Grocery roundup -- Week 1 a.k.a. last week in August

Alright.

The first grocery shopping done last Friday--8/23, at the summer Farmer's Market behind Woosley Hall at Yale University. There, we got  a peach ($0.5), a nectarine ($0.5), two apples ($1), two pears ($1), three stalks of broccoli ($2.5), a huge bunch of basil ($1, my favorite from this market), a bunch of arugula ($1, so fresh!), a box of mushrooms ($1.5), an eggplant ($1), a green pepper ($0.5), a huge zucchini ($0.5), rainbow chard ($2), but was only charged for $12. I suppose our basil was free then! Too bad this blog idea came to after the fact, otherwise I'd love to show you a picture of all the produce!

We had an eventful weekend -- a meetup game night at the local brew shop (wonderful place, http://luckandlevity.com/), an out-door-play in the park with friends (Julius Caesar, http://www.elmshakespeare.org/), and a Game of Thrones marathon TV watching (8 hours in a day!). All this means quite a few bottles of beer and lots of food, since we like organizing and hosting events and making meals to share.

Plus, our little splurge on the recent grocery trip to Stop & Shop ended up costing us a bit. We are trying to go organic and local whenever possible.

Though to be honest, it was on sale with a membership card. So we ended up paying under $13 dollars for two lobsters. We bought four of those total. I read that the reason for which the lobsters are becoming cheaper is global warming, which makes the sweet deal much less sweet. It seems like so far the restaurants are still trying to hold on to their price tag, but we shall see how long they can last. At least the lobsters turned into a delicious meal, probably the most satisfying meal I had in the past month.

In short, the generic grocery store cost $134.05, bringing up the total to $146.05. However, we should exclude our beer purchase (12pk Sam Adam variety, $14.99), so really the total grocery count was $131.06.

I know, I know, it already seems like a lot for two people. But today I visited the Asian grocery store and lost self control. Big thanks for my dear friend S to help me carrying them home!

Some nice fresh Enoki ($1.5) and King Oyster mushrooms ($2.99/lbs), premium Shao-Xin yellow cooking wine ($2.99/bottle), fennel seeds & ground cumin, scallions ($1), three pluots ($2.99/lbs), a bunch of parsley ($1), firm Tofu ($1.7/box), dried Shitakee mushroom ($3.99), some vegetables ( I don't even know their names, but they are very leafy, and tasty). And, on top of all those amazing thing, on the bottom left, is a bag of frog legs (!), at a price of $4.5 for a 340-gram-bag. So that's about $6 bucks a lbs? Not sure how to cook it yet, but I have confidence in Google Recipe search. The total trip ended up costing another $32.46, bringing our total for the week to $163.52.

So far so good. I'm going to host another game night at our house tomorrow night which may require a bit more shopping but that should be mostly my own expenditure, not the household's. And the infamous farmers market on Friday will be counted towards next week, and a new month. We are good so far.

Later, I will show you how those ingredients turned into some delicious and healthy meals. A plus!

Edit: Thursday's game night trip ended up costing household $14.68, after purchasing 2lbs of fish fillets, parchment paper, cocoa powder, and salt. The food for game night is counted as my personal expense and a post about the food and fun will come later. So our weekly grocery expenditure was actually $178.20 for a week, a bit high for just two people. Hopefully we will be able to keep it lower next week buy not buying lobsters or frog legs any more!