Vatapa's Profile

Nothing new under the sun -- my mom and grandmother had similar things when I was a kid (before plastic wrap was on the market). You could buy the caps in assorted sizes to fit your containers. They were very hard to clean if you ever got anything on them. I'm going to leave my shower caps in the bathroom. 8) That's a cool idea for the smoke detector.

I am The Queen of Hodgepodge. Not only do I have a lot of spices, I really like the look of them in jars of assorted sizes and shapes. Many of my spices are from the Mexican section of the grocery store, and others are from the Indo-China Market. Very few are from the local supermarket as I figured out long ago that the cellophane sacks in the Mexican section are a lot cheaper than the tiny jars aimed at the gringo trade. If I can, I like to cut the label off the original package and glue it onto my jars. The ethnic packaging has some really interesting graphics. I do tend to forget what I have on hand. I did some consolidation a couple of weeks ago and found that I had three jars of whole coriander seed -- about two cups total. Anyone have any ideas for recipes that use industrial quantities of coriander?

Loathe it. Loathe it. Loathe it. They keep moving things around and the supermarket so I can't find them, and it's either crowded with people and their kids going wild or senior citizens (yes, I'm a senior myself) scrutinizing everything and standing in front of what it is I want to buy, so I have to ask them to move so I can get my stuff. The produce section is OK, but the butcher shelf is often out of what I want. And the fish is not as fresh as I'd like it.

The farmers' market has no appeal to me. It's crowded and doesn't have much interesting produce -- pretty much what I can get at the supermarket and more expensive.

I usually plan my menus and make lists. Once I get to the market, I plan my route through the store, so I don't have to spend a minute more than I have to.

I've been doing this for years. I usually do a meat, refried beans, cheese, and raw onion combo. I've never tried salsa in a frozen burrito because I usually have it in my refrigerator. If I don't, I use a squirt of Sriracha.

Rice freezes very well, so go ahead and use it. Raw lettuce doesn't freeze well, so I'd leave that out.

I'm retired now, so I can choose when I go to TJ's, but when I was working, there were times when I dreamed of a service like this, even if they don't ship perishables.

Those parking lots!