In these strained times, I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves trying the markets we shunned in the past, and if you’re like me, you’ve found some amazing bargains and real quality.
Most consistently I have noticed that in LA, the markets targeting the lower-income ethnic communities, primarily Hispanic (I hate that term, by the way, it’s meaningless glurge in reality, but we all accept it now as meaning “Brown people who themselves speak Spanish or are the progeny of people who speak Spanish and probably come from South or Central America or Mexico.” I like Latino better. And Mexicans often prefer Chicano.) often have excellent produce at shockingly low prices. Frequently the quality of the produce surpasses that of the higher-priced markets.
I tried a little market in Glendale (on my way back and forth to the Burbank courthouse…) called Gefer Farms-The Produce Club. Funky little place, geared towards the Armenian community in that neighborhood. It’s almost directly across the street from a gigantic Ralphs and seems to thrive. They have extraordinary prices. I picked up a 2 pound bag of high quality mixed greens for $1.49. 6 ounces in a fancy package at the Ralphs across the street is $3.99. Persian cucumbers are the only ones I’ll eat anymore (if you have never tried them, don’t…they will ruin you for any others) and they are very expensive even at the farmer’s markets. This little “produce club” had them for 2lbs for a dollar. Ripe Roma tomatoes, 69 cents. Thick-walled, dark red peppers: 99 cents. And so on.
This is often true of the meat, as well. I think it might have something to do with the fact that the ethnic communities tend to be bigger meat eaters, leading to faster turnover and fresher product. I mean…Gelson’s offers a thin, sad little piece of steak for $16, and Vallarta offers a nice thick marbled one for $6… I think Vallarta has the volume thing covered. That Gelson’s steak is stopping even the well-heeled in their tracks, I’m guessing. Sometimes I look at those packages of meat and my jaw just falls right open: $28 for a package of lamb chops. Oh. For that, I’m going to a nice restaurant where they will at least prepare those chops for me while I relax. (And of course, at Gelson’s the squeamish don’t have to navigate the sight of split pig heads or skinned goat heads, or some of the other “variety” meats.)
Anyway, I opened the thread to give props to the 99 cents stores. They’ve been steadily improving for 20 years, of course, largely due to Chinese imports. (I long to open my own 99-cent type store and call it what it is: Cheap Shit From China) Why anyone in this day and age would ever spend more than 99.99 cents on any kind of plastic bowl, box, tray, bucket or other such item escapes me. (Well, that strange smell that pervades the air in many of these places might be giving some people pause…at least the offical 99 Cent store doesn’t suffer from that, maybe that’s why they are always in high-ceiling locations, plenty of ventilation. The smaller, closer places can have a smell so potent you can almost see the chemicals in the air…)
The food, however, has always been a frightening idea. When they first started carrying it, it was about what you’d expect; the produce was tired and sad and had maybe a few hours of edibility left, if that. Or it was wildly underripe…pale pink, nearly green tomatoes. The grocery aisles had nothing but the strangest brands available…I always wondered: where else besides here is this company selling their products? The refrigerated and frozen sections were filled with more strange off-brands that looked like they had probably defrosted and been re-frozen at least twice.
Well, over the last year in particular, I’ve seen real improvement. I regularly purchase my absolute favorite butter at the 99cent store:** two half-pound packages of Danish Creamery butter costs $1.99,** versus $5-6 for a 4-stick package at the regular market. Last Christmas I picked up probably a dozen bottles of the holiday flavors of liquid Coffeemate (pumpkin and eggnog…delicious!) and put them in the freezer. Hormel natural style pepperoni, salami, ham. Excellent quality frozen potatoess of different varieties. Closeouts of things like Dole grapefruit cups, my fave. Eggs, milk, cream…and the produce has really come up! Durable produce like onions and potatoes are always good, but now you can actually eat the green produce…green onions, celery, carrots - they’ve lately had delicious big cartons of fresh blueberries, good strawberries.
And the thing that prompted me to this thread I just got the other day, I was amazed: very fresh, organic, excellent quality organic baby spinach and baby arugula, in that environmentally evil but produc-preserving packaging: big, roomy plastic boxes. I snatched up 2 of each, brought them home and found perfectly delicious, plump, unbruised (the evil boxes work…if the leaves aren’t crushed and broken, they won’t weep moisture and hasten decay) greens that I have been dining on for two days.
So there. Got it out of my system. (The dope is so great for just publicly dumping dumb shit one just feels like sharing…)
