Adventures in grocery shopping

Last night we went to BJ's. I've never been to BJ's before, and my Pace/Sam's Club days ended in college (when my parents realized that even when we just stopped there for a few items, we'd end up needlessly spending $150-200). But we got one of those "free trial membership" cards in the mail, and decided to try it out.

We shopped til we dropped.

BJ's was everything I expected: a huge warehouse building, ridiculously tall/long aisles, giant bottles of shampoo, and flats of ramen. What I did not expect, however, was such a large fresh food department. The produce looked halfway decent (also unexpected), and the cheese section was impressive (compared to other grocery stores in the area, but still paltry compared to the Coop and Whole Foods).

The best part was King Arthur All Purpose flour for 56 cents/lb. This is the nearly the same price as the Coop (55cents/lb last time I checked), and nearly half of Shaw's and Big Y ($0.99-1.09/lb). They only sell it in 10lb increments, but, um, since when is 10lbs of flour too much? I would have bought 2 or 3 10lb bags, if I didn't think it'd be so easy to return for more as needed.

Nuts were also a good price, although I'm not sure of the quality. The dried fruit selection was decent, and my eyes boggled at the packaged candy (I refrained from buying any).

I also found refrigerated Panera soups, which was intriguing, so I bought the tomato bisque (110 cal/1cup serving, not bad at all!) Finally, the star of our trip: lime juice sold in 15oz bottles (!!!!!) for $1.99 each. Compare this to grocery store lime juice, which only comes in 8oz bottles, for $1.69 each or more. It has always irked me that you can't buy larger bottles of lime juice, especially when you can get 32oz of lemon juice everywhere. (I admit it- I do use bottled citrus juices instead of fresh. My citrus always goes bad, so it makes no sense to keep it around, especially when it's so expensive).

Of course, we also bought the standard giant bottles of shampoo, lotion, 8 packs of toothpaste, 16 pack of razor blades, gallons of juice, and 4 packs of cleaning products. We did not indulge in the 48 pack of paper towels.

Oh, and I picked up the prequel to "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", which was exciting to find.

(some day I'll get back to cooking and telling you about it. Some day.)