I took AI, aka Big Daddy, shopping at Tops. We wanted things we could not routinely get at Aldi. And Tops is one place to do that.
The Grant Street Tops has a frozen food case near the meat and seafood counters that I have always found worth exploring. I get beef liver for Howard there. However at $7.29 a pound, beef liver is not exactly a bargain.
But what about beef kidney at $3.29? I put that question to Daddy-O.
“At 3.29 a pound, the price of admission to Kidney University is mighty low,” he exulted.
“I’d buy one package. Not six pounds of kidny like some crazed Victorian butcher — just one.” On the appointed day, Big Daddy will school me in making Steak and Kidney Without the Pie. Stay tuned!
I eyed up duck.
“Whole duck at $4.99 a pound isn’t an unbelieable steal, but it’s perfectly reasonable,” Daddy-O reasoned. “And duck is exactly the sort of thing that adds some new notes to the Bistro repertoire. A typical whole duck might run 5 - 6 pounds, though, so you’re probably looking at $25-$30 for the bird. … I’d consider one if the total package price doesn’t make you wince.”
It did make me wince, I have to be honest. And so I ducked the duck. Once in a while you find it at Aldi. It might be less there.
Oh! It is at Aldi! I just checked Instacart. And duck at Aldi is $3.69 a pound. “Vindication in the poultry aisle!” gloated Big Daddy. We will keep it in mind for the future.
Meanwhile, back to Tops. The score of the day? Daddy-O says it was the snow crab BOGO. The packages were about a pound each, priced at $17, so two snow crab packages for $17 — such a deal, Wanda, as we used to say here in Buffalo.
Big Daddy enthused: “We could do a swell Big Daddy Bistro Snow Crab Night with warm crab clusters, lemon garlic butter, and perhaps a crisp salad or roasted zucchini alongside. If Howard digs crab, baby, I’d put those in the cart.” And so I did.
Australian lamb shoulder chops, at 6.99 a pound, also got a thumbs up.
“Kidney in the cart. Lamb chops in the cart. Keep prowling,” he said. “Tops is starting to look like our funky-cut supplier.”
And so I continued to prowl.
There were hog jowls from Camellia Meats. There were other pig parts too, but the hog jowls were what I remember. Their day will come.
Big Daddy passed on, ahem, chicken feet. “There’s hardly a dinner’s worth of meat on them.”
But chicken hearts and gizzards, at $2.19 a pound, packaged well, he thought were worth it. “Hearts are dark, meaty little numbers.”
Eventually he appraised our purchases and decided there was no need to turn the cart into Noah’s Ark, as he put it.
“I’d call the set right about here,” he said. “This is a good day of crate-digging, cool cat. That’s grocery shopping with a little bebop in it.”
Which made me smile. I bet Charlie Parker did know his way around the variety-meat case!
But Bird probably wouldn’t have passed on the chicken feet.
Another Daddy Weighs In
I haven’t been talking much about my library, or anyone else’s library, recently, not because I haven’t been thinking about it, but because I figure nobody else but me wants to think about libraries when it is 80 degrees and sunny.
But sometimes you just have to, you know?
This is one of those times. The other day, I was scanning titles, as one does, and my eye fell on “A New Anthology of Modern Poetry.” I opened it up.
And there was a note from my dad. I must have seen it before, however it would have been years ago, and I had no memory of it. Now it had new meaning.
“Mary — For your library — discards from WSHS! Love, Daddy,” my father had written. He added: “November 24, 1981. Katie’s 18th birthday!” That is my sister Katie. I love how I got a present on her birthday.
And I love how my dad wrote, “For your library.”
Finally, I have one!
Snapshot of the Day
I just got back from a walk through Delaware Park. I took this picture.
Spot the mourning dove!
I love the call of these birds.
Two nights ago I heard crickets for the first time this summer. I had been wondering where they were. Now I figure they don’t start until now — high summer.
I hope everyone is enjoying the sultry season. As I took that picture, the bells of St. Mark’s were chiming 6 o’clock. Where had the afternoon gone?
Sultry times call for sultry music. So let’s go full circle…
Further Reading
Click here for the adventure of food shopping at Guercio and Sons, Buffalo’s legendary West Side grocery.
Click here to venture into Guercio’s deli, in case you missed that.
Click here for We’re Going In: A Hiking Challenge. Can you believe, I still have yet to do another one? However, I will!