A small mini-mart opened a little while ago on the corner of Estabrook and Washington, behind Cafe Americano. Today I finally checked it out.
The store is small and carries staples (including some Asian ingredients like coconut milk and canned lichees) and fresh vegetables. Their selection of the latter is quite good. Everything is reasonably priced. While their inventory is not too vast right now, they are planning on increasing it.
As the store is only a block from my house, I expect I will be going there when I’m out of one or two items and don’t want to go to Safeway. While I love Grocery Outlet, you can’t expect to find something specific there. Plus their vegetable selection is not very good and it’s not that cheap. Plus I like supporting the little guy. 🙂
So, if you live in the neighborhood, check it out.
Marina Market
2150 Washington Ave., Unit A
San Leandro, CA
510-351-4000
Author: admin (Page 31 of 51)
I’ve been reluctant to try to capitalize this blog in any way, but given the financial situation I thought I’d give google ads a try – at least to help a bit with my bead obsession. So I’m giving it a try and putting a small, discreet, but not-endorsed-by-me (I don’t get to chose the ad, and I can’t even filter ones that I don’t like) ads at the bottom of the left margin. Please click on them 🙂
This is a list of the cookbooks I want. I have them on swaptree, but apparently none of the books I have for trade are good enough to get any of these 🙁
A16: Food + Wine
Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook
Argentina Cooks!: Treasured Recipes from the Nine Regions of Argentina
Bouchon
The Complete Robuchon
Cafe Boulud Cookbook: French-American Recipes for the Home Cook
How to Cook Everything
Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook
Pintxos: Small Plates in the Basque Tradition
The Zuni Cafe Cookbook
I just came back from our semi-annual library sale, and this time I didn’t buy many cookbooks, and I didn’t have any “finds”, but I think I did OK. I got:
–The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian: Recipes from the New and Old Worlds, Simplified for the American Kitchen
–The Foods and Wines of Spain
–Ethnic Cuisine: How to Create the Authentic Flavors of Over 30 International Cuisines
–Cocina tradicional mexicana
I also got two children’s cookbooks:
–Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook
–Kids’ Party Cookbook!
and finally, a food writing book:
–The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection
They are all in pretty good shape, and I’m quite happy.
One of my favorite products at Grocery Outlet is Smithfield cream cheese bars (8 oz for $1.30). Not only are they cheap (which significantly lowers the cost of baking a cheesecake), but the cream cheese has a nice, solid/stringy consistency that is wonderful for New York (and other) cheesecakes, and a vibrant, fresh flavor. I have gotten nothing but compliments for the NY cheesecake that I’ve been making with this cheese.
One thing to keep in mind, some of the cheese packages may be marked with the “Spanish” date notation (day-month-year). The ones currently on sale expire on “02-12-09”, which means on December 2nd, 2009.
And for those of you planning to make cheesecakes today, Grocery Outlet also has honey maid graham crackers ($2), sugar ($2.50, I think) and jumbo eggs ($1.50 a dozen). If you do use my recipe, note that it’s for large eggs, so reduce by one if using the jumbo size.
This week we discovered Crunchies at Grocery Outlet. Crunchies are basically dehydrated fruit, but very airy and light. They are made by removing the water from the fruit in a refrigerated vacuum (at least, according to the box). The results are very flavorful, extremely light, crunchy foams of fruit. They supposedly keep their nutrients, but you can eat a full fruit in 2 bites.
Each box of Crunchies comes with 9 packages, 3 of each kind. One contains strawberries, another a mixture of mangoes, strawberries, apples, raspberries, blueberries and peaches, and the final one mangoes, bananas, strawberries, pineapple and oranges. Each package of dried fruit is equivalent to one serving of fruit (which, btw, is either 1 piece of fruit or 1/2 cup of fruit, depending on the fruit in question). Of course, one package of crunchies is unlikely to make even a small dent in your hunger, but it’s a very easy, very healthy snack. And quite perfect for when you are craving something sweet.
I’ll check later how much the Crunchies were at Grocery Outlet (I can’t find the receipt), they have a msp of $9!!!
I got the Bella Cucina Rocket Blender
I’d seen the ads for the Magic Bullet
I’ve used it for smoothies quite successfully, it crushes ice quite well. Recently I used it to make pesto sauce, also quite successfully. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I had an opportunity to try it for grinding spices – and I’m happy to say it ground cumin and fennel seeds beautifully. This is very important for me, as I haven’t had a way to easily grind spices. The mini chopper won’t do it, a simple pepper mill doesn’t do it either (at least with any ease), and a mortar and pestle are too hard to use, IMHO. So I’m thrilled. I finally can use whole spices and grind them as I need them.
September 2011 Update
I’ve now have this rocket blender for over 2 years. I don’t use it too much, but it’s still my favorite tool for small chopping, grinding and pureeing jobs. The girls use it to make smoothies all by themselves, and so far none of us have broken it. The thing has been dropped in the floor and survived. All in all I’ve been very happy with it and I’ll miss it when it breaks.
A few days ago I bought a two-pack of Kraft Grated Parmesan cheese. Each jar is 16 oz, and I was getting 2 for $7, so I thought it was a very good deal. Wronnnng! It wasn’t until I’d open a jar that I realized the cheese expired Oct. 6th. Now, I realize that Grocery Outlet sells items that are close to expiration date, but 2 weeks? For a packaged cheese product? Who in the world can possibly consume 2 pounds of grated cheese in 2 weeks?
Yes, my bad – in the future I’ll check expiration dates very carefully. But also Grocery Outlet’s bad for selling such products.
*Update* My blog entries are automatically forwarded to my twitter account, and one of my followers there is Grocery Outlet. Well, they looked into this matter and they are sending me a couple of coupons for the cheese. They will also make sure that, in the future, they will split up containers and lower the price on items, as they get closer to the sell-by date. This makes a lot of sense, I’d have bought one can for $3, but not two for $8 so close to the sell-by date.
Anyway, I’m impressed at how Grocery Outlet dealt with this issue.
I’ve had pretty bad luck with pesto sauces – to the point that I was wondering if the problem was my basil. But yesterday I made one that I actually liked. Here is the recipe (based on this recipe at allrecipe.com).
Pesto
- 1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves, chopped
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup pine nuts
- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 4 small garlic cloves
- 1/4 tsp. chili powder
Put basil and 1 Tbsp. in a mini chopper, and chop/grind until the basil is finely cut. Add the pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic, chili powder and remaining oil. Process until smooth.
My friend Rachid Habibi has opened a cafe in Berkeley. Mo’Joe Cafe is located at 2517 Sacramento St., on the corner of Blake. The cafe is pretty new and serves fair trade/organic coffee (of course) and a wide variety of teas. There are smoothies and fresh pastries, and for those looking for lunch, they have sandwiches and paninis made to order on locally baked breads. They serve soups and salads as well, with house made dressing.
The cafe displays pieces from local artists and they occasionally have music and poetry events.
And if all that was not enough, they get almost 5-stars from yelp (with 22 votes so far).
If you live in Berkeley or just find yourself in Berkeley, give it a try.
Mo’Joe Cafe
2517 Sacramento St.
Berkeley, Ca
(510)704-8500
Hours:
M-Th 6:30-6pm
F 6:30am-8pm
Sa 7am-8pm
Su 8am-6pm
www.facebook.com/MoJoeCafe
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