FRESH & EASY COMES TO A SHOPPING CENTER NEAR ME

Today's excitement in my city was the opening of a Fresh & Easy grocery store.

As luck would have it, this Fresh & Easy is in the shopping center closest to my house. Just a bit over a mile away, I can actually walk to it, if need be. More significantly, this shopping center has been without a grocery store for about 5 years. The rumors of the arrival of my neighborhood Fresh & Easy started a few years back when Fresh & Easy started its expansion into California, Arizona, and Nevada. But, as the economy slowed down, so did the expansion.

So today was my city's day for its very own Fresh & Easy. There were lines of people, myself included, lined up outside in the rain for the 10 a.m. opening.

With my $5 off on a total purchase of $20 in hand, I joined the masses, walking up and down the aisles.





No problem buying $20 worth...my total was over $70 before my discounts.

So what is Fresh & Easy? They call their stores "Neighborhood Markets" and I can best describe them as a combination of a down-scaled Trader Joe's and a Target grocery store.

They feature fresh meat and produce and lots of prepared meals. They carry all the packaged staples too...paper towels, laundry soap, cereal, crackers, soda...everything bigger grocery stores carry. Their prepared meals contain no additives and preservatives. About half their merchandise is their own label and the rest are brands that you will find in mainstream grocery stores.

I came home with everything from two meals for tonight's dinner, to a tub of Butternut Squash soup, to their brand of liquid soap (a version of Joy), to a loaf of bread, to organic mushrooms, to several bottles of their own California wine. Many of their breads are made for them by Il Fornaio.

Fresh & Easy says they keep their costs down with covers on their freezer compartments, bare cement floors, energy efficiency, and self checkout. There is more to their cost-saving list, but this gives an idea of their philosophy.

Will I be a regular Fresh & Easy shopper? Probably. Will this be my main grocery store? I doubt it; I like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods too much to toss them aside. But, I'm happy to have my very own Fresh & Easy and I know I will be one of their frequent visitors.

COUNT ON WHOLE FOODS FOR HOLIDAY MEALS

For just about every holiday, I buy at least part of my meal, already-prepared, from Whole Foods.

It's not that I can't or don't like to cook. It's more about not always having the time and, even more importantly, because I am often just cooking for the two of us, it is not easy to prepare just enough of a holiday meal for just that day with maybe another day's worth of leftovers.

Also, for certain holiday meals, particular the Jewish holidays, J and I like different foods. At Whole Foods I can buy brisket for him and chicken for me; a potato latke for him, a parsnip latke for me. We can get enough chopped liver for just one meal. It works for us!

So yesterday, for St. Patrick's Day, our choices were Whole Food's Corned Beef Dinner for Two ($19.95) or going out to eat. I did not have the time nor inclination to cook corned beef and cabbage and the Whole Foods meal was just too too tempting.

The above photo is what we got: a pound of lean corned beef, cabbage with apples and cranberries, roasted potatoes, turnips, and carrots. And, to go with it, a loaf of Irish Soda Bread. All I needed to do was to put the pan in the oven and warm it up...they would have heated it, had I wanted them to.




I did add dessert: three mini pastries; two mini key lime tarts and one two-bite chocolate brownie. Their mini pastries cost $17.99 a pound. These three cost a little over $3.00, perfectly fair.

Tonight we will eat the leftovers including the mini cupcake...the key lime tarts were just enough dessert for us last night.