56 Mice

A mouse has been antagonizing Abby this week. Keeps poking its head out the top of the oven, making direct eye contact. Poops in our cast iron pans. Mischievous twinkle in its eye, brazen in its advances, only disappears when we get reallllll close. Also clever at avoiding our traps - we've got a Jerry-ass mouse, folks!

Don't tell Abby I secretly support the mouse. It takes bravery to taunt us big hairless giants, stomping around what you surely think of as your stove. In the mouse world, ACAB includes Abby and Jesse. Speak truth to power, little brother!

At a local dinner party last week, one of the guests said they caught 56 mice in one season. Country life, man. We've also got squirrels in the walls.

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Don't you love that picture above? We took it on our last day in Harlem. Mala was moving crates of Arizona green tea and I asked to borrow his dolly. We used it to hoist the standalone freezer — stuffed with surplus grocery treasures — into our rental truck.

Then we said our goodbyes. Surplus grocer was a friend to the end.

xo,

Jesse

This is the ledge outside our hotel window on a recent visit to NYC. There was no fridge in the room, but we be crafty.

Last week I was walking to yoga on the sliver of sidewalk that snakes through a mile of snow banks, near the big cemetery. Far up ahead a woman was struggling to keep control of her wild dog, leaping up on snowbanks and manically barking every time a car passes. The dog was wearing a red tartan jacket.

As I got closer, maybe 20 feet behind, the dog turned around, flattened, and started barking and snarling. The woman then fully extended her arm at me, palm facing forward, and barked: "STAY BACK! YOU ARE PRESENTING A THREAT!"

I was stunned into silence.

TEASER: I visited the surplus grocer two weeks ago on a work trip to New York. I have new items to share but first I want to run through a few more of the oldies we brought here in the move.

Kind of alarming how not-stale these crackers were, buttery and moist to the end. Abby thought she saw some mites in the package but I gaslit her into thinking it was a trick of the light.

This cheese is so expensive at the normie store that I bought like 85 of these last year at the surplus grocer. This was the very last one, so I made something special, an elaborate Spring Green curry dish from the Double Awesome cookbook. RIP

There are definitely mites in these FIVE POUNDS OF mixed nuts, but I haven't thrown them away yet. If I look in the bag again maybe they'll be gone?

Gaslighting myself.

The price of butter seems to have gone way down, but there was a moment when our deals on posh European butter were the envy of all. This was our last.

Stumbled on a large cache of this Kenyan coconut oil in our unpacked boxes. Don't really need it but will cling to it fiercely!

Pasta company you've never heard of, in business since 1912.

Martinelli's cider is top shelf (IYKYK) but these hybrids were not on the same level. That said, we haven't been drinking so these were a nice little elevated bev.