An incomplete list of flaws

Besides the occasional admission of, say, some moldy minced garlic or spoilt bisque, I tend to focus on the treasures rather than the trash. I fear I'm sharing a glossed-over, gussied-up version of the salvage grocer.

Lest anyone accuse The Haul of anything other than radical transparency, here is a partial list of items that were not okay:

➊ Paul Newman ranch dressing. Do you know the distinct flavor when vegetable oil turns? It's a mild kind of rancid, not inedible per se, just musty and a bit sour. That's clearly what happened with the PN ranch. We briefly considered powering through it, but our anti-food waste vigor has limits. Down the drain.

➋ Hecker's all-purpose flour. There were ah, little bugs in it. Would you never visit the salvage grocer again? We are not the same.

➌ La Colombe canned lattes. I may have mentioned this before, but roughly one in ten cans has gone sour. Like a cursed shishito pepper. (FWIW the cans of cold brew are never bad, but that's because they don't contain dairy.)

➍ Publix canned dog food. This dog food is nutty cheap, so I've hoarded it in the past. There are often dents in the cans, no biggie. BUT some of the dents are on the lid, preventing the can opener from doing its sacred business. It's like a fully sealed pistachio or mussel — how do you access the treasure within??

➎ El Monterey breakfast burritos. This was first and foremost a disappointing purchase. They certainly appear to be promising, no? But no. The filling was a salty yellow gruel with rubbery little sausage nubbins. The funniest part was that some of the burritos had no filling at all! Just empty flour husks.

Incidentally, these are the owners of El Monterey, I just discovered online:

➏ Nature's Promise for Kids. This was on my list of flawed items but I simply can't remember what it was! My guess? I bought something allegedly for grown-ups but it was like baby multivitamins or pear mash.

➐ Polar seltzer. It pains me to say this: Occasional cans of seltzer, specifically the beloved Polar brand, have a low-key mold taste to them. I don't even know how this would happen.

➑ Schweppes seltzer. Sometimes the cans are sticky.

➒ Pepperoni pizza. One time we got a frozen pepperoni pizza, cannot recall the brand, but there were like 3 peps total, all clustered on the same slice.

LISTEN: I shop at the salvage grocery almost every day. We've spent thousands of dollars there over the years. Despite the misfires listed here — and I'm sure there are others — I still think the ratio of treasure-to-trash is off the charts in our favor.

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In other news, The Haul will be taking a week off while my mom visits town and we feed her lots of cheap and fancy things. I hope you're all eating well and staying warm and generally acting cool.

xo,

Jesse

P.S. Check out this amazing illustration I discovered through my online friend Jacqui's newsletter. Look familiar?

I'm gonna make salt cod fritters! (I know it's pollock, don't be a pedant.) Did you know that when you open this frozen product the filets are coated in actual crusty salt, and you have to soak them for hours, even days, to make 'em edible?

The store got a big shipment of Member's Mark stuff, which is like the Kirkland brand for Sam's Club. Every item is huge, like 18 pounds of egg rolls, a truckload of brownie bites. Unfortunately we ran out of fridge and freezer space so I limited my purchase to this tub o' dip. Oh also I bought Abby a Member's Mark cheesecake.

I thought this dip was from the storied Mexican restaurant in Berkeley, California, a favored haunt for weed-powered UC undergrads. Turns out it's from Atlanta, from a company that makes nothing besides melty cheese dips. Find your niche!

This toilet paper was quite the score. Apparently there was some mixup and the surplus grocer never meant to order it. I expressed interest and the manager guy said he'd sell me all of them for $12.50. 48 rolls of toilet paper! From Colombia!

(Incidentally I have not heard the name Rocio since I made out with a girl of that name at a youth hostel in my 20s. Don't tell Abby.)

The sign in front of this big bag of unlabeled peppers and onions said "Fajita mix, $1.99" but little do they know — I used them for homemade Philly cheesesteaks! I also used some of that Gordo's cheese dip as a stand-in for Velveeta.