This stuff is starting to get priced like health care. {{ LOL }}
{{ Elmarcia Knight was delighted with her find at Pamela’s Green Deli in the Bronx on a recent afternoon. On the counter were plastic bags, each stuffed with three eggs, on sale for $2.99 a baggie.
“You try to buy a half-carton, but this is way better,” Ms. Knight said.
The deli started selling the “loosies,” a term usually reserved for the individual cigarettes some bodegas sell under the counter, after the manager saw customers suffering sticker shock.
“They come in buy a loaf of bread and gallon of milk, and it’s nearly $13,” the manager, Luis Colon, said. “Every day, it’s getting more expensive.” }}
Look carefully at the pricing of bottles of OTC meds in Walmart. There are small bottles with only a few pills that are less expensive than the bottles with many pills – but each pill in the small bottle is much more expensive.
The marketers are clever. They are aiming at different niches. Those who can’t afford the larger bottle will buy the smaller one even though the individual pills are more expensive.
I wonder if the “JCs” will “motivate” state legislators to outlaw stores posting “unit pricing” on the shelves, so the math challenged can’t figure out how much they are paying per pill?
It’s not just the math challenged. Some people just don’t want to lay out 10 bucks for the 100 pill jar and would rather pay 5 bucks for the 20 pill jar. They figure they’d rather spend only 5 bucks now no matter what.
A few weeks ago at the supermarket, I saw someone buying a jar of mayonnaise for $7.99 or so. The helpful checkout clerk told them “this mayo is buy one get one free this week” and the person replied “I know, but I only need one”. Now we all know that mayonnaise has a relatively long shelf life, at least a few months, maybe even a year. But this person wasn’t interested in saving the $7.99 and putting the extra jar of mayo into their pantry until they need it in a month or two or three.
Was the person a senior citizen? I know that in our case at our age it would take us months (or more) to consume a whole jar of mayonnaise. We can’t even open a nice bottle of wine unless we have guests who appreciate a nice bottle of wine because we can’t drink it all. Many old people save by consuming less. She could have accepted the free jar and given to the local food bank if she had thought of it.
No. She was younger than me by at least 10 years, probably 20. And it wasn’t just a few items she was buying, it was a whole bunch of bags of stuff. As if there is a family with definitely more than 2 people at home.
And this was part of my point! Mayo is shelf stable for a very long time, months and months.
Time to cherish eggs a little more, and step up your cooking technique .
Building upon sous-vide and Onsen techniques that give the perfect yolk, a new Italian study suggests interval cooking for perfect results throughout:
Italian scientists say they have developed an egg-cooking technique dubbed the “periodic” method for optimally cooking yolk and whites inside the shell. Eggs are cycled between cold water and boiling water every two minutes for 32 minutes with the end result maintaining higher nutritional values compared to other methods.
Future research needs to be done to understand why the periodic egg has higher nutritional value compared to other cooking processes.
I’ve been following Kenji Lopez-Alt’s technique for a couple years and really like the result.
So how does one cook easy-peeling eggs that also have relatively tender whites? There are a couple of options. If you’re boiling, you can plunge your eggs into boiling water, let them boil for 30 seconds or so just to set the exteriors of the whites, then drop the temperature and finish them off at around 180 to 190°F, or 82 to 88°C (a very low simmer). You’ll end up with eggs that are easy to peel, with tender whites throughout.
The alternating cold and boiling water every two minutes for 32 minutes is pushing it, even for a devotee like me.
Making small quantities would be inefficient. However, in volume, the cooking time is irrelevant once the first batch is completed. Why? Continuous production would turn out eggs every two minutes because there would be 16 separate steps (2 min each) in each production line. Could have 30 or more lines. Can’t say how many eggs per line because that would be up to the builders of the machines (i.e. 1-6 or more eggs done simultaneously). Can’t say.
Hence the entire rationale at the Dollar Stores (and similar). Smaller packages, price friendly, oops, actually more expensive.
I saw this a few weeks ago and dismissed it out of hand. Good hard boiled eggs are simple.
Buy eggs. Allow to age at least a week in the fridge. Poke a pinhole in the end to allow the expanding air to escape, then place in already boiling water.
Turn the heat down, boil for 11 minutes for a creamy yoke, 13 for a harder yoke. Put in a colander or other dish, run under cold water for maybe 30 seconds, refrigerate. Will store in the fridge for 2 weeks.
“Alternate every 2 minutes for 32 minutes”, are you nuts?
Or someone who rarely uses mayo and ends up throwing out half the jar in 10 or 12 months or so. Like me. I suppose I could just throw out one partially used jar and a full never opened jar. Wouldn’t that be smart; I’d sure fool them.
The way I’ve been making hard boiled eggs for a few years now with very good success is -
Don’t use new eggs, let them sit for a week or two before boiling. This is not so easy in a household where lots of eggs are used regularly.
Put them in a pot with water and set on medium heat.
As soon as you observe a rolling boil, cover the pot and turn the heat source OFF.
Let them sit there in the hot water for 10+ minutes.
Using this method almost always results in perfectly cooked hard boiled eggs.
If you use mayo that rarely, just buy the smaller container of it. Those also go BOGO periodically. The squeeze ones are particularly easy to use. I like the squeeze ones because I can slice an avocado in half, squeeze a dollop of mayo into the “hole” where the seed was, and then add some hot sauce and eat it all with a spoon. Quick, healthy, and easy snack.
Mayonnaise is actually easily to make in small batches as needed at home, if you have a blender. E.g.
Home made is much better than any store bought except, possibly, Hellmans/Best Food is arguable as good, and the home made version is cheaper and better for you.
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