Got value for money from our $33 lamb leg.

Lovely roast dinner on Sunday. Took most of the leftover meat off the bones then Monday roasted the bones and simmered them with some veg for broth-come-soup - surprisingly meaty - for lunches.
Then today's dinner was Lamb Bourguignon.

There's still a chunk left for sandwiches or could be a curry.

I went shopping this morning; stood in line @ 2m intervals for about 5 minutes until 9:00 and got in No Frills in the first wave. Got my avocados, roma tomatos, garlic, a cuke, big tray of lean burger, tray of hot Italian sausage, and one of mild Italian, 18 eggs, and with a scan and an insert tapped my way out of there. When I walked out at 9:10 they were admitting people 1 at a time as others left.

i picked up a wack of eggs on saturday. going to pickle them this afternoon

I bought a big jar of pickled eggs from Metro a couple of weeks ago
https://www.metro.ca/en/online-groce...p/067773060044
https://www.metro.ca/en/online-groce...p/061454251172

I also bought soused (pickled) herring

the only thing that should be pickled are onions.

Decided to sign up for Instacart today. $9.99 monthly. Saves what appears to be minimum $3.99 per delivery. The (almost hidden) service fee of 5% fell to 2% and on my order today I already saved about $9.

In these busy times - one assumes- it's common to see "no slots" available but then many options including almost immediate delivery. eg Monday night all the stores they shop at were coming up nothing available but at 8.30 this morning I was offered delivery between 9.20 and 2.20.

I made my order and then the shopper opened up a messaging field when at the supermarket. It was going fine and then suddenly "I must stop shopping...I have a personal emergency."
I had no idea whether someone would take over and neither did the shopper whose English was poor. I gave it a couple of hours and an email said "taking longer, sorry, delivery now later." I had two mails like that and then a new shopper did take over, completed the order and added a couple of other items I had messaged about. Perfect service.

The emails appeared to be automatic as the shop hadn't been completed. But at least it was done and done well in the end.

I was going to use instacart today, seems only 3 grocery like stores in my area are options, independent, Wal-Mart and Super Store, but instead of the usual no delivery available, the option is now order today and delivery between today and Monday, a bit too big of a window for me to place the order.

It's too bad more stores are not option here.

I have a Metro and Freshco within 5 minutes and a Food basics and Walmart within 10 - Fortinos is about 15 minutes away. Instacart only offer Walmart and Fortinos for delivery, which is annoying as Walmart don't stock a couple of the things I need and Fortinos is more expensive. https://www.inabuggy.com/ have a ton of other stores.. but are more expensive again

I will have to take a look at that service, see if its in Vancouver. Grocery chains are so different there, no Fortino's out this way as far as I know of, or food basics or Metro.

Within 15 minutes of me excluding downtown I have a couple No Frills locations, Super Store, Wal Mart (only one Wal Mart in City of Vancouver, its mostly a suburb store) Super Valu, a couple Save On's, Safeway, then downtown I know there is an IGA but the prices are insanely high, probably a couple other chains downtown but I never go downtown for groceries, there is a Whole Foods but its too expensive.

We do most of our shopping at No Frills since its next door, but we go to Save On if we want fresh bakery or deli stuff because No Frills lacks in store deli and bakery, and once in a blue moon Safeway.

Wal-Mart is a pain to get to, so we rarely go there.

There is a Costco downtown as well, but we don't have a membership, pretty useless store when on a small budget, $100 doesn't get you much variety at Costco.

J.
You go to your NoFrills store and pick up your essentials. That is what you do. Observe the distance rules and wear gloves, mask and glasses.
You can work around what you cannot have.
We have no bakery or deli items here either. It is a bit plain but honestly, we and the cat/birds are fed . That is a win.

Our next-door-neighbours are a retired couple with some health issues, therefore we are doing their shopping for them. It hadn't occurred to me how deeply personal one's shopping list is.

There are things that they are extremely specific about, things that we wouldn't buy in a million years, things that they seem to be able to manage without that we couldn't live a day without...

Asking someone to do your shopping is a really exposing act of trust. We've known them for 20 years but looking at their shopping list makes me think I'm living next door to actual aliens.

Hmm...retired couple. Let me guess. Ryvita biscuits, tate and lyle golden syrup, heinz salad cream, bovril, lots of canned soup, coffee mate and no 'foreign muck' or foods with a lot of garlic.

Spaghetti hoops, liver, cooking apples, margarine, doilies, sultanas, tins of fruit cocktail, jelly, stout.

This made me laugh - I could officially retire and whilst I like Ryvita, Bovril and also golden syrup (but only for flapjacks or steamed sponge pudding), I love foreign food and I eat garlic every day Talk about social profiling!

Oh yeah, I forgot tinned fruit cocktail. My nan used to serve ice cream with some fruit cocktail poured over it. Gammon and pineapple, battenburg cake, swiss roll anyone ?