A Chicago haul

Ed. Note: Hello from Pleasantville, New York, where I just ordered a steak and cheese sandwich for breakfast at an Italian deli (I am not hungover, simply in a mood). The old-school clerk seemed equal parts angry and impressed, though part of his pique could have been my request for cherry peppers.

Anyway, I promised you a mid-week guest post but this week was challenging, for everyone. Saved you this sweet sweet Pearse content for a sleepy Sunday morning. Enjoy.

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So here’s something new: a guest post! Pearse Anderson here.

Thank you to Shelby Vittek who, when I posted about my first surplus grocery haul on Instagram, said she “thought this was Jesse’s account for a minute.” If Jesse is this newsletter’s Mario, then maybe I am a double or dark mirror: Luigi, Wario, Waluigi? Or maybe I’m an even rarer MarioKart character option like Dry Bones. I’ve matched every MarioKart characters to cereal boxes, in case you wanted even more extended Nintendo food metaphors. Point is, I’m here, I’m hungry, and I’m discovering the delicious world of secondhand products—here’s some of my recent Haul (that includes an estate sale purchase).

Some things about me: I’m 24, crowdfunding my first farm book, and a self-taught baker. When I look at surplus items, I’m often asking myself “How can I incorporate this into a pie, bar, or overnight oat concoction?” The most immediate problem was that I couldn’t find a damn surplus grocer in my area. Jesse lives close to his, but I’ve been forced to glean for deals at Chicago’s Edgewater Produce dollar shelf, where I can buy wilting carrots for cake or pre-browned bananas for my famous chocolate-covered banana bread bites; alternatively, Devon Market sells the ends to deli meats and cheese, which I slice with my Japanese mandolin into intense submarine sandwiches—and only rarely cut myself.

I thought these grocery store aisles were the closest I was going to get, until I parked at Continental Sales “Lots 4 Less”, a firetruck-red building catty corner to Chicago’s Midway Airport. The Google Reviews are charming, and the surplus grocer is built from simple polygons, like it was rendered on the same graphics engine that gave us 1995’s Toy Story. It’s wonderful.

Lots 4 Less has been described as a “fascinating graveyard of late capitalism” by Last Meal Chicago and “hell” by my friend Madison, who has bad childhood memories of being hauled out there for the dealz. It can be a graveyard—to seasonal products, questionable medicine or board games, and the ceaseless churn of overproduction—but it’s a lovely, busy, cheery place, just like a graveyard should be (See: the rural cemetery movement. I was raised by a graveyard historian!). But first and foremost it’s a grocery store, feeding many and delighting me to even think about. So last month I gave myself a $20 maximum and entered for the first time.

These $5 for 12 Great Value pie crusts was the first thing I saw when I entered, and an essential purchase. I usually make graham cracker crusts by hand, blitzing and incorporating butter, but it’s often a lot of work for crusts that might crumble quickly. With 12 crusts, I can much more easily make a cold-set pie and not disrupt my flow if the pie does crack.

This “Tea Island” pie crust, for example, initially shattered when I tried to transplant the gelatin bundt onto its surface. No worries, I had ~7 backups to use! This pie is peach tea with grapefruit segments and zest suspended, surrounded by Polish mulberry tea. Feels like a sin to serve.

This past-best-buy chocolate panna cotta pie has been, so far, the best application of premade crusts and surplus chocolate. It’s a Nutella panna with some additions from the 12 Hammond's chocolate bars I bought, ranging in flavors from birthday cake white chocolate to a “midnight snack” bar with pretzel, brittle, and cereal. I’ve since made 3 of these pannas for different events or to simply slow-munch them throughout the week. I thought I’d have many more pies to cold-set, as I had many more surplus crusts, but earlier this week I opened my case of 12 and found: ants.

These ants had crawled between the jagged, aluminum rim of each container to reach the crust, but many died (or, I found out in horror, went into hibernation) when they couldn’t find their way out. Imagine that: mausoleum-ed inside Walmart graham. They were swarming when I found them, and had fully colonized four of the remaining crusts. Three were salvageable, and I tossed the rest with such misery you’d think these were heirlooms. Please check in on your unsealed food this week!

Another fun use of the birthday cake chocolate was to make birthday cake cookies with whipped orange mascarpone that was, itself, a rescue item: No one at the church food drive wanted it, so my partner rescued it for me. These cookies needed sprinkles, which I bought for $1, loosely bagged, beside a Habitat for Humanity across the river from the casino in the background of this photo. My world is really opening up to more secondhand food! I’m giddy.

I hope I can share more of my food adventures later: on my second trip to Lots 4 Less I learned it’s also adjacent to the Tootsie Roll factory. Until then, I’ll be pressing homemade crunchwraps with my surplus grocery tortillas and queso. Plus finding a home for this Model-a-Day 2022 calendar I bought during my second trip. Any takers?