[shel]

Today, for the first time in years, I stepped into a regular supermarket - a Safeway store to be precise. I guess a lot of the country relies on such stores for all or most of their shopping. My heart goes out to you. The fish counter smelled of amonia, the beef and meat was all wraped in plastic and the quality looked mediocre at best. The best chicken in the house comes from a large scale provider in California, and most of the plastic trays cotained some pinkish liquid, and the labels indicated the chicken parts containe some percentage of water. Selection was pretty much limited to reguilar national brand, some at prices much higher tha at specialty stores, organic and Asian markets ($6.00+ for second tier oyster sauce vs $3.00 for the same company's premium brand at the Asian markets). The list goes on, but essentially the selections were limited, quality low, and freshness suspect.

Ugh! What a horrible thing it would be to have to rely on such stores for one's main or only shopping source. My heart goes out to those of you who rely on such stores.

Why was I there, you may ask. I had a great coupon for some laundry detergent and found myself driving past the store. There was a parking space right in front of the entrance. So I got some soap and pcked up a can of chipotles in adobo sauce. I'm anxious to try another brand of that.

Shel