The produce selection at the downtown Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op. Photo by Lindsey Nair | The Roanoke Times.

The Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op opened a second location in downtown Roanoke on May 10, one week ago today. I dropped in today to have a look around and take some pictures.

As you’ll see in the photo slideshow below*, they’ve packed a lot of good stuff into this location, but it doesn’t look cluttered at all. You can go in for bulk ingredients, grind-your-own coffee or peanut butter, snacks, cold drinks, ice cream, produce, cleaning supplies, and a lot more. The grab-and-go food section offers sandwiches, soup, salads and the like prepared at the Grandin Village location, which houses a deli.

I picked up a tube of quinoa polenta, two avocados to make some guacamole this weekend, and some rice crackers to snack on.

If you’ve been to the new co-op location or if you go soon, let me know what you thought of the selection, prices and such.

* To get the most out of this slideshow, click play, then click the box with arrows in the lower right corner to expand it to full screen, then click “show info” at the top right.

File photo.

March is Frozen Food Month. There is a month for everything in the food world, as we know, but I do believe frozen food deserves some props at least once a year. What would we do without it?

Obviously, fresh ingredients are always preferred over anything frozen or canned, but when Old Man Winter turns the earth to rock and drags temperatures down to teeth-chattering levels, we must look to the frozen food aisle for many of our favorites, including fruits and vegetables.

Frozen produce shouldn’t have a bad name. Most of those products are flash frozen the same day they come out of the fields, retaining their healthy components and flavors. They are generally much more nutritious than canned produce.

In our house, our favorite frozen product is spinach. You will always find several bags of frozen spinach in the freezer. I use it in recipes, but more often it’s my go-to vegetable side dish on a night when I’m in a hurry. We probably consume one bag of frozen spinach per week, on average. We also like frozen turnip greens. Both are delicious with a little Tastefully Simple Bacon Bacon.

In addition, I like organic frozen burritos, ice cream and the occasional Kashi frozen dinner. And I always have a frozen pizza in the chest freezer in the basement in case of an emergency. And by emergency I mean, like, extreme laziness or craziness on a week night.

In honor of Frozen Food Month and the fact that, according to the weather forecast, we are about to be frozen ourselves, tell me: What is your family’s favorite frozen food product? Is there a frozen product you would never buy?

Introducing the Lady Alice. Photo courtesy Rainier Fruit Co.

The emails piled up in my inbox while I was away last week, so it is time to clear them out and share all of the interesting food-related tidbits. This list of news ranges from a new apple you’ll soon find in grocery stores to upcoming cooking classes at The River and Rail in South Roanoke.

Read on, and then I hope you’ll go on to have a wonderful weekend!

* Kroger is going to spotlight Sunkist Cara Cara oranges with a special lunch at the Bonsack store on Saturday. The lunch will be prepared by Kroger Chef Tanner LaPrade.
LaPrade said these oranges are not new, but they have become very popular of late. He described them as a very sweet orange with a lot of flavor.
LaPrade will make Cara Cara cabbage salad with skewered shrimp or salmon and Cara Cara salsa. There will be free samples of the food in the deli/produce area of the store, and the dishes will be available for sale on the bistro bar from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The oranges will be on sale in the produce department for $3.99/3 lbs. Salmon and shrimp will also be on sale at $4.99/lb. and $5.99/lb., respectively.

* Also in produce news, it seems a new apple will soon emerge in grocery stores across the country courtesy of the Rainier Fruit Company in Washington. The apple is called the Lady Alice, and a press release describes it as “an heirloom-like fruit that is similar to a fine wine – flavorful and complex, and one that gets better several months after it is picked when the flavor reaches its peak.”
This part is also interesting: “The rarity of a chance seedling creating an apple that is quickly becoming a national favorite is a story in itself. It was discovered quite by chance on a farm near Gleed, Washington in 1978 when a grower accidentally cut an apple tree with his farm equipment. A chance seedling grew from the base and over the next 25 years, steps were taken to preserve and propagate the distinctive characteristics of the Lady Alice.  The Lady Alice brand apple is named after Alice Zirkle, the co-founder of Rainier Fruit Company in honor of her memory.”
Lady Alice apples are reportedly good for cooking and eating out-of-hand, with flesh that is slow to brown when cut and retains a firm shape when cooked.

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An aisle at Saigon Market on Williamson Road. Photo by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times.

Late last year, I promised blog readers that I would revisit the subject of ethnic markets in the Roanoke and New River valleys. It had been about five years since I shared a comprehensive list with my readers, so I thought it was time to get out there and do a little scouting and update that list.

The result is what you see in today’s Front Burner column in Extra. Although the column includes a pretty long list of markets, I know for a fact that I’ve missed something. That’s because these markets are the kinds of businesses most people — including myself — discover either by word-of-mouth or by driving by and deciding to stop in. I hope that if you know of a market I’ve missed you’ll give me a little word-of-mouth so I can share it.

Also, while I reviewed five new-to-me markets in today’s paper, I discovered a sixth one after it was too late to get it in the story. I’d like to tell you a little bit about that market below (click “Read More”). To read the column and see the list, please click here. To see a recipe for Thai Curry, click here.
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In case you missed the news, S&W Market at 16 West Marketplace on Church Avenue in downtown Roanoke will hold a grand opening celebration on Saturday. This opening means there will finally be a grocery store in downtown, which should be good news to downtown residents and workers who forgot to pick up an important dinner ingredient or are looking for a quick meal idea.

During the grand opening, the store will offer tastings and special deals.

For more information about the market, including hours, read The Storefront blog entry here.

If you shop regularly at Kroger, you may have recently noticed some new products on store shelves. The clean packaging and circular green logo are part of the grocer’s new line of Simple Truth and Simple Truth Organic products, which are reportedly free of 101 artificial ingredients and preservatives that “some customers have said they do not want in their foods,” a press release stated.

Available products include Simple Truth soy milk, regular milk, chicken, sodas and chips. The company has recently been running some pretty good sales on the products, no doubt in an effort to invite customers to try them. And despite a recent Stanford University study that asserted organic foods are no more nutritious than nonorganic foods, when I see organic labels, I am personally more tempted to buy those brands IF the price is doable.

Before we come back to the Stanford study, which we talked about on this blog and which has been debated since its publication, let’s look more closely at Simple Truth. The brand’s website lists the artificial items that have been cut from the ingredient lists, and these items include artificial colors and flavors, bleached flour, antibiotics, high-fructose corn syrup and a whole host of unappetizing, chemically words that start with prefixes such as ethyl- and methyl- and propyl- and benzo-. You can see this list for yourself here.

According to Kroger, “Simple Truth and Simple Truth Organic brands will be rolled out in phases beginning this month with new food introductions, including cereals, frozen pizza, and vegetarian options, happening regularly. By January 2013, both brands will collectively expand to more than 40 product categories and appear in many aisles at Kroger’s Family of Stores.”

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I don’t know about you guys, but I was pretty interested in reading the Associated Press article on the front page of today’s Roanoke Times, “Study: Organic foods offer few health benefits.”

My initial reaction to the headline was not one of surprise. Although I don’t make many purchasing decisions based on whether a food is “organic” or not, I was still disappointed that my suspicious were basically confirmed by this Stanford University research.

In all my years of reporting about food, I’ve talked to many local farmers who are not certified organic. They explain that it costs money and takes time to fill out paperwork to be certified organic, and the only difference it would make in the way they grow or raise their products is in the eyes of the consumer. Not that the consumer’s perspective is not important, but most of these local farmers’ customers have talked to the farmer and know they follow organic principals (not using synthetic pesticides; not giving their animals hormones and antibiotics; giving animals room to roam and forage) even if they have not jumped through the hoops in order to earn that label.

At the grocery store, however, it is not possible to talk to the growers. So we walk into the produce department or the meat department and know nothing more than that a product is “organic” according to government standards. And that makes a lot of people feel better, which is probably why, according to the AP article, organic food sales went from $3.6 billion in 1997 to $31.4 billion last year.
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New kid on the yogurt block. Photo courtesy Muller Quaker Dairy.

Something very strange happened in our household recently. A carton of yogurt turned up in the refrigerator, and I did not buy it.

When I questioned my husband about this mysterious carton of vanilla yogurt, he said he’d read an article about how healthy it is to eat yogurt. So even though I’ve been eating yogurt since we met about 10 years ago, he wasn’t convinced to try it until he read it in one of his magazines.

Anyway, I was not about to give him a hard time about it (at least not until now). I was just happy to hear that he was willing to try yogurt, because I have always loved it. But then I looked at the carton more closely and saw that it was a regular blended generic brand.

“I’ve got bad news for you,” I said. “This yogurt probably contains artificial sweetener.” I knew this because I figured out a long time ago that an inordinate number of yogurt varieties contain artificial sweetener. And there it was, buried in the middle of the ingredients: sucralose. If it isn’t sucralose, it’s aspartame. If it isn’t sweetened artificially, a carton of yogurt can contain upwards of 29 grams of sugar, which is more than twice the amount of sugar we’re supposed to consume in one snack.

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The Kroger Mid-Atlantic division, which includes 122 stores in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio, this week announced that it is ramping up its efforts to stock locally grown produce.

In our neck of the woods (Roanoke and New River valleys; Alleghany Highlands), that means we can buy fruits and veggies grown by Layman Family Farms in Blue Ridge. Farmer Eric Layman said he is currently selling peaches, summer squash and zucchini to Kroger, and when tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and fall apples are in season he may provide those items.

To be clear, this is not the first time Kroger has stocked local produce. Layman said he has been dealing with Kroger for about four years. But York said the company is trying to increase these efforts and is improving signage that will help customers find local products.

York also said the pricing of local produce will be handled the same way pricing of other grocery items is done, taking into account what they pay for the product and what they need to sell it for to make a profit. Some of this local produce might be cheaper because it costs less to transport it from farm to store.

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Photo by Lindsey Nair

I noticed when I drove past the Fresh Oriental Market on Williamson Road last Wednesday that the lights were out at about 8 p.m. Since I knew it was usually open later than that, I suspected something was amiss.

Sure enough, the market at the corner of Williamson and Liberty roads has closed. The owners, Hien and Shilin Bui, also own Pho Viet Nam restaurant on Orange Avenue and opened QQ Bubble Tea in the Roanoke City Market Building in April. When I talked to Hien Bui yesterday, he said they decided to close Fresh Oriental Market because they have too many other things on their plate now.

I hope the Vietnamese restaurant and the bubble tea place work out, because it would be sad to see the owners sacrifice a longstanding business for the new endeavors. I wish them the best of luck.

Meanwhile, this reminds me that it’s been a few years since I did my series about ethnic markets in the Roanoke and New River valleys (That link is to Part 1 of the series; scroll down and click links in the bar on the left of your screen to see the other three parts). The landscape has changed since then. Certainly, some of those stores are still going strong or have expanded, but others have closed and new shops have opened since then. I think I ought to do another round-up to update readers on where they can shop for specialty food items.

I see some new markets when I’m driving around, but I’m sure I have missed some. If you know of an ethnic market (whether it be Asian, Mediterranean, Latino, a mix of ethnicities or any other kind), please let me know so I can make sure they are not left off my list.

Do you shop at any ethnic markets?

McClatchy-Tribune file photo.

I have always found individual grocery shopping habits pretty fascinating. I’m sure they say something about a person, but I’m no sociologist. Since I know my own household best, I’ll use it as an example.

We usually do our grocery shopping on Sundays, when the new sales start at Kroger and coupons and the circular come out in the paper. The weirdest thing we do is split up with our own grocery carts and check out separately. Neither of us have the patience to let the other one drive.

At Kroger, I always look for bright orange clearance stickers, particularly in the produce department, the organic frozen food department, the meat department and the deli (good scores on fancy cheeses). We also poke around in those clearance baskets that Kroger randomly parks in their stores and have found a few good deals there. For example, Howard recently found his shaving cream for $1 and it was only missing the cap.

After spending about an hour in the grocery store doing my main shopping for the week, we usually go home and remember something we forgot, which means one of us makes another short trip (or two) during the week. Recently, we’ve also started to swing by Food Lion once a week to buy things like dog food or deli meat or to check out their meat selection. I also often shop ethnic markets for better prices on exotic items and go to Wal-Mart about once a month for one or two products that are priced much lower there (namely, Clear Care contact lens cleaning solution and makeup). I rarely go to Fresh Market only because it is not near my house. When I do, it is usually for ingredients for that night’s meal or a gift/potluck situation.

My biggest pet peeves at the grocery store are probably the same as everybody’s:

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Ar-ti-san:
1. noun: A worker who practices a trade or handicraft. One that produces something (as cheese or wine) in limited quantities often using traditional methods
2. adjective: pertaining to or noting high-quality, distinctive products made in small quantities. Example: artisan beer.

Notice that this definition of the word “artisan” does not include any references to mass-produced chips or chain restaurant pizza. However, bags of mass-produced chips and chain restaurant pizza are being marketed as “artisan,” as are many other products.

USA Today noted this word’s rise in popularity in a recent article, which was picked up by the news/gossip blog Gawker. A word of warning: If foul language offends you, you may want to read the USA Today story and skip the Gawker story. However, if foul language amuses you, you’ll probably enjoy Gawker’s take on this.

As the USA Today story points out, everyone from Domino’s to Tostitos to Starbucks is jumping on the artisenal bandwagon. Is it accurate for them to use that word to describe the products? Is it fair?

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Associated Press

Update 2:45 p.m.: According to Anne Jenkins, spokeswoman for Kroger’s Mid-Atlantic Division, cantaloupes sold in SWVa. Kroger stores are safe to eat. End update.

Please be aware, if you are not already, that a serious listeria outbreak linked to cantaloupes has killed as many as 16 people and sickened more than 70 nationwide, according to the Associated Press.

The AP is reporting that some of those ill are in Virginia, and that tainted fruit may have been sold in Virginia. I don’t want ANY of my wonderful readers to get sick, so PLEASE click on the link below and read more about the outbreak.

“Cantaloupe listeria outbreak is deadliest in a decade”

The folks from Good Meadow Homemades, an outgrowth of the Ukrops company, are going to be beefing up their selection in area Kroger stores.

Good Meadow Homemades already was stocking some favorites from the old Ukrops stores at local Krogers, including White House Rolls, tarts and cookies. This summer, some Kroger stores also started to carry Good Meadow prepared sandwiches, salads, sides and desserts.

Now, the company is going to bring chilled, prepared entrees to the market. These include their Chicken Cobbler, Baked Spaghetti, Grilled Chicken with BBQ Sauce, Meatloaf and Cheddar Mashed Potatoes, Pork Enchiladas and Pulled Pork Barbeque. These meals will be available in the not-too-distant future at the following Kroger stores:

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Just a reminder that the PlateUp Winter Recipe Contest cookoff will take place starting at 6 p.m. this evening at the Bonsack Kroger store, just off U.S. 460 near the Walmart in Bonsack.

Anyone is welcome to come and see us judge the three finalists’ recipes. Their dishes will be available for sale in the bistro at lunch and dinnertime today, and during the event tonight, free samples will be handed out. In addition, there will be five Kroger gift cards given away as door prizes. So come on out, see the winners and maybe you will win something yourself!

Photo by Ross Catrow/Flickr

This just in: If you miss Ukrop’s White House Rolls, chocolate tarts and other products, you may be able to find them at Kroger. Say whaaaaaat? At least, that’s what I said.

Yep, it appears as if Ukrop’s is selling some of its signature bakery products under the brand name Good Meadow Homemades. This includes pies, tarts, rolls, cornbread, their Rainbow Cookies and assorted danishes and pastries. According to the website, the name comes from Ukrop family ancestry – they originally came from the then-Czechoslovakian village of Dobra Niva, which means “Good Meadow.”

Also according to the Good Meadow website, the products are available at just about every Kroger in the Roanoke and New River valleys, including Christiansburg, Blacksburg, Salem and Vinton. For a full list, go here and click on “view retailers in a larger map.”

So, Ukrop’s is baaaaaaack. Who would’ve thought? In honor of the occasion, I will share another recipe from the cookbook “Celebrating with Ukrop’s Great Food.” This one’s for Redskin Potato Casserole. It’s a cheesy, lasagna-esque layering of potato slices, ricotta cheese mixture and Swiss cheese. Click the link to see and print the recipe.

Spicy Seafood Hot Pot at Wonju Korean Restaurant. Photo by Sam Dean l The Roanoke Times.

Williamson Road was once the unofficial Main Street of Roanoke, where young folks went cruising on Friday nights, out-of-towners stayed in spiffy motels and regulars satisfied cravings for a Buddy Boy burger at Lendy’s drive-in.

Today, a lot of folks still view Williamson Road as a ghost of its former self, haunted by abandoned shells of Americana. The truth is, this traffic artery is bustling in a whole new way that makes it an exciting, diverse place for food lovers such as myself.

Wendy Jones, executive director of the Williamson Road Area Business Association, calls the road a “melting pot” and a business incubator for entrepreneurs who hail from all over the world, specifically Mexico, South America, Asia and the Middle East. Because rent is more affordable there than in places like downtown Roanoke or Grandin Village, it’s a perfect place for aspiring restaurateurs and grocers to anchor themselves and build a business, Jones said.

Over the past 10 years, Williamson Road has become a diversity corridor dotted with ethnic markets and restaurants. But the scene has changed a bit since the last time I wrote about this, so I thought it was time to update readers on some exciting additions to the neighborhood, including new Korean, Mexican and Cuban restaurants, a new halal food store and a market that carries ingredients for just about every Asian cuisine you can imagine.

To continue reading this column, click here.

Sam Dean l The Roanoke Times

 

Increased demand for fresh, local food persuaded two Lexington families to reopen a meat-processing facility that will help small farmers and customers alike.

LEXINGTON — Steve Donald was a high school senior when his father decided it was time to fully initiate him in the family business.
“I came home from school, and my father looked at my brother, Rick, and I and said, ‘There’s four cattle down in the pen. Go butcher them on your own.’”
It was daunting, but Donald and his five brothers and sisters had grown up around farming — and slaughtering.
Their grandfather opened Donald’s Slaughterhouse in Lexington in the 1930s, and their father, Bill, took over the business when he left the military in the early 1950s. As long as they were old enough, helping out at the plant was a regular occurrence for the Donald kids.
But by 1988, Bill Donald was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and the custom slaughtering business seemed to be dying out.
The plant was shuttered, and neither Steve nor Tim Donald thought they would ever see it reopen. Then the local food movement, and a very persuasive farmer, came along.

To continue reading this story I wrote for today’s Extra section of The Roanoke Times, click here.

UPDATE: I talked to Kroger spokesman Carl York this afternoon, and he said the shortage is definitely affecting supplies of canned pumpkin in our area. Kroger stores are getting it “on allocation,” which means they cannot get all that they order right now. He said he isn’t sure when the rationing will end, but he does know that it has not affected supplies of frozen pumpkin pies or the pumpkin pies you can buy in the Kroger bakery.

“I know for some customers, that might not be an alternative,” he said.

If you go to your Kroger store and cannot find canned pumpkin, check with the customer service desk. They may be able to tell you if another order is coming in or if they can get some from another store. Also remember that fresh pie pumpkins are a delicious alternative to canned pumpkin. If you can find pie pumpkins, all you have to do it split them in half, remove the seeds and stem, place them in a microwave-safe dish with about an inch of water on the bottom, cover and nuke until soft. Then scoop out the flesh, puree it and go from there as you would with a recipe that calls for canned pumpkin. Another good idea came from my co-worker Tonia Moxley, who is a great cook: try subbing butternut squash instead.

I don’t know if you all have heard the news, but we may be facing a bit of a pumpkin shortage come holiday time (L.A. Times story; Baltimore Sun article). It’s hard to believe, seeing the Halloween pumpkins stacked in front of grocery stores and spread across fields at the orchards, but it’s true — canned pumpkin is scarce right now, and when the shelves do get stocked, you might be paying upwards of an additional dollar for one can of Libby’s, the leading brand.

Apparently, it was wet weather last pumpkin season that is negatively affecting supplies of canned pumpkin this year. That’s because the canned pumpkin companies generally use surplus from the previous season to supply stores in September and October. Then, once this year’s harvest begins, they can start stocking fresh cans.

I have to wonder if this year’s harvest is going to be much better, though. At least in these parts, it seems a lot of people’s summer squash harvests were ruined by too much rain. Maybe the harder shelled winter squashes are a different story. But it seems that most of the canned pumpkin comes from out west anyway.

Has anyone had trouble finding canned pumpkin at local grocery stores lately?

Wings of gold

Last week, a blog reader forwarded me a fascinating business article from The New York Times about chicken prices. According to the story, lots of restaurants have dropped wing specials or dropped chicken wings from the menu entirely in favor of “boneless wings,” which are really just breaded chunks of chicken breast meat.

According to the article, this is happening because chicken wings, once little more than a throwaway part, are actually MORE EXPENSIVE now than chicken breasts. This may be more obvious to restaurant food buyers than supermarket customers because grocery stores may be trying to “preserve their margins on breast meat.”

Is this happening because chicken wings have gotten so popular? In part, but the NYT reporter also found that when the economy took a nosedive, people stopped eating out as often and chicken breast sales slumped. But chicken wings were apparently still viewed as a cheap indulgence.

I haven’t thought of chicken wings as “cheap” in quite some time. We buy them and make them at home pretty often, and by the time you factor in the work it takes to clean and trim them, we might as well go out to a restaurant and order a plate. We do it for fun and because our wings are pretty darn good.

Do you guys think boneless wings are a reasonable substitute for bone-in? If any chefs and restaurateurs are reading this entry, what do you make of the price flip-flop?

Mark your calendars now for these upcoming food-related happenings:

* Tomorrow, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. – Fall Open House at Foggy Ridge Hard Cider in Dugspur. This will involve free cider tastings (this stuff is soooooo good) and wood-fired pizzas for sale by Dogtown Pizza. Also, apple expert Tom Burford will be there identifying apples, so if you have an apple tree and would like to know what kind of apples they are, bring a few along to show to Tom. He is a most fascinating character. If the weather is nice, I can promise you this will be a gorgeous drive. For more info, go to foggyridgecider.com.

* Oct. 17, 3 to 6 p.m. – Fresh Flavors cooking demonstration at Fresh Market in Roanoke. Learn to prepare seared chicken thighs with warm Malbec plum glaze. For more info, call 344-5490.

* Oct. 6, 13 and 20, 6 p.m. – Brewmaster dinners at Bull & Bones Brewhaus & Grill in Blacksburg. A seven-course dinner, each course paired with one of the Bull & Bones craft beers. I’ve seen the menu and it looks really frickin’ awesome. Includes a tour of the brewing facilities. Hosted by the brewmaster himself, Jim Strickland. Costs $50 per person or $90 per couple. Seating is limited; advance reservations are recommended. All of this is leading up to the Oct. 24 Blacksburg Brew-Do, the town’s first craft brew festival. More details on that to come!

*  Nov. 7 – Children’s Miracle Network “Miracles for Children Ball” at Hotel Roanoke. Includes an “Iron Chef”-style cooking competition. I’ll pass along more details as they come to me.

* Also on Nov. 7 – Teach a Friend to Brew Day will take place at the Blue Ridge Hydroponics & Home Brewing Co. at Lamplighter Mall on Williamson Road in Roanoke. The Star City Brewers Guild is teaming up with Blue Ridge Hydroponics for the event. It will include food, beer tastings and instruction on how to make your own beer at home. For more information, call Blue Ridge Hydroponics at (540) 265-2483.

Two items of breaking news on the food scene this afternoon:

* Ukrop’s grocery store in Roanoke, which has been struggling for the past few months, has announced it will close in late October. For more info, go here.

* The historic Olde Liberty Station Restaurant in Bedford was damaged by fire today. Here’s a breaking news brief by reporter Rex Bowman.

Keep your browser on www.roanoke.com for updates to these stories, and look in tomorrow’s paper for the full stories.

I’ve been saying for 5 or 10 years now that if I had the money to start my own business in downtown Roanoke, it wouldn’t be a restaurant. It would be a gourmet grocery store – something like a Tinnell’s Finer Foods in South Roanoke, except bigger and with even more selection.

Of course, 10 years ago (and maybe even 5 years ago), we probably wouldn’t have had the customer base in downtown Roanoke to make a go of it. Now that so many people are moving into revitalized downtown buildings, it’s the best time ever for an endeavor like this. So I was excited (and a little jealous) when I read Jenny Kincaid Boone’s story in the Business section of The Roanoke Times this morning about four investors who hope to open just such a store on Church Avenue.

Just two years ago, you couldn’t even find a convenience store in downtown Roanoke. Now we have two. But the problem has remained that besides the farmers market, there’s no place to buy groceries. I don’t think this store will be a boon to just downtown residents; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I could run downtown on my way home and pick up some household staple I needed or some dinner fixings I wanted so I wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store. Downtown workers will undoubtedly find this very convenient, but the store owners are going to have to stay open late enough to serve the customers who don’t get off work until 5 or 6 p.m., maybe later.

According to Jenny’s story, the project is in the very early stages. They’re going to have to do a lot of remodeling and then find folks who want to rent from them and open shops. I hope they can keep the dream alive, and I also hope they don’t spend so much time thinking about the health club and the food court that they lose sight of what we really need downtown: Groceries!

What would you like to see in a downtown grocery store? And would you shop there?

This is my granola bar. It’s a Quaker “True Delights” Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia Nut granola bar. And let me just say that it is delicious — all two bites of it!

I don’t want a granola bar the size of my leg, but seriously, look at this tiny thing. I had to place it next to my stapler for context. When you buy a box of these (they were on sale for $2.49 this week), you get five bars. And then you open them and they are miniscule. Hey, I think Barbie might be hungry, guys. If I give her one of these, she MIGHT have enough to share with Ken.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but I still think we are getting less food for our money in some cases at the grocery store. Has anyone else continued to notice this? If so, got any specific product examples?

A rumor that has been floating around central and Southwest Virginia for more than a week may have some truth to it. The Richmond Times-Dispatch is reporting that the owners of the Ukrop’s grocery store chain may be searching for buyers. Our business reporter, Jenny Boone, has been doggedly following this story for more than a week and has posted one blog entry over on her Storefront blog.

Stay tuned to Jenny’s blog and mine, as well as the home page of Roanoke.com, for more updates.

Yesterday, I saved $19 on my grocery bill at Kroger. And it was all because of coupons.

Lots of people don’t use coupons because they think it is a nuisance to clip them, or because it just isn’t worth all of the extra time and planning in the end. But I have grown to be a big coupon user over the years, particularly with the recent plunge in the economy.

A few of my co-workers and I recently started up a little coupon exchange. On Sundays, we go through the coupons from the newspaper and clip out what we want. On Mondays, we bring the leftover coupons to work and tell each other which ones we were interested in. Then, we trade off. And it works out well because while some of them have children, I don’t. And while I have cats, some co-workers don’t. And, of course, everyone has their own preference for name brand food products.

Photo editor Natalee Waters delivered a small stack to me last week with the words, “that’s nine dollars worth of savings!” Indeed, much of my savings at the store yesterday came from the exchange. Three dollars off some contact lens solution, three dollars off some disposable razors, a free tube of Crest, 45 cents off cheese, 25 cents off juice… it all adds up in the end!

If you are looking to save money on the grocery bill, consider a coupon exchange with coworkers, neighbors, church members or other members of your moms’ club. If you find a better way to do it than we have, please pass that on. And if you have other great coupon tips, please share!

www.bevreview.com

If you didn’t immediately know what I meant by “HFCS,” then you have been blissfully unaware of the fact that high fructose corn syrup is increasingly making the news as a dreaded ingredient to avoid at all costs. Some have accused the sweetener of contributing to the rise in diabetes and obesity in the United States.

The latest I heard was that if HFCS was one of the first five ingredients listed on a food label, you shouldn’t buy or eat that food. Do you have any idea how many products in the grocery store would never make it into your basket under that rule? It’s in everything from ketchup to breakfast bars to bread.

The Corn Refiners Association is, of course, fighting this negative image tooth and nail. Their Web site claims that some HFCS studies are flawed and includes this argument:

Corn sweeteners, like sugar and honey, are natural and meet the Food and Drug Administration’s policy for use of the term “natural.” Under FDA rules, “natural” means that “nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be expected to be in the food.”

I guess my personal opinion is that high fructose corn syrup is OK in moderation. Same with fatty foods and alcohol and sugar. But the worst offender in the HFCS world may be sodas, and one company is taking steps, albeit temporarily, to change that. Pepsi just announced that they are going to market a “Pepsi Throwback” and a “Mountain Dew Throwback” made with real sugar instead of HFCS. Serious Eats says they will be available from April 20 to June 13. So get your real sugar while you can! Cuz after that, it’s back to high fructose corn syrup.

One other note: I’ve bought bottled sodas at ethnic markets that I think were probably shipped in from Mexico or South America. And I want to say they are still made with real sugar. Anyone know anything about that?

Do you find that you are limiting yourself to one lunch out per week? Packing more bologna sandwiches? Choosing a bag of frozen broccoli over a head of fresh?

If so, you’re probably not in the minority. Even as the food writer (and someone who is supposed to be on top of all the new food trends and restaurant openings), I find myself trimming a bit off the old food budget these days. The economy is in the garbage disposal and Christmas is coming. How in the world are we to be learned foodies, much less put money away for savings?

This may seem like a very obvious topic, but I think it’s worthy of discussion. In an effort to scrabble together a list of tips that I could share with the general readership of The Roanoke Times, I wonder: What is your best money-saving tip as you tighten your belt on food spending? And do you have a recipe that feeds a lot but costs a little?

Personally, I continue to check the Manager’s Specials in the meat department at my Kroger store. I’ve found all sorts of excellent deals there, and I just try to cook or freeze the meat right away. I have also gone to more frozen vegetables, particularly spinach. I always keep a bag of frozen spinach in my freezer. It is such a versatile veggie that it can be incorporated into all kinds of dishes, from casseroles to pasta to pizza.

Coupons are also a big help. If you aren’t the type of person who clips coupons or looks at a sales ad, now might be the time to do it. In addition to the coupons that come out in the Sunday paper, you can get personalized coupons in the mail from Kroger or visit the coupon kiosk at Ukrop’s when you enter the store.

Other ideas: a Diner’s Club card, a designated day every week when you get to go out to lunch, a designated day each month when you get to have a nice dinner out, more cooking at home in general, requesting gourmet food items as Christmas gifts. What else?

Olathe sweet corn is in at Kroger stores across the region now, but you’d better hurry — according to the company, there will be no restocking of this coveted Colorado treat.

I had corn-on-the-cob for dinner Sunday night, then headed back to the store after work on Monday to get some more. It was just that good.

Last night, I had some cold, leftover pre-cooked ears in the refrigerator, so I decided to transform them into this delicious salad.

All I did was finely chop some romaine lettuce, toss in a handful of my cherry tomatoes (halved) and add the kernels from one large ear of Olathe sweet corn. I dressed it with Ken’s Steakhouse Asian Sesame salad dressing, and we scarfed it up. Yuuuuuummmy!

I didn’t know before this season that Olathe sweet corn comes from a place high in the Colorado Rockies called, quite fittingly, Olathe. Most of the crop was sold to the Kroger Co., so we’re pretty lucky to be able to snag some.

The rest is apparently saved for the famous Olathe Sweet Corn Festival, which took place in early August.

They say the corn is so sweet and tender because of the mountain climate where it is grown — warm days and cool nights — coupled with melted natural spring snow for irrigation. Since I spent my early years in that very Colorado climate, it sounds like a winning combination to me. No wonder I’m so sweet and tender — okay, no snide comments from you guys on that!

In the news this week: McDonald’s struggle to decide, amid concerns that the dollar value menu is not generating enough income, whether the double cheeseburger should go up in price or become the double burger, sans cheese.

Obviously, they face a considerable dilemma. Customers are going to notice if the price goes up and they are most assuredly going to notice if the burger comes without cheese. I know I would! Cheese me!

But they certainly aren’t the only restaurant chain or food producer that’s feeling the heat from the puttering economy. TIME magazine reports: “Soaring commodity and fuel prices are driving up costs for manufacturers; faced with a choice between raising prices (which consumers would surely notice) or quietly putting fewer ounces in the bag, carton or cup (which they generally don’t) manufacturers are choosing the latter.”

For example, TIME says, some Kellogg’s cereal boxes have shrunk by 2.4 percent, the Wrigley’s 17-stick PlenTPak is now the 15-stick Slim Pack and Tropicana’s OJ containers are going from 96 ounces to 89.

I haven’t really noticed any smaller containers at the grocery store, but then again I have not specifically been looking for them. Maybe that goes to show that a lot of consumers aren’t going to raise a stink if the boxes or bags are a couple of ounces shy. On the other hand, I sure as heck have noticed the prices creeping up.

What do you all think? Have you noticed any shrinking food, and do you think smaller containers are fairer than higher prices?

Well, I didn’t make it out to Ukrop’s big one-year anniversary celebration on Saturday because I was preparing for the hubby’s birthday party. But from the looks of the parking lot, it was a big success.

I promised Jonathan Rhudy, my PR contact at Ukrop’s, that if he sent me a picture of their Mill Mountain cake, I’d post it on the blog. So here it is, before it was demolished and eaten by a crowd of Ukrop’s shoppers. The fellows standing behind the cake are Jeff Ukrop, zone manager for Ukrop’s, Jim Goodman, Ukrop’s executive pastry chef, and Jason Woodcock, Ukrop’s Roanoke store manager.

I think it’s kind of fitting that this picture came in the week after I wrote about brightly colored wedding cakes. If anyone wants a kelly green wedding cake, this is what it might look like. Minus the little tractor trailer (or not — whatever you’re into).

A few fun facts about the cake:

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Just the other day, I was telling my friend that I miss the good old days when you knew whether or not you’d won something as soon as you twisted the lid off a product.

When my grandfather owned his country store in Goshen, I used to pop the top off Coke bottles and find out if I’d won a free Coke or something just by looking under the top.

These days, all you get is something like LJK9BF7V. Maybe that means I won a brand new Corvette, but I’m too lazy to go online or call or do whatever it is I’m supposed to do to decipher the code.

Now I’m starting to sound a lot like my co-worker, Kevin Kittredge. Maybe I should give him this topic for his next “Grrrrrr!” column.

There is a point to all this whining, though — I just got the coolest e-mail from the folks over at Duke’s mayonnaise. This summer, they’re having an “Under the lid” promotion. All you have to do is remove the safety seal and look under the lid to find out if you’ve instantly won $100 in free groceries or a free 32-ounce jar of Duke’s mayo.

The cash would be awesome, but I would be tickled pink to just win a free jar of Duke’s. Lots of Southern cooks swear by Duke’s mayonnaise and wouldn’t use any other brand (I’m betting that Edna Lewis did NOT use Hellman’s). So while we’re all planning our macaroni salad, potato salad, deviled eggs and other mayonnaisey dishes for Fourth of July cookouts, maybe we should sneak a peek under that lid!

Photo source: www.dukesmayo.com

We ran an interesting Associated Press article in yesterday’s Business section about how the rising cost of food and fuel will affect the average summer barbecue this season.

I know it caught my eye, because like many other Americans, we plan to have a few friends over for a cookout this holiday weekend.

From the article: Food inflation is the highest in almost two decades, driven by record prices for oil and gas, mounting global demand for staples such as wheat and corn, and rising costs for proteins such as chicken.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve noticed the difference in my grocery bill every time I go shopping. Just about everything on my list is more expensive, and it seems to be most noticeable in the produce department. But maybe that’s just where I’m paying closest attention.

How does it all really break down? Well, that was the most interesting part of the CNN version of the same story, in my opinion. While they say the overall cost of the cookout has gone up about 6 percent from last year, they provided some exact figures for all the individual components.

See below the jump:

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Some would say that if you don’t like biscuits, you just aren’t a true Southerner.
We had biscuits at just about every supper at my grandmother’s house. Great Uncle Bill called them “catheads” and chose to have another cathead with gravy while the rest of us were having dessert.
Mom always made fabulous biscuits from scratch, but this past weekend when I visited her, I found her pulling a bag of frozen biscuits from the freezer and putting them in her convection oven.
What in the name of catheads is going on??
Well, once you try those frozen biscuits, you might find that they are far superior to the canned kind and almost as good as homemade.
Both Pillsbury and White Lily brands make a good frozen biscuit. And right now, you can win a basket of White Lily products if you go to their Web site and enter to win a contest.
All you have to do is answer their question: What is your favorite biscuit topping?
Seems easy enough, but for me, it’s kind of hard to choose. Sometimes it’s apple butter, sometimes butter and honey, sometimes bacon, egg and cheese, sometimes just a nice, fat slice of summer tomato.
As a true biscuit lover, I could eat them straight from the baking sheet.

Whatever you do to remain calm– whether it be breathing deeply, keeping up with your meds or shouting “Serenity now!”– you should be prepared to do it if you head to Ukrop’s today, their grand opening day.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone from going, I’m just warning that the wait for a parking space is reportedly about 10 minutes. I know I sat behind a line of cars filled with people trying to find spots in the underground parking garage for about that long when I ventured over this afternoon.
If you think it’s annoying when a driver stops and waits in front of you for a car to pull out of the first space they see, just imagine what it’s like when that happens in a parking garage. Not fun.
However, most folks seem to think it’s worth the wait once they get inside the store.
Not since Fresh Market first opened have I seen grocery shoppers with such delighted expressions on their faces. They’re standing patiently in line for free hot dogs, chili and cheese samples or just a look at the fresh meats and seafoods in the meat cases.
Kevin Hade, Ukrop’s vice president for sales and operations, told me the bakery, sushi, meat and seafood cases had been the biggest draws throughout the day. The store had already run out of their signature White House rolls by about 2 p.m. and were expecting an emergency truck at any minute.
In addition, the store already had 10 orders for decorated cakes after only two hours of being open this morning. Perhaps the July 4 holiday and all the summer birthdays were keeping them hopping.
I watched many shoppers head back to their cars with no bags in hand, a sign that some folks ventured out just to get a look at what the store had to offer. But just as many were leaving with loaded carts, and Hade says the opening today could break records for the company.
I left with a small cup of broccoli-cheddar soup, which was a little on the bland side. A sample of the chili revealed that the kidney beans were slightly undercooked, but the flavor was good. I figure the chefs are still new to the store and deserve a little time to perfect their food production, just like any new restaurant needs a few weeks to work out the kinks.
From the look of the parking lot and the wide-eyed shoppers, it’s going to take more than a couple of hard beans to ward Roanokers off Ukrop’s. Especially when “courtesy clerks” will walk you out to your car in the rain with an umbrella.