Food Glorious Food!

As I typed the title of this post, the song from ‘Oliver’ burst from my lips making the Colonel leap up from his slumber in bewilderment. It was, after all only six o’clock in the morning.

“Sorry darling. Got a bit carried away.”

He made a harrumphing, grumbling noise to make his displeasure known and then settled back under the bedcovers.

Back to the original point … Food.

Food in Manhattan is monumentally expensive. For my lovely British friends let me tell you that a can of baked beans is $3.49 which in today’s exchange rate equates to £2.87 … two pounds and eighty seven pence for a can of sodding baked beans. We no longer eat baked beans.

Meanwhile, a loaf of bread last week was priced at the equivalent of two of those cans of baked beans! We don’t eat bread now either.

However, whilst I scrabble around in my purse for the last few pennies, there is a little glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Or should I say, a Costco. Indeed, it is at the end of the tunnel because the nearest one means taking two subways, or to get the biggest and best Costco, a subway, a boat and a walk. Take your pick.

Costco means buying in bulk. Costco means buying in bulk but extremely cheaply.

Now, each and every cupboard in our apartment is filled to the gunnels with vast vats of gloopy washing liquid, a bin bag full of pineapples, enough loo rolls to keep every Andrex puppy in England happy for months, and more tin foil than you can wrap a dozen turkeys in. I shan’t bore you with more detail, but you get the picture.

The Colonel however, is happy. Always one to enjoy a good deal, he smiles at our over-filled cupboards, content and dare I say, a little smug in the knowledge that should Manhattan ever have a power cut again and we are stranded, we shall at least be able to get a grip on the washing … oh, except last time all the water cut out too.

Nevertheless, the sun in streaming in through the windows and although I won’t be having toast for breakfast, we do still have four rather large pineapples in the bathroom cupboard that need eating up …

Katie xx

40 thoughts on “Food Glorious Food!”

  1. Ah yes – I remember buying in bulk when the children were small and I wasn’t working and we needed to save pennies. The problem was always where to store everything. At least back then it was fairly certain everything would get eaten before it went off, which is what tends to happen when I buy ‘3 for 2’ these days.

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  2. You are so funny, shopping can be rather arduous. Sometime we do not realise when we are well done too. I always consider UK to be a bit on the expensive side but even Egypt with its poor economy supercedes the UK. Food an essential for everyone seems to have rocketed in price. I do not eat bread either it makes me sick. I would love a fresh pineapple yummy for a Protein Drink in the morning.

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    1. Oooh I could give you pineapples (in bulk!) for your drink! Yes, England can be pricey too, particularly London. I had no idea Egypt was so expensive … one day I shall go back to growing all my veg and fruit. In the meantime it’s Costco for me! I’m sorry bread makes you sick, is there an alternative you can have or do you just have to steer well away from it? X

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  3. Everybody knows if there is an ‘extinction event’ it will hit Manhattan first. Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, Cloverfield, need I go on. So it’s good to be well stocked up. Pineapples could also make useful weapons, should a zombie apocalypse occur. Everyone’s a winner 🙂

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      2. There is Costco but we only discovered it on leaving the U.K.! Fortunately however there are many large supermarkets who all compete on price so it tends to keep prices relatively low and stable. Although anything organic is much more expensive. That really bugs me!

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  6. You didn’t say this but your comments on baked beans and bread got me thinking… there is a myth in the United States that eating healthy, home-cooked meals is more expensive than eating processed food. I challenge that belief every time I hear it. My lunch today consists of salmon, a salad of sauteed kale with roasted peppers, garlic, and avocado, and a hard-boiled egg. After portioning it out and calculating the costs, my lunch cost me $4.

    “But!” my coworkers say, “Brian, salmon costs $13 a pound in some stores!” Correct, but do you really need to eat the entire salmon fillet? I bought a $12 salmon fillet and cut it into 4 portions. 4 meals of protein and fat for $3 each. People don’t think about stuff like that because a lot of Americans just buy a pound of ground beef and eat the entire thing for dinner. They gotta stop.

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    1. Absolutely! Don’t worry, I don’t live on baked beans on toast… in fact in the U.K. we used our bread maker two or three times a week but couldn’t bring electrical stuff out here. As yet, we’ve not replaced it with a US version and I’m not sure if we will. Thankfully I love to cook and as I was telling another blogger friend what I really enjoy is to make a job lot of fishcakes and then freeze them and lasagnes etc which works really well. You’re spot on though, being healthy absolutely does not need to cost a lot of money and personally I really enjoy cooking big batches of food, there’s something really satisfying about it. Thank goodness for Costco! I think I need to buy more Tupperware now though just to put everything in! Thanks so much for reading and I love the sound of your lunch … yum!

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    2. It is … until you make the decision to buy one of the Costco trolleys to push everything home in and then hit a rut in the pavement, trolley stops suddenly and Yours Truly goes headfirst over the top of it. Didn’t break the eggs though! 😂😂

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  9. Pingback: Food Glorious Food! — How I Killed Betty! | Old School Garden

  11. Loved your blog post. I shop at Costco sometimes too.Im a fan of the free food samples…makes shopping more fun. The puppy in your post is very cute too…Im sure he’s much like my two cats…always perfect and wanting a treat.

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    1. I love the free samples … except then I feel I have an obligation to buy! I love cats … not sure they like me very much, but I love that yours like treats … that’s really cute! Thanks so much for reading 🙏

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      1. Id post a pic of the cats but… not sure how to do it in a reply post.
        One of my cats can be sound asleep in my room yet if I quietly open the container lid he somehow hears it and is at my feet before i set the container back on the table! Its funny!
        The other one has a princess complex…likes the treats to come to her.
        Feel free to read my blog too. Im new at this. But my blog is… a bit heavy on serious. But in my next posts I will focus on more happy things.
        briannakenzielivingoutloud.blog
        or
        briannakenzielivingoutloud.wordpress.com

        Same blog just..two names for it i guess.

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