My First Pho. #fritz

#pho made easy.

#fritz

 

Well, I’ve gone and done it now—

My first pho.

I saw a little restaurant at the Northgate Plaza, the name was Pho Nung. I’ve never been in there, yet I had heard the term before and it sort of hit my curiosity bone.

Guys like me look stuff like that up on Wikipedia and read all about it…I’ve also tried the dehydrated product from Dollarama.

The broth, (a shelf-stable product), only cost $1.97 for 908 ml at Walmart, and it has been hanging around in my cupboard for at least three or four months. I had also been seeing the rotisserie chickens, at various outlets, Walmart and Food Basics among them, and not being exactly immune to #temptation , I had been meaning to try them. Only problem there, is they were never there when I wanted them, and they were there when I didn’t want them.

***

Anyhow, once I’d picked up three or four chickens, had chicken dinners a few times, stripped chicken carcasses a few times, taken little plastic tubs of shredded chicken into work in order to feed my little stray and feral cat buddies out there in the wilds of Plympton-Wyoming, Ontario, Canada, well it only seems right to conduct the experiment.

Now that I got a minute…

From the photos, yes; I did have fresh, white mushrooms and took one fairly big one and sliced it up. I had a fresh red pepper, which I clean and gut as soon as I get it ashore, and this is one small segment of that.

I have onions growing from setts on the balcony, dang they’re small but flavourful. I’ve basically just taken a couple of leaves off of a couple and tossed that in for garnish. Any idiot can take a thin slice off a regular onion and chop that up into little bits. 

Four bucks worth of noodles goes a long way.

As for the noodles, I have to admit they’ve been in the cupboard ever since I originally conceived of this project. I got them for about four bucks at Food Basics in some sort of International Foods section. 

For that sort of search, I will often take my reading glasses and just sort of lurk there until I get some kind of a clue. Some of this stuff is pretty good at hiding, until you learn your way around a bit.

The chicken is beautifully cooked and I usually get a few meals off of that. In the photo is about four or five ounces of white and dark meat, minced along with a bit of the skin, mostly due to the bit of lovely fat under there.

Shredded along with a bit of skin...

***

With all of that stuff in the pot, I put on the glass lid, after taking suitable photos for social media of course, and let that sort of languish—I hesitate to call it anything else, on low heat for about an hour and a half. 

When it comes to slow cooking, leave it to some guy with only half a brain, right.

I reckon a bit of salt, perhaps some Ritz crackers, a little processed American cheese slices on the aforesaid crackers, and who knows, maybe some beer or something and we will see how this one turns out. 

That being said, they also have vegetable, chicken, and other broths for about the same price. As the reader can see, as a North American, I may be loading up on the meat and cheating a bit on the noodles. I would also point out that this is in no way a dehydrated ramen product, which tend to be heavy on the ersatz noodles and monosodium glutamate, if you know what I mean.

 I have also wondered about trying that with cooked shrimp, for example.

As previously stated, this is my first pho. We'll see what the cat thinks of that, ladies and gentlemen...

END

Poor old Louis has a new book, A Stranger in Paris, available from Amazon in ebook, as well as from Google Play in audiobook format.

Louis has works on ArtPal.

See this other story here.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

 

The Classic Tuna Salad Sandwich. #fritz

...image stolen from some nice lady.

 

#fritz

Today (a couple of days ago. - ed.) I made a special point of picking up a $1.00 tin of tuna in water at Dollarama. I was in the store.

I had eight bucks or so, and I was picking up a couple of cans of cheap cat food for the stray and feral cats of Plympton-Wyoming, and of course while I’m there I always grab a pepperoni stick or two, that would be for the feral humans of Sarnia-Lambton, i.e., myself included. I suppose I just needed an excuse. It's a happening, man.

Groovy.

Yeah, so, the other day I was bored or something. Hungry, too. I drained a tin of tuna. I chopped up a tablespoon or so of onion. I finely-chopped celery, roughly the same amount. I chopped up a bit of sweet red pepper, and then, in a fit of inspiration, (maybe even passion. - ed.) I scooped in a forkful of pickle relish. Another three or so forkfuls of cheap-ass mayo, a quick stir in the usual plastic tub, (three for a buck and a quarter or so) from the same store.

The buns are about three bucks for eight buns. I prefer the artisanal buns from Maple City Bakery, failing that, I bake up a loaf of fresh #superdough bread and toast that up.

One dollar.

You can also do melted cheese, in my opinion, toast your buns or your bread. Melt the cheese on the bread, in the microwave, and then spread your tuna salad. I prefer the salad cold, even when the bread is hot, but then, I am a maze of contradictions…as are we all.

You want the lettuce and the tomato cold as well. That seems logical enough...

Romaine lettuce is the best, I like the dark green leaves. Funny thing is, we rinse Romaine lettuce, and yet no one ever does that with iceberg lettuce. It’s just one of those things that we can't talk about because nobody knows the answer.

I like a nice, firm tomato, and a nice, sharp knife. It just makes it a lot easier to slice, very, very thin, and after that all one needs is a good crunch of freshly-ground black peppercorns and a whiff of salt, which as everyone knows isn’t very good for you but we can hardly live without it.

Just to make sure that it wasn't a total fluke, I did the same thing again today. On fresh buns, I got two sandwiches and there is still a bit left in the tub. Not quite enough for another sandwich, but this is why they make Ritz crackers after all.

 

END

 

Images: likely stolen.

See the Louis Shalako blog here.

Yeah, poor old Louis has books and stories on Amazon. 

Louis also has art on ArtPal.

Thank you for reading.

 

 

The Mystery Shopper: Think of It As An Adventure. Louis Shalako.

Cleverly disguised as an eccentric...

Louis Shalako

In my first visit ever to No Frills, another form of deceptive marketing: Buttig sandwich meats, clearly marked $1.33. It's bold black ink on a yellow tag. That sure sounds cheaper than Food Basics, ($1.69.) I grabbed two. Looking at the grocery receipt, it turns out I paid $1.98 each. Virtually invisible to the older shopper: Three for $3.99. I saw the flyer, but I did not see this. I was there for the chicken wings, also a sort of civilian reconnaissance. I just want to have a look. For another three cents, I might have had three packets...and that, ladies and gentlemen, would have been an actual bargain.

But.

This is why Canadians are getting increasingly pissed-off at the grocery industry. It wasn’t all that long ago, when Walmart had the same product for $1.25. They do make a beautiful little sandwich, you can get two small bun-type sandwiches out of one packet, assuming a bit of lettuce, onion, mustard, cheese, mayo…load them right up. $1.98 is just plain ludicrous.

Next time I'm in the neighbourhood, maybe I'll try Foodland in Bright’s Grove or Wyoming. God knows I love reading the grocery flyers...I have read Metro and Loblaw’s, the Walmart flyers. Metro and Loblaw’s are high-end and I’m not likely to go there or maybe I should, once in a while—think of it as an adventure. There’s a small grocer in the north end of town, I haven’t been there in years. I’m an old guy, it gives me something to do, right. I could go there for the seafood, and it’s a good idea to eat more seafood, right? Almost anything is better than low-end fish sticks, a sliver of meat and a lot of breading, assuming you’ve been to Giant Tiger.

#fuck

One of my observations is that the self-checkout at No Frills does not accept or dispense cash. I like the ones where you can chuck a handful of coins in there, otherwise you end up with a jar of nickels and dimes that have to be dealt with sooner or later...

#argh

Analysis. I've never been in the store before. I really should have brought the reading glasses. The Buttig Black Forest Ham, (right in the middle of similar product), is clearly marked $1.49. Yet the corned beef, ham, chicken, etc., are marked, bold black lettering on yellow, $1.33. The first question I asked myself was why the ham was not marked down. Also, Food Basics has it, regular price, $1.69. What would anyone think? What would you think? Skip the ham and grab the corned beef, right? Imagine my surprise to have spent $1.98 x 2 for 55-gram packets of lunch meat.

One tomato, $1.98/lb., that's comparable anywhere. Two dollars for no-name onion soup mix, I can get that anywhere with store brands. Oddly, the Selection is a superior product in my opinion, bearing in mind I don't use it for soup, only chip dip. I have paid as much as $3.79 for the name brand, which might be preferable if you are actually making soup. I got green onions for $0.99. Foodland's flyer had the same product for $1.49. You have to be careful when comparing prices on ‘wrapped’ broccoli crowns ($1.98, Food Basics), and those that are unwrapped, ($3.49, Foodland). You could pay someone to unwrap them, charge $1.51 more per item, and make it pay...okay, the Schneider’s Chicken wings, at a price of $9.88, at a claimed savings of two dollars, seems all right. That’s why I went in the Kyle’s No Frills, (Sarnia, Ontario), in the first place. At Food Basics, the so-called regular price is $14.99, which is pretty astronomical. They also change the price weekly, with an average (monthly) selling price substantially lower, and a yearly average price something else…confused yet…???

I’m not too fond of sticking quarters in to get a shopping cart, and I was lucky enough to find one basket just inside the door...I have to admit, with my eyes, I tried getting in the exit for a while, but that did not work. No Frills is a relatively small store, it seemed clean enough and everything. At the time of day, the demographic definitely skews to the high end of the age range.

Just for the historical record, they did reach out for more information on Facebook.

 

END

Deceptive Marketing Practices.

Poor old Louis has books and stories on Amazon in ebook and in paperback.

See his works on Fine Art America.

He’s got a few observations on Grocery Flyers and Price Pulsing: an Analysis.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

Grocery Flyers and Price Pulsing: An Analysis. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako.

Grocery flyers and price pulsing. I've been studying the grocery flyers for some time now.

Over time, there appears to be some rather minimal changes and substitutions, and yet the same items appear again and again. All they do is change the price, after a while, we realize that there is no fixed price for the item, for example broccoli crowns. One week, $0.88, next week, $1.88, next week, $1.48. This item is almost never sold at its alleged regular price.

Oddly enough, I have never seen Romaine lettuce on sale, and that is especially true in winter when the price always goes up. Fuck, last year, I did not buy lettuce for months, not when a head of iceberg hit $4.98. One factor is planning: these promotions aren't figured out the morning the flyers actually come out, they are planned weeks, perhaps many weeks in advance. Planners have access to information we don't. Certain products tend more to seasonality, and other forms of volatility. Yet you can sort of bet on the 'futures' price of a tin of beans or soup, crackers and other shelf-stable products. You order a planned amount, for delivery to the stores in time, taking into account anticipated response for each promotion, and all of that is paid in prices that fluctuate, quite a bit in the present climate.

Buy low, sell high, right? Price-pulsing is a bit like jigging, ladies and gentlemen, in which you jig the bait, up and down, hoping to get a nibble in the case of fishing, or just hoping to get the customer into the store for a few perceived 'bargains'. This is true of almost any form of retail, duh, forgive my stating the obvious.

#analysis

If you contracted for ten thousand tons of broccoli crowns at a set price, you know what your costs are. Over time, price pulsing determines an average sale price, presumably enough to present some profit. 

You also know just how much of that stuff is sitting in a warehouse somewhere, and how long it’s been there, and in what condition.

You might want to slash prices just to get it out of there.

Today's broccoli crowns: $1.98, theoretically, regular price about two-fifty or even two ninety-eight. You can also go across town to a more prestigious grocery chain store and pay a lot more. What’s interesting is that some big corporations have two or three or more chain operations. The pricing is all over the place, and yet it all comes from the same warehouses or the Ontario Food Terminal.

Two weeks ago, Schneider's chicken wings were on promotion. They're back again this week, same price. So, on promotion for a week, one week at regular price, back on promotion.

If they never promoted this product, they would be able to reduce the regular price by a significant amount.

#analysis

According to the grocery receipt, I saved six dollars on chicken wings. So you get ten wings, a small packet of sauce, regular price $14.99. Which is ludicrous.

(What was almost worse--the very strong smell of shit in the back of the store. This was not some secret fart person being sneaky and having a bit of fun. This was more like changing the baby's diapers in a small, enclosed space. Quite frankly, I almost puked.)

#food_basics

You sort of have to pity the staff at a time like that.

That smell wafted a couple of hundred feet across the back of the store, and part way up several aisles in the vicinity...

Okay. If chicken wings are $8.99 for one week, back up to $14.99 for one week, back to $8.99 for one week, and then we finish up the month at $14.99 again. So, that's roughly thirty dollars plus eighteen dollars if you bought one each week. Divide forty-eight by four. You could sell the wings for twelve dollars, never promote them and make exactly the same money. But then, you have nothing to put in the flyer, nothing to rant and rave about in your radio commercials.

#analysis

It really is a game, and it’s important to know how such things work. Personally, I simply cannot afford ten wings and sauce for $14.99. And the fact is, I bought five other items, all of them at the ‘regular’ price.

As the game is currently constituted, you sort of have to read the flyers and never buy anything you don't have to at the regular price. That being said, they could save a lot of money on paper and ink, forget updating the online flyer once a week and save something on labour--would the competition eat them alive? Possibly not, if your 'regular' prices consistently beat everybody else's.

Or, how long would it take for word get around about your 'no-bullshit' pricing? At least you get a few radio commercials out of it...

That, as we say, is a question for another day.

 

END

 

Thank you for reading.

Image: the Toronto Star. 

Louis has books and stories on Amazon. Grab them before the prices go up—

See his works on ArtPal.

Note: The story was originally just stuff I posted on Facebook. The highlighted stuff comes from the comments I added on. I do not know how to fix that.