I like to park far away

Opposite of those people of questionable character who borrow grandma's handicap permit so that they can park in the reserved spot closest to the grocery store, I like to park very far away.

More space around my car, and fewer vehicles zooming around me, makes it easier to get in and out of the parking lot, get my son in and out of the car seat, and get packages in and out of the back. It also reduces the chances of my car being damaged by someone else, and gives me a little more exercise. All in all, it's great. Why doesn't everyone try to park as far away as possible?

But I often get frustrated by returning the cart. Many stores only have cart returns right up near the store. COSTCO and Whole Foods fall into this category. I end up needing to backtrack a pretty significant distance to return the cart. Clearly, a lot of folks don't even bother as a lot of abandoned carts are handing out near back near the far end of the lot. When it's just me, I don't mind. But if I've got my toddler with me, he has a low attention span for this activity, which makes it much harder to accomplish.

See that Cart return WAY far away?

Here's where I need to give Giant some credit; they put cart returns very far back. I can park very far away, and still have a cart return in easy distance.

Thanks, Giant!

Actually Reusing the Reusable Bags

Very interesting article here about re-usable bags from the grocery store, and how the large stores are starting to invest money in helping the customer to remember to bring them into the store. I actually like this idea. If you forget your bags in the car, and it is raining or cold or you have the baby, you just are NOT going to go back.

Thoughts, anyone? Or is the 5-cent discount more valuable to folks?

Campbell's Soup and Salt: Mmmm-Mmmmmm Good

Just about two years ago, I carefully compared several brands of Chicken & Stars and then complained loudly that there was too much salt in them. Apparently, I am not the only one who is comparing salt content between products. And four New Jersey women have decided to do a lot more than complain about the salt; they are suing Campbell's over salt content and deceptive advertising.

My official Campbell's Mug

This is a very interesting case. Campbell's is technically correct: their claims are accurate when put into context. i.e., When you add a few more words to the claim, to clarify what is being compared, it is correct.  But what the NJ gals are saying is also correct: a reasonable consumer when faced with two Campbell's Tomato soups -- side by side -- are going to make the assumptive leap that the 25% is comparing Tomato Soup A (Regular Tomato Soup) to Tomato Soup B (25% Less Sodium Tomato Soup).

I am not a fan of lawsuits -- they are a giant money pit that usually don't accomplish anything more than give people more reason to go to law school and raise prices for everyone.  I find myself wondering if the women contacted Campbell's first. Did they write letters? Call? Ask nicely for a change? Or did they jump right to litigation with claims of Consumer Fraud? It's very interesting to me that the four women are from New Jersey, and that is where Campbell's Headquarters is located.  I'd like more background about this case, but after numerous web searches today I can not find anything more than about 20 different spins on the same basic headline. If anyone has more background, I'd love a comment or link.

In search of the Rare and Elusive Salmon Bean Soup

My husband is allergic to shellfish. And so is his sister. And so was his grandmother. So you can imagine that not much shellfish is served in our house. The frustrating part is that all of them developed the allergy in their teen years, so they remember the awesome taste of lobster and crab and in particular a hearty bowl of clam chowder.

So, I am on a constant mission to find substitutes for clam chowder.

After a stop to the Chowder House in Portland, Maine, for example, I worked tirelessly to perfect my own version of a shellfish-free, cream-based fish chowder.

We had also fallen in love with a White Bean Salmon Chowder the Whole Foods Market made and sold back near the fish counter. However, we noticed a year or so ago that we never saw it anymore. Finally, I asked some folks at our store. No one really knew what I was talking about; no one seemed to remember the chowder. Then finally one guy thought he remembered them getting it pre-made from a company called 'Sea Bear'.


So, armed with this information, I sat down to type.

First, I wrote to Whole Foods, asking them about the chowder.

• I received confirmation almost immediately via email from Nadeem that their Commissary used to make 'Salmon & White Bean Soup' but that it was no longer made. She noted that it was hard to share a recipe when you make batches so large, but that she'd see what she could do.
• Within a day I then received an email from Jay at the Springfield Seafood Department. He noted that the recipe contained the following ingredients and hoped this would help me: 
  Northern bean cooked, traditional hummus (whoa, really? I would never have guessed this!), water, Canned tomato, salmon wild coho, onion, celery, Base fish, Food starch, garlic, salt, parsley, seafood seasoning, dill herb, & black pepper 

At the same time, I located Sea Bear's website and also wrote to them:

• Within a day, I heard from Charly who noted that she would be checking with her manager about my question.
• About a day later, she wrote me back with another response:
  
  
  
  I checked with my manager regarding your question. She says that it is possible they may have used one of our soup bases that we have from Gerard and Dominique, but most likely added their own ingredients to the soup.
  
  
  We do offer Smoked Salmon Chowder and our Spicy White Bean soup. Both are very delicious. You are welcome to try them free of the shipping charge. You would need to call and place the order over the phone and speak with me or place your order online and call us with the order number so we may remove your shipping charges. All of our products are backed by our Fisherman’s Guarantee. If for any reason you are not thrilled with our products, we will either refund you or send you something else.
   
• I decided to take them up on their offer, so I called and we walked over the ingredients together. As it turned out, the Spicy White Bean soup had a clam rather than a fish base, and there were big flags on their records saying to point this out to customers requesting fish rather than shellfish products. She noted that they were working to reformulate the recipe to drop the clam. So I decided to try the Salmon Chowder.
• I now have 2 paks of the Chowder on my shelf, waiting for a cold, rainy day.

In a world of rotten customer service, I wanted to give a shout-out to both Whole Foods and Sea Bear. They both went above and beyond to help me on my quest, even though it was not at all certain that such help would result in any type of sale. I'm left with a nice warm feeling -- not unlike that feeling that a good, hot, chowder leaves behind -- after my interactions with both of them. Can't wait to do business with them, again.

Hunting for a Tea Leaf in a hay stack

I adore Celestial Seasonings Madagascar Vanilla Red Tea, and I just ran out of it.

I went to my local Giant grocery store, where I had bought it before. Not there. I tried Whole Foods Market. No luck. Sigh.

So I tried their website. Celestial Seasonings has one of the most amazing product pages ever.

Not only is the design attractive, with a big photo of the product, it has a search that tells me exactly where to find the product AND links to use to tell Celestial if the product isn't there. Wow! Great Website design!

And if you aren't near any of those stores, you can buy online from Celestial Seasonings (or from our friends at Amazon, of course.) 

Best Mac & Cheese EVER

From the time I was little, I never liked Mac & Cheese. It seemed like a great concept -- I love cheese and I love noodles -- but it always tasted gritty to me. Yuck.

I decided to give Mac & Cheese another go now that I've got a toddler. So, I went to the store and randomly grabbed a few brands. I started to try each one. Yuck, yuck, yuck ... WAIT. One of them tasted good. GREAT, in fact. I pondered the box and suddenly realized the difference. The one that I liked was WHITE CHEDDAR, not standard yellow.  I experimented with several brands that do white cheddar and found them to be universally great.


With  this new found knowledge, I spent some time studying every type of macaroni product on the shelves. I was intrigued by a white cheddar & broccoli one that I saw, but I wasn't intrigued by the extra cost or the extra salt content. Then it occurred to me ... I bet I can make this myself.

Thus was born my toddlers absolute favorite lunch food, that I munch right along side of him. All you need on hand is your favorite brand of white cheddar mac & cheese (I like Annie's Homegrown Shells & White Cheddar, 6-Ounce Boxes (Pack of 24)) and some broccoli (we get a giant bag of frozen broccoli from COSTCO, so that we can just reach in and grab some).

1.  Boil the Water
2. Toss in the Broccoli, first
3. Then toss in the Pasta once the water is back to a boil
4. Boil for however many minutes the pasta calls for
5. Then mix in the cheese sauce, taking care to break up the broccoli as you mix

All Done! Instant, delicious lunch!

Costco Rotisserie Chicken to the Rescue!

Costco has some really great deals, but nothing probably as great as its rotisserie chicken.

For just about $5, you get a tasty roasted chicken that is hormone free. So, you can just pick it up and have a quick chicken meal, or use it to make chicken salad or some other dish.

THEN, you can toss the carcass into a crock pot, simmer it for 12 hours, and get about 12 cups of great stock to use for soups. If you bought stock in the store, this would probably cost you between $5-$10. So, it makes the chicken even MORE economical.

I must admit that while I do love baking my own chicken, you really can not beat a rotisserie for most occasions. Anyone else do creative meal prep with pre-cooked chicken?

Hard Core Cider: Thumbs up for Caring

My husband and I have been drinking Hard Core Cider pretty much since the first day it went on sale, over a decade ago. We love it best on tap, at the Maryland Rennfest, but as that is only available in the autumn each year, we also drink it from the bottle.

Bottled Hard Core is typically almost as crisp and refreshing as from the tap. But a few months ago we got 3 six-packs in a row that were 'flat'. UGH.

I wanted to write the company and give them the bottle numbers, but I couldn't find a website at all. I did, however, track down their parent, Boston Beer Company. So, I sent a note to their general contact form.

No response.
For several weeks.

THEN, I opened a letter in the mail, hand-written by the brewer, apologizing for the flat bottles. He sent us a check, and asked us to please try again.

WOW! We sure will! We're waiting a little bit to make sure that the flat ones are 'off the shelves' so to speak, then we'll be back for more! Kudos to you, Boston Beer!

Nutro Cat Food Recall

For all you cat owners out there ... Nutro Dry Food Recall.

Waging War against Sodium: Chicken & Stars

Once upon a time, salt was a precious and rare commodity. It was so valuable that skilled workers were sometimes paid in salt, thus making them 'worth their salt.'

NOW, however, salt is so plentiful that we are practically swimming in it. As I have mentioned before, too much salt makes people in my family feel AWFUL, so I am constantly on the lookout for it. This vigilance is now translating to my choice of foods for my 1-year old son. If I was the perfect Mom, I suppose I'd make all his food from scratch. But as I work part time, I need to buy some of it.

As he is transitioning to 'real' foods now, I am starting to study the labels more, and I am HORRIFIED at the amount of salt.

DRI (Daily Recommended Intake) Charts show Adequate Intakes (AIs) at approximately 370 mg for a 6-12 month old and then they jump to 1000 mg for 1-3 year old. Note: These numbers vary based on the reference you are using. The Dietary Reference Intake Chart of the USDA seems like one of the best references [For those of you saying 'Hey, what happened to RDA?', this new DRI reference apparently replaced the plain old RDAs in the late 1990s.]

So, armed with this data, I headed to the grocery store in search of Chicken and Pasta Stars. I found 3 items to try:

• Beech Nut Let's Grow MiniMeals: Chicken & Stars
• Gerber Graduates for Toddlers: Microwavable Meals: Pasta Stars with Chicken & Vegetables
• Campbells Soup: Chicken & Stars (25% Less Sodium)

Here is how they compare:

	Beech Nut	Gerber	Campbells
Serving Size	6 oz	6 oz	4 oz
Salt per Serving	160 mg (27 mg/oz)	400 mg (67 mg/oz)	480 mg (120 mg/oz)
Cost per Serving	$1.33	$1.29	$.40
Taste	Tasty	Tasty	Watery, Salty

I gave up on Campbells a long time ago; they just have too much salt for my genes. That leaves Beech Nut and Gerber for me to write to.

I won't bore you with my correspondence to Beech Nut. I told them how fabulous they were, and thanked them for so little salt, and they wrote back that they were very pleased to hear this and wouldn't I like some coupons? Sure, awesome.

My email to Gerber was not as kind:

I am starting to look past Stage 3 foods as my baby is just turning 12 months tomorrow. I have begun to read the nutrition labels on your Graduates line of products and I am HORRIFIED at the sodium content. What are you thinking? The current USDA Dietary Reference Intake Charts put the intake of sodium for a 12-month old at approximately 400-600 mg PER DAY, but your product has that much in just one serving! So unless all he eats the rest of the day is water and raw fruits/vegetables, he is going to get too much salt. Why are you putting so much sodium into your products? I just compared your product with the new Beech Nut Let's Grow line and their nutritional content is much better in this respect.

Here is their response:

Our 3rd Foods™ and Graduates® lines are designed for children approaching one year of age or older. At this point, most children are being exposed to table foods which contain more seasoning. The amount of salt added is very carefully controlled so that the level of sodium in these products is considerably less than comparable adult products. These items are intended to bridge the transition period between a diet of baby foods and foods solely from the family table. Although the sodium content may appear high at first glance, it is important to remember this includes both added salt and the naturally occurring sodium in the ingredients.

Here is what I don't understand; I poured over the Gerber and Beech Nut labels. They have the same ingredients, they both are tasty, and they have similar shelf-lives. So why does Gerber have over double the salt? I don't understand it at all. You've lost me, Gerber, you've lost me.

Happy Kinkling Day!

'Kinklings' are special raised, deep-fried doughnuts, and are made practically as many different ways as there are different cooks. There seem to be different varieties of them all over Europe. I have experienced them as a German/Dutch tradition that has come across the Pond to Pennsylvania (Amish Country) and Maryland (Frederick), where I grew up.

I believe that the term Kinkling is actually a Frederickism and that the more recognized term is
Fasnacht (a.k.a. Fastnacht, Faschtnacht, or Fassenacht)

The story: Fastnacht means 'Night before the Fast' in German. These tasty treats are made the day before Lent starts; i.e., the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (a.k.a. Fastnacht Day, Kinkling Day, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras). Lent is traditionally a time of fasting, and the idea is that the day before should be spent eating a rich feast before the coming fast. Thus Kinklings/Fasnachts.

I worked to make them for the first time, today, with my Dad (who hasn't made them for about 20 years). It was quite the experience.

Here is what I can share for any other aspiring bakers out there:
Read the Bread 101 site for information on how to make sure the dough rises and that you don't screw it up. Once you master this part of the baking process, everything else is proverbial cake.

Chronicles of the New Giant: New Giant = New Stop and Shop

As I pointed out in my first post about 'New Giant,' both Giant and Stop & Shop are owned by Royal Ahold, and both were rebranded with the funky fruit basket logo. Interestingly enough, they have continued to print the names "Giant" or "Stop & Shop" on the various items like bags, receipts, etc. However, it is pretty obvious that at some point they are going to merge into one name as the clearly share the same system.

Case in point: I got several point-of-sale coupons for baby food while I was in Connecticut, visiting a Stop & Shop. When I returned to DC, I redeemed them at Giant. No muss or fuss. The computer read them properly with no complaints. (Whoo-hoo!)

I wonder what they will call the new combined store? "Stop Giant" doesn't sound so great. I'm sure they'll come up with something.

Chronicles of the New Giant: Scan It!

The Giant Food Store near me unveiled self-scanning this week ... a concept they are calling Scan It! When I say 'self-scanning', I don't mean self check-out. I mean you have a hand-held scanner and you scan items as you add them to your cart.

I've had a lot of people ask me about my experience with this new technology, including my peeps over at the Food Marketing Institute, so here is the full, objective scoop on how it works as well as my highly subjective opinion of it.

How it Works

1. Walk into Giant and right up to a huge wall of self-scanners, manufactured by Motorola. They are all locked into place in slots on this wall.
2. Scan your Giant Bonus Card, which unlocks one of the scanners. It flashes to let you know which one is yours.
3. Pick up your scanner and also some bags if you want to bag your groceries (or you can of course bring your own bags
4. Scan packaged goods by simply holding down on the scan button and scanning the UPC code. Place in bag in your cart.
   
5. Scan produce by inputting the PLU code into an electronic scale, weighing the item, printing a bar code, and then scanning the code. Place in bag in your cart.
6. If you make a mistake, click the Remove button and rescan the item to remove it and then place it back on the shelf.
7. When done, go to any aisle to check out
8. Scan a final UPC code to 'close' the electronic cart.
   
9. Scan your bonus card again, choose a payment method, pay and go.
   

My 2-Cents on this whole process

• Produce is a challenge. It takes a decent amount of concentration to work those scales, get the bar code, stick it to something, and scan it.
  
• Bagging as you go sounds easy, but it isn't. The stores aren't laid out from heaviest items to lightest items, so it is hard. If I was going to do this a lot, I might just bring boxes with me, as they won't flop over in the carts.
  
• It is very hard to juggle holding the scanner in one hand and pushing the cart with the other hand. If you happen to have a 10-month old baby in the cart who keeps dropping his pacifier, it all triples in difficulty. They need to add some type of 'holster' to the side of the carts to hold the scanner.
  
• Self-scanning ads more time in the store, so it is absolutely critical that there be a pay-off at checkout. i.e. All of us trying the scanners thought there would be a dedicated check-out aisle where we just would pay and go. NO, THERE WAS NOT. After spending all that extra time to scan and bag in the aisles, we had to wait in line behind people slowly scanning their own groceries and bagging at checkout.
  

This last bullet is the key for me. Without dedicated checkout lanes, there is absolutely no motivation for me to self-scan. None. It will always be faster to toss a few things in a basket and go to a self-checkout line than go through the process of unlocking a scanner, scanning each item, then waiting in line, again. I asked one of the cashiers when they'd be creating dedicated Scan-It lanes for those using the hand-held scanners and the answer was NEVER. So when will I 'Scan-It' again? NEVER.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, USA!

I don't really have anything to nitpick about regarding this day. I suppose I could complain that Christmas decorations have been up for weeks, and they shouldn't be up till tomorrow. Or, I could complain that the unseasoned bread cubes that we traditionally use for our chicken (that's right, chicken. Not turkey in my family) stuff are so hard to find that they are practically extinct.

But as today is a day for being thankful, I'll be thankful for the food, friends and family we have. I'll return to being critical tomorrow, when I'll be forced to hide in our home all day so as not to be rundown by the Black Friday Bargain Shoppers.

Chronicles of the New Giant: Grand Re-opening

So, for several weeks, I've been following the rebranding of Giant. This weekend, Rolling Giant in Springfield held a 'grand reopening' as their store refurbishment is now complete.

The new logo is everywhere, including on the outside facade of the store. The carts are new, the floors are new, the fixtures are new. It's all new. Well, except for the staff. But they in fact do seem a little different, too.

Back in September, when Giant first unveiled their new logo, I had commented that Giant needed to change more than their branding. And now, 2 months later, I think that they have.

As I walked through the store yesterday, I was able to find the following items which have always been problematic for me:

• Kitchen Basics cooking stock: Beef, Chicken AND Vegetable all on the shelf. This has never happened. Normally they have 50 of one or the other, or none at all.
• Leeks AND Scallions AND Kale in produce. Amazing. Unheard of in the past.
  

So, maybe they have done something to try to get their inventory management under control. Hurrah!

Also, starting in a week or so, this store is going to make the self-scanners available. I am very curious to try this. It's a neat idea.

Accuracy in Baby Food Naming

I'd like to ask for a little more accuracy in Baby Food naming, please.

Let's look at one example:
Earth's Best Organic's Vegetable Turkey Dinner.

What do you think might be in this?
Well, turkey and vegetables was the guess of my mother-in-law when she bought it. And there is in fact some in there. BUT the #1 ingredient is -- wait for it -- Apples. This is great for most babies, but not for mine that gets sick after eating apples. While I do realize it is my responsibility to read all the ingredients, it would be nice if the names were a little more accurate. For example, I'd personally call this one Apple Dinner with Turkey, Vegetables, and Barley. This seems a great deal more precise, to me.

Chronicles of the New Giant: My Kingdom for a Bag

My friend Sue had me rolling on the floor with the tale of her quest for one of the new lime-green Giant reusable bags...

• Three weeks ago, she went to her local Giant, in Maryland, and wanted to buy some of the new bags. She really likes the new lime green. But they didn't have any in stock. They only had the old blue ones, for .99-cents each.
• She went back a week later -- 2 weeks ago -- and they still didn't have any of the new bags. But they had twice as many blue bags, and now they were only .79-cents. She asked one of the managers about the new bags, and he said that the bags should be in, soon
• She went back last week and STILL no green bags. And there were triple the number of the old blue bags, now for only .49-cents each. She talked to a manager, again, who this time told her that they had to sell all the old bags before they were allowed to have any new ones.
• She then drove a few miles down the road to a different Giant. This Giant had both the old blue and the new green bags. All for .99-cents each. She bought some of the green bags.
• She is now planning to visit her local Giant each week. Her theory is that if they keep dropping the old blue bags by .20-.30 cents each week, they'll be free in approx 2-3 weeks.

This story got me all fired up; I just couldn't wait to go to a Giant in Virginia to check out their bags. So I went to the Alexandria, VA, Giant at my lunch hour.

Bags EVERYWHERE. Endcaps, registers, anywhere they could fit them. Old blue bags, new green bags, AND the cool April 2008 'earth day' bags that I hadn't seen anywhere else since Earth day. I immediately grabbed one of the earth day bags (one of my favorites) as I took note that they were all still .99-cents.

I don't know what is going on in that store up in Maryland. It's like that manager drew the short, blue straw at a regional meeting, or something.

Chronicles of the New Giant: G.A.B.

What's this? Que es Esto?
In the Customer Service section of the new website: Something called the Grocery Advisory Board (G.A.B.) Panel.

From the site ...
As a G.A.B. member, you will periodically receive short, easy-to-complete surveys that will allow you to share your ideas and comments about your shopping experiences. You will also be able to give feedback on various programs and ideas and influence whether these ideas should be implemented in the Giant stores where you shop.

Sign me up.

In fact, I am already signed up. I signed up the instant I read this, a few weeks ago. It was a pretty damned long survey to sign up, but I made it through.

Now, let's see what happens. [So far, weeks later, nothing]

Chronicles of the New Giant: Produce and Bags

So, I have visited Rolling Giant in Springfield about 3 times in the past week.

They rearranged the whole store; I guess they wanted to wait till the proverbial smoke cleared from the logo rollout. When I went two days ago, all the signs were down. So no one had any idea at all where anything was. The store wasn't too busy, so it was easy enough to just wander down the aisles. Speaking of the aisles, they are shorter, both in height and length. Although they are tighter at the front of the store. None of this makes sense to me. It seems like there is less product because of this, and horrible jams are being caused up at the checkout lines when it is 'rush hour.' But they are still working on it, so let's see what happens.

The produce section has also been totally rearranged, with new fixtures and new lighting. Most of the produce is in baskets. The floor is half done; they are putting in wood-colored linoleum. It does soften the appearance of the store; less harsh. There are new lights, too. It makes for a better experience, but they don't look like fluorescents, so I think that all this new brightness is coming at an energy cost. Of course, if Giant is planning to jump on the solar bandwagon and put panels on their roof, they'd help to offset that. (I have no idea if they are planning to do this; I just know that companies are out there, like Recurrent Energy, that broker deals to do such things with large retailers)

Most important ... the produce looked good, which is a change. I sat there and thought for a good 5 minutes about whether or not the produce was actually better or just looked better due to the lights/fixtures, and I decided it WAS better. There were fewer rotten spots on the onions, the peaches weren't hard as frozen bricks, and they had some produce they rarely carry (like red cabbage). Some things seem odd to me, like limes being at the totally opposite end from lemons, but in general the change seems good.

I talked to my favorite cashier, whom I call "Mr. Smiley," and not surprisingly he loves the new uniforms. I talked to two others, and they weren't as enthusiastic.

I also want to mention that every time I've gone to Giant since the change, I haven't gotten any of the push-back or bad-attitude I used to get at bringing my own bags. So clearly, there was some training on the re-use of bags being a priority for them.

So, things are looking pretty good at that Giant. I haven't been to the other Springfield Giant (International Giant, as I call it) for over a week and I haven't been to the Alexandria Giant at all since the change. I'll need to do that soon, and report.

Chronicles of the New Giant: The uniforms are IN and the curved aisles are OUT

Update on the NEW Giant ...

The new uniforms are now in and being worn. They started to appear about a week ago, but I didn't write anything as I wanted time to be able to talk to multiple employees in multiple stores about them. The shirts are gold, and most everyone is wearing black aprons over them.

Here are some of the employee reactions I got when I commented that the new uniforms looked nice.

• One gal meandering down the aisle at International Giant in Springfield sort of smiled at me, but clearly thought I was crazy.
• One of the produce guys at International Giant in Springfield gave me a genuine smile back; he seemed pretty happy with them.
• One of the cashiers Rolling Springfield just sort of shrugged. As she was my captive audience until she finished ringing me up, I pressed her. I think that part of the issue was that English was probably a second language for her, but eventually it became clear to me that the black apron is the issue. At least for her, I think it was extremely uncomfortable, although she did admit it helped to keep her shirt nice and clean.
• Another cashier at Rolling Springfield 'liked the green better'

I have also noticed that the curved aisles leading into the registers are slowly becoming uncurved. I'm thinking that this was not a popular change.