- I've never in my life anywhere experienced rudeness/harrassment (nor worse- though many have and do) thankfully- but the stares are sometimes there. Doesn't necessarily bother me, per se... but it is noticed.

I cannot imagine the difficulty of being treated rudely or worse due to my skin color- or whatever else... by anyone- especially the majority. The discomfort must be a real & terrible burden. I know some things still occur as isolated incidents in certain places- all over, really, but I'm glad I didn't live in an era where widepsread, blatant misbehavior was the accepted norm- even for "good n' "regular" folks.

When a simple smile, or a welcoming gesture brings comfort, relief, or feelings of safety- I'm not sure if what that says is "good" or not. I've never been comfortable w/ seperation- no matter whose turf it's on. Even when I was as young as 5, I sensed a wrongness in some of the things I grew up hearing back then- I don't know what it is that makes some people adopt those behaviors and attitudes- versus those 5 yr. olds that reject them as wrong. I guess some just don't have that fear and mistrust of difference, that for others seems almost natural.

I choose to find interest in it and try and pick it apart and analyze it- rather than critique it- which isn't always easy to do. Afterall, it doesn't all come from a mean or hateful place- though if left unbridled, can definitely go there quickly.

Anyway, interesting stuff...

One thing to understand, Kevin, is that despite what the sociologists and bleeding hearts insist, people do want to be with those of like kind.

There's an automatic comfort level living with those of your own kind, and the oppostie living with strangers who are different: they eat different foods, and worship in different churches, and wear weird clothes.

The fact is that we were never the "great melting pot" of legend. Look at the history of our immigration patterns. What we had were cities composed of ethnic neighborhoods: Chinatown, and Little Italy, and Germantown, and Spanish Harlem, and.....well, you get the idea. This has continued even today.

Back in the 50s and 60s, when bussing was an issue, what did we immediately see in the "integrated" schools? The blacks tended to group with each other anyway, and the whites with the whites.

This didn't necessarily reflect racisim, but, rather, a clear-cut (and recognizable pattern to everyone except liberals) cultural imperative that we've always followed. Our loyalties go, in this order, to: ourselves, our family, our tribe, our nation.

Of itself, this is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. It just is.

I get what you're saying Brook- I do. And it's not that I'm arguing, challenging or disputing your eloquent explanation...

But, I've heard this from many folks all my life. And I know it must be true for some- or once was. But it hasn't been my personal experience. So it's at best a partial preference, for a partial number of us. We've probably all even known those who flee'd like hell from folks of our own kind! Not to mention the countless mixed marriages, and blended bloodlines/multiple skin tones resulting from draws to those different than ourselves.

When I walk into a mall, or a school cafeteria, or a new workplace with three hundred people sitting in a room- I don't seek out other white, fat, gay guys with thinning hair, eating chicken thighs & spaghetti-o's... Ha! I've more often been drawn to folks different than I- and many in my acquaintance have similar experiences that way.

I don't think there's a right or wrong- or a preferred. And as you offer- I see less harm in it, less mean-ness in it than some would have us believe. But I dig a table of diverse folks- I would be no more comfortable with a group of all-white, casserole-toting mid-westerners in a church basement, than I was w/ a gaggle of Eskimos, Koreans and Hispanics at work-camps up north.

I guess we all simply do our best to work within our various zones of comfort... and hopefully folks are always trying to widen those cirlces...

So there's a certain amount of logic to your position- though I don't think it's as wide-spread as maybe it once was- with as many as it used to be. Or maybe I'm just totally whacko in my perceptions...

And then there is me.....I go to this market where I am the only one there that's a non-hispanic and I shop and get excited and speak broken spanish to every one and am in my typical jovial mood and BINGO, even the cashier is chatting away as she checks my pruchases. I have found that most folks no matter what walk of life they come from just get a lift out of being around a smiling happy face, and a smile is contagious If I get some stares or there is some sour puss that doesn't like it as far as I am concerned he can take a flying leap...... no matter what their race creed or color! And believe it or not almost everywhere I shop the owners love me and look out for me too, and lead me to the real bargains!

I am really glad you have such a cool place to shop Cathy. The stores in this town are so bad. They had baby zucchini at the store here in town yesterday. Unfortunately they were so soft you could put your finger through them and so were the cucumbers.

jglass said:

I am really glad you have such a cool place to shop Cathy. The stores in this town are so bad. They had baby zucchini at the store here in town yesterday. Unfortunately they were so soft you could put your finger through them and so were the cucumbers.

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I've always found it so curious that when you actually live in farm country you can't get decent produce?? That just boggles me but it's true most of the time. I can understand it now because not much is growing just yet but in the summer I would think you should be able to get all kinds of great produce. Not true. My family who lives very close to you in Wheelersburg Ohio has the same problem. They have to grow their own.

I am so looking forward to the farmers market opening up the end of June.
I was so disappointed over those zucchini. I saw them from a distance and had already had plans on how to cook them before I got close enough to see how bad they were. Their parsley has black spots on it there all of the time. It is the bigger of the two stores here in town. It is a Foodland and they should be ashamed of what they put of there for sale. They laughed at me once when I asked them to go into the back and see if they had fresher greens for my pet rabbit because what they had out there had mold on it. I told them in not uncertain terms I wasnt feeding my pet any veg I would want myself and I told the produce jerk what I thought of his selection.