We have arrived. We have moved in. A bit. Working on it. I'll update pictures and apartment opinions later when I can actually see the floor.
Our fridge was of course empty on arrival, so we headed off to the Berkeley Bowl, the grocery store we were told in our new-arrivals packet from the Ward is the place to shop. Summation of the experience:
Sticker shock---
Milk: $5 a gallon.
Bread: $4.00 a loaf.
Cereal: at least $4.00 a box. Mostly $5.00 and up.
Individual Yoplait: $1.00 each.
Eggs: $3.50 a dozen, all free-range. (Apparently they don't put chickens in cages in Berkeley.)
Small bottle pasta sauce: $4.00 each.
Ground beef: $4.19 a pound and up.
But ...
Kiwi: $0.25 each, melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
Apples: $0.99 per pound. Totally reasonable.
Green leaf lettuce: $0.79 each.
Canned goods: totally comparable prices.
And the variety ...! Holy cow. We bought three kinds of gnocchi, just because we could. Sweet potato, whole wheat, and potato. There were at least five other kinds. We bought some delicious French cheese and crusty bread to have with our pasta and brussels sprouts for a fancy celebratory dinner. I feel like I could find any ingredient at that store, from quail eggs to animal body parts I would never consume to cheeses to pastas to chocolates to a zillion different fruits and veggies I have never seen before.
My conclusion:
I will shop at Costco for milk, eggs, cereal, and meat.
I will continue to bake my own bread.
I will eat a lot more produce.
I will savor this amazing culinary opportunity while I have the chance.
I will shop alone.
I will stop showering and get a nose ring and disown one of my children and put spiky fruits and huge stalks of brussels sprouts and organic everything in my basket so I can fit in with the crowd.
Just kidding.
7 comments:
Wow, $5 a gallon!!!
That's exciting that the store has so much variety, though. Good luck moving in!!
Welcome to the Bay Area! When I moved to San Jose I literally screamed out loud in the milk aisle when I saw that a gallon of milk was $5.00! I do miss all of the great food that you can find out there in the Bay and the restaurants. The Central Valley has great produce but is not so good on the variety of foods offered...with the exception of Mexican food items. Good luck unpacking!
Hahaha! I love that last bit. You'd look super hot with a nose ring.
Milk, schmilk! who needs it? Just kidding I still like milk.
Yep, welcome to Berzerkley! The place where time stopped mid-60's. . . Enjoy the variety!
You sound just like me when I lived there! I remember one night, I wasn't really paying attention and I grabbed two gallons of milk not thinking of it... $8 bucks each! As you can imagine, I told the cashier nevermind! But, oh yes, the produce there is amazing and I always found that the sales were awesome... not as many people (at least where we lived) and stuff goes bad... so they gotta sell it. Hope you guys are getting moved in comfortably. Aubin loves his pens and was so excited to get mail :) Hope you guys had a merry Christmas!
I can't wait to see the new you!
Wow Sticker shock - no kidding. Some of that is worse than I am. I was complaining about milk being 4.15 a gallon. Sometimes it makes you wonder why some things are so expensive.
A note on the chickens. No matter where you shop for eggs in California, it will be free range. Californians passed a law that chickens couldn't be put in cages (proposition 2); it passed the same time the whole ordeal with prop 8 was going on. I don't think those animal rights people took into consideration what it would do to food prices.
Good luck.
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