No new friends

Should I start calling the surplus grocer the "salvage grocer?" The terms are often used interchangeably but the latter feels more accurate, as I consider it. "Surplus" implies that everything is a result of a store overstocking or over-ordering products. But that's only one piece of the puzzle, as we all know.

"Salvage" is broader, and sounds more rugged to boot. It conjures up the wide array of reasons why products end up at the store: discontinued, damaged, near-expired, overstocked, and everything in between. Everything was salvaged from ending up at the landfill.

Do my readers agree?

*

Today is my birthday, and it is also a holiday. I told my niece Hunter that I've lived long enough to see my birthday-holiday evolve from a celebration of an oppressor to an uprising of the oppressed. I didn't have much to do with the change, but I do prefer saying "Happy Indigenous People's Day!" rather than wincing at "Happy C___ Day!" when some yahoo says it. (People used to say it, right? Hard to remember anything pre-2020.)

Anyway Abby is taking me for some surprise birthday fun very soon so I'm simply gonna post some videos from our old pal Pearse. Remember how I sent him a goodie box in return for his guest post? Well here is some fresh unboxing content:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/80tVWZZ3uto

WAIT THERE'S MORE PEARSE ASMR CONTENT

Bonus 1 Here is how Pearse used the honey cerveza beans:

They were good, they weren't that strong and it looked like the honey/beer flavor was all thru the flavored water they sat in. So I roasted some eggplant and red onion, chopped thin and threw drained beans in there. I whipped the liquid into a cornstarch slurry and cooked it down with a sour lemonade ale and Door County honey, the end result was a surprisingly good consistency bean dip of sorts, one I only had to thicken with breadcrumbs briefly, that was able to get double the honey/beer — which I think helped.

Bonus 2 Here is how Pearse used the Vienna sausages:

Off to explore the city! Until next week, friend-os.

xo,

Jesse

Featured Items

Sometimes there is a cooking emergency and you're in a hurry and you have to buy an item that's not quite right. Abby was trussing and roasting a big chicken and needed a big roll of aluminum foil but instead she had to Frankenstein together a bunch of individual sheets because that's all the salvage grocer had in stock. Foilrite? Foilwrong!

For those not in the know, Peter Luger is arguably the most well-known, esteemed steakhouse operating in NYC today (if anyone argues I will wedgie them to the moon.) It's been the place to bring your visiting Midwestern parents for as long as I've lived here, and presumably many years before that. ANYway it seemed cool to get a bottle of their fancy steak sauce until Abby pointed out that neither of us like steak sauce.

I bought these fresh edamame beans when there was supposed to be a moratorium on buying things at the salvage grocer because our fridge was too full and wheezing.* I knew Abby wouldn't be cross because hey, it's fresh edamame beans! Salt 'em, heat 'em and eat 'em baby.

*I fixed the fridge myself! I'm terrible at doing stuff like that so it was a proud moment.

These Bangladeshi dried peppers are sure to scorch our innards, I cannot wait. Incidentally, I learned Pran is the largest agribusiness company (~cool website alert~) in all of Bangladesh. Facts!

Gotta hear both sides!