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The seas, they were full at one time...


Randomguy

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...so full you could almost walk on top of the waves, life was in such profusion.  If you wished, you could simply reach into the water and take fish with your bare hand.  You never had to worry about going hungry if you lived by the seas, such was the excess.

But then came the plague, and then came the weather, and they collided with such force that there was looming famine.  The plentiful bounty that seemed eternal was gone, and the seas nearly barren.   

The masses were ill at ease and desperate; all came to the shore, yet few found what they sought.

I can see it in your eyes; you believe I jest and that I am making a tale for children about the 'before times'.  I assure you that is not the case, many would speak of it were they still to draw breath.   Unfortunately, famine and fatigue allowed those voices to fade.  Historians only came after to record the sad fate; I admit to being such a chronicler.

This very eve, I went to the sea to cast my net, yet came away with nothing but dreams of the past.  Observe:

 

 

TJ bread.jpg

TJ yogurt.jpg

Tj vegetable.jpg

TJ fruit.jpg

TJ chicken.jpg

TJ tomatoes.jpg

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12 minutes ago, petitepedal said:

Wow..just supply chain..or do ya think the snow storm helped :dontknow:

Supply chain, covid employees, and the storm.

I had fun writing the story, though.  Writing in an old-timey voice wasn't that hard in a short burst, but I bet it would be hard to maintain for a full story of some sort.

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2 hours ago, Randomguy said:

...so full you could almost walk on top of the waves, life was in such profusion.  If you wished, you could simply reach into the water and take fish with your bare hand.  You never had to worry about going hungry if you lived by the seas, such was the excess.

But then came the plague, and then came the weather, and they collided with such force that there was looming famine.  The plentiful bounty that seemed eternal was gone, and the seas nearly barren.   

The masses were ill at ease and desperate; all came to the shore, yet few found what they sought.

I can see it in your eyes; you believe I jest and that I am making a tale for children about the 'before times'.  I assure you that is not the case, many would speak of it were they still to draw breath.   Unfortunately, famine and fatigue allowed those voices to fade.  Historians only came after to record the sad fate; I admit to being such a chronicler.

This very eve, I went to the sea to cast my net, yet came away with nothing but dreams of the past.  Observe:

 

 

TJ bread.jpg

 

 

Ecclesiastes-11-1-ASV-desktop-bible-vers

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Reminds me of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. The first winter there many starved to death. No one in the group knew how to fish. So the cod, clams, oysters, and lobster just sat there in abundance. The Wampanoags taught them to plant corn, then beans so the bean vines could use the corn stalks for support. 

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1 hour ago, Philander Seabury said:

Why did the shoppers show no love for cottage cheese and snausage?  Two comfort foods for sure!

To be fair, Trader Joe’s sells horrible cottage cheese, absolutely teeming with gums and stabilizers that real cottage cheese has zero need for. 

4 hours ago, Airehead said:

Feels comforting that snow still causes panic. What were you able to secure in the way of provisions?

I don’t see any panic, certain items have been out of stock for a while, in lockstep with omicron.  
 

I think this Trader Joe’s might be the second or third busiest in the country (the busiest is in Brooklyn), so when supplies can’t get in, things go bare in a hurry.  A lot of stock is probably being filled right now as trucks arrive, so the shelves should be half full by now. 
 

I still managed to pick up a few things. 

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2 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

To be fair, Trader Joe’s sells horrible cottage cheese, absolutely teeming with gums and stabilizers that real cottage cheese has zero need for. 

I don’t see any panic, certain items have been out of stock for a while, in lockstep with omicron.  
 

I think this Trader Joe’s might be the second or third busiest in the country (the busiest is in Brooklyn), so when supplies can’t get in, things go bare in a hurry.  A lot of stock is probably being filled right now as trucks arrive, so the shelves should be half full by now. 
 

I still managed to pick up a few things. 

I find the taste/price ratio of good cottage cheese to be lacking.  Tastes maybe 10-20% better but costs 50% more. 

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8 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

I find the taste/price ratio of good cottage cheese to be lacking.  Tastes maybe 10-20% better but costs 50% more. 

I get massive reflux from the gummed up and stabilized versions.  I can taste the difference, too.  
 

The good stuff is just the pure stuff, and often isn’t priced any differently than the crap stuff.  Same with sour cream, too. 

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16 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

I get massive reflux from the gummed up and stabilized versions.  I can taste the difference, too.  
 

The good stuff is just the pure stuff, and often isn’t priced any differently than the crap stuff.  Same with sour cream, too. 

Shoprite crap brand is usually $2.29 or so for the big one, and the the good stuff is aboot $3.50 for half that size.  I can taste the difference, but I sort of like the flavor of the crap stuff, much like I like the fake maple syrup almost as much as the real stuff.  My stomach presents no preference one way or the other.

Of course I am talking the REALLY good stuff.  I posted aboot it but I forget the brand.  I have not seen it at the grocery store lately, but of course the cheap stuff sings oot to me. :D  I'm not sure where brands like Daisy or Breakstone's fall on the continuum.

 

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11 hours ago, Randomguy said:

...so full you could almost walk on top of the waves, life was in such profusion.  If you wished, you could simply reach into the water and take fish with your bare hand.  You never had to worry about going hungry if you lived by the seas, such was the excess.

But then came the plague, and then came the weather, and they collided with such force that there was looming famine.  The plentiful bounty that seemed eternal was gone, and the seas nearly barren.   

The masses were ill at ease and desperate; all came to the shore, yet few found what they sought.

I can see it in your eyes; you believe I jest and that I am making a tale for children about the 'before times'.  I assure you that is not the case, many would speak of it were they still to draw breath.   Unfortunately, famine and fatigue allowed those voices to fade.  Historians only came after to record the sad fate; I admit to being such a chronicler.

This very eve, I went to the sea to cast my net, yet came away with nothing but dreams of the past.  Observe:

 

 

TJ bread.jpg

TJ yogurt.jpg

Tj vegetable.jpg

TJ fruit.jpg

TJ chicken.jpg

TJ tomatoes.jpg

Wow!  On Wednesday at noon, before the forecast snow of the wee hours of Friday, I got the last bag of frozen veggies for soup, one of the last quarts of half and half, They had lots of produce - including firm, red, sweet cherries on sale for $2.99/lb, but I'll bet they and the bananas, tomatoes, etc. were all gone by Wednesday evening!

My sister and her husband went for his lung cancer radiation (it's going better than expected) on Wed. and she said that the roads and supermarket parking lots were crowded - the first day of getting out for a lot after Monday's snowstorm - and they decided not to buy food.  I told her they better get there soon if they wanted to find any food at all.

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21 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

Shoprite crap brand is usually $2.29 or so for the big one, and the the good stuff is aboot $3.50 for half that size.  I can taste the difference, but I sort of like the flavor of the crap stuff, much like I like the fake maple syrup almost as much as the real stuff.  My stomach presents no preference one way or the other.

Of course I am talking the REALLY good stuff.  I posted aboot it but I forget the brand.  I have not seen it at the grocery store lately, but of course the cheap stuff sings oot to me. :D  I'm not sure where brands like Daisy or Breakstone's fall on the continuum.

 

Daisy is real (first ingredient list), Breakstone is crap (second ingredient list).

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48 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said:

I find the taste/price ratio of good cottage cheese to be lacking.  Tastes maybe 10-20% better but costs 50% more. 

There are several foods where I'll pay the higher price for store brands, including cottage cheese (Breakstone) and baked beans (Bush's).

But there are a lot of discount store or store brands of many items as good or better than the brand names and canned stuff like tomatoes, green beans, and condensed soup, and boxes of pasta are indistinguishable to me in taste and content from the 50% to 100% more expensive name brands.

For example, the 24 oz. jars of "Casa Mamita Chunky Salsa" at Aldi sell for less than a dollar vs. $3+ for lower-quality Tostitos, etc.

Harris-Teeter's store-brand cereal, Honey Oat Cluster Crunch with Almonds beats, for me, any of the other sugary-cereals and has 2/3 the sugar of the main brands at 17%.  On the other hand, I like real Cheerios (5% sugar) over the store-brand versions.

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3 hours ago, Randomguy said:

To be fair, Trader Joe’s sells horrible cottage cheese, absolutely teeming with gums and stabilizers that real cottage cheese has zero need for. 

 

...am I the only one reading this who thinks you could use more stability in your life ?

 

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I still managed to pick up a few things. 

...reminds me of the joke:

"So I'm there at brunch, over at my Aunt's house.  And there are like, a dozen of us. " 

"She puts out a plate of croissants from the bakery, and there are six of them on the plate"

 

"Can you imagine that ?! Six croissants for a dozen people !........................  Although I must say the three I had were delicious."

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"The seas, they were full..."

reminds me of the stories we old timers tell about the 50's and 60's when you you could walk along the shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay with a couple crab nets, beginning at 5 am, and by noon you'd have caught a bushel (6-7 dozen) of hard crabs and a dozen softcrabs - all males and all at least 5" long.

The minimum keeper length for rockfish (striped bass) was 9" and you could catch all you wanted.  Today, it's one per person and a minimum length of 28".

What was done in the 50's and 60's didn't overfish the Bay, it was the commercialization, mostly in the Virginia end of the bay, it gill nets, etc.

 

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On 1/7/2022 at 10:15 PM, Randomguy said:

This very eve, I went to the sea to cast my net, yet came away with nothing but dreams of the past. 

Dude, you need to move here.  One of the neighbors is selling and you wouldn't face that sort of Big City inconvenience.  We went by TJs last night and got everything we were looking for (plus more).  My wife also dropped by Whole Foods this afternoon for more muesli, and it was available and on sale!  Likewise, my trip to Costco had my whole list available and some stuff also on sale.  I forgot quinoa, though :( and I wasn't too impressed with the local beer selection (still lots of holiday themed stuff).

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Today, I was a little  surprised by some empty gaps for certain things, at local large grocery store chain..  actually they are located in 3 provinces. Cooking oil choices (I mean come on,  alberta grows and processes canola. But that's not my oil. It's sunflower.), huge choices of cereals not there, of course a certain line of pasta on sale, etc. Methinks the store chain hasn't yet, got their act together post-Christmas NYE's celebrations period.

 

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