A Trip to Pete’s + Grocery Shopping

Posted May 11th, 2012 by Suzi and filed in Food, This and That

What a nice Friday we had here in the Valley :) It was sunny and warm and just what the doctor ordered after this rainy week!

After a double dose of Zumba this morning I decided to let Wendy cook up my lunch

Half Baja Salad & a small frosty

Here’s a little tip for you if you like the Baja salad from Wendy’s.  When ordering take-out, they put your chili in a container so you can add it yourself when you are ready to eat.  They sell two sizes of salad, the half and the full size.  The full size salad is something like $2.50 or $3 more than the half.  The trick is – they give you the same amount of chili for the half as they do the full side salad (but only when you get the take out.  When you eat in they put the chili on the salad when you order).  So really you are paying an extra couple bucks for lettuce and that’s it.  Sometimes (like today) they don’t fill the chili cup to the very top when you get the half-size, but I still don’t think it’s worth $3 to get 1/4 cup more chili and some lettuce leaves.  I’d rather save my money and get a frosty on the side. ;)

This afternoon I got an e-mail letting me know that my card pass at the Athletics Complex on campus had been dis-activated (again) because last week was the end of the school term.  They always dis-activate our cards at the end of the school year and again at the start of the new year.  This is always such an annoyance.  Why?  Because to get it fixed it means a trip to my least favourite place on campus


It seems like every year it become as bigger and bigger ordeal.  I get there, nobody is there, or they can’t find me in the system, or the person that updates the cards isn’t there, or whatever.  Last year it took a full 2 months to get my card sorted out.  No exaggeration.  Thankfully today it was pretty painless. I was in and out in a matter of minutes.  Now the true test will be on Monday when I go to teach class, hopefully they did everything correctly and my card actually opens the door!

Since I was dreading going to get my card updated I promised myself if I went and got it done I could go check out the new Pete’s Frootique that opened this week in Wolfville.

My Nova Scotian readers will know that Pete’s Frootique is a local market with all sorts of fabulous goodies.  Since I live in the straight up country, I was excited to see what new stuff they brought to town for me to try ;)

Well I certainly wasn’t disappointed

Sorry for the blurry pic, that dude was watching me as I tried to be a sneaky blogger taking photos with my phone :/

They have all the produce a girl could dream of finding!  Including what might just be the biggest sweet potatoes I’ve ever seen:

This photo doesn’t accurately convey their largeness

I found all sorts of goodies I wanted to take home with me, but I controlled myself and left with only a few items including a pineapple, raspberries, dates, a mystery item (more on it tomorrow!) and these lookers

FYI – they are not something one should  attempt to open while driving…

What the photo doesn’t show is the cocoa all over the ledge by the speedometer where a couple of the almonds flew, nor does it show the cocoa dust all over the front of my pants in the crotch area.  Lovely.  When I got to the grocery store I had to use on of the wipe things they have to disinfect your grocery cart on my pants.

I’m a classy girl.

Grocery shopping was a bit of a “throw whatever looks good” in the cart situation.  It’s never good to go without a list.  Now that I’m home I realize I forgot to buy yeast.  Crap.

A few of the other items you see are for this month’s foodie pen pal, and some of the others are exclusively for J (the bread, mini pizzas, and bagels to name a few) and of course the pop chips are for me :)

After all that shopping I decided to rehydrate with my favourite limeade

It’s everything a limeade should be and more, I heart it!

Well, it’s our first evening together since last Saturday (I’m not counting last Sunday since I was a big sickie) so I’m off to hang out in the basement with that guy I married while he goes for a run on the treadmill.

Have a good night! :)

To my local readers: have you checked out Pete’s yet?  What was your favourite find??


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Foodie Pen Pals! April 2012

Posted April 30th, 2012 by Suzi and filed in Food
Near the end of March I discovered Lindsay @ The Lean Green Bean through a YouTube video I was watching and found out about her Foodie Pen Pal program.  It’s really cool.  You can read all about it over on her blog but basically she matches up foodie “pen pals” each month.  You send one person a goodie box filled with food and snacks and someone else sends one to you.  This way you get to “meet” two new people each month and try some (hopefully) new to you foods.  I was all over this idea and immediately hopped over and signed up!
The Lean Green Bean
Another cool thing about the program is all of us bloggers (you don’t have to be a blogger to join the program) write a post about the box of goodies we received and link up to the main post on Lindsay’s site so we can hop around and see what other people got in their boxes!  I don’t know why we as humans are so nosey, lol, but I love seeing what people get in mystery boxes, it’s a sickness!
Now for my box!
My pen pal Jasmine had it packed full of goodies and notes! :)
I suddenly started to feel bad about the box of stuff I had sent to my pen pal (who is in the process of making her blog) because Jasmine has filled mine with stuff that showed she had really taken the time to go through my blog and find out lots of things about me and my family to send me stuff she thought I’d love.  It was only when I realized she had a few years worth of blog posts to use at her disposal that I decided I wasn’t a terrible pen pal – she was just a super awesome one. :)
For instance, she sent me a set of kitchen towels that she thought would match my kitchen (and they do)!
You can’t tell from the photo but the bottom towel is a bright blue (just the same colour as my kitchen).  She also sent a kitchen pad for my fridge (perfect timing BTW, as our other one only had 3 sheets left on it).  It too is blue to match the kitchen and has a cute kitty on it.  Come on people, this girl is GGGOOOOODD!!
Next up I found a bag from DAVIDs Tea.  Inside were two types of tea Organic North African Mint and Chocolate Rocket.  I’m completely obsessed with the Chocolate Rocket.  The organic mint is good too but the Chocolate Rock is a Mate tea with cocoa nibs, almonds, raspberries and roasted chicory root.  Couple that with some of the dark chocolate she sent and I may have died for a moment or two…
Don’t worry, I only ate a couple of squares at a time.  Dark chocolate (even when laced with caramel pieces) is too much for me to down an entire bar in one sitting.
This was the other chocolate gem she sent, dark chocolate with almond and cranberries – yum!
Who knew maple syrup came in a can?  Not I!  I haven’t had a chance to test it yet since I’ve already got a bottle on the go in the fridge, but I have yet to meet a maple syrup I didn’t like so I’m sure it’ll be good. ;)
I knew there must be a few cans in the box when I picked it up, it was so dang heavy, the second can was a can of Amy’s soup
Seriously Jasmine hooked me up, she’s clearly a super shopper getting all this stuff for under $15 – and I”m not even done yet!  I got a bag of 6 bagels from St-Viateur Bagel in Montreal.  I’ve never had an authentic Montreal bagel and they are yummy!!  I’ve really enjoyed all of them.  Jasmine told me the guy at the bakery insisted that I get to try all the kinds so I got 6 different types of bagels, including one plain for J (which I must admit, I ate for him. :/ ).  You can even order their bagels online at stviateurbagel.com which is pretty awesome.
The last thing she sent wasn’t for me, it was for my furry pals Pekoe and Ollie.  One of Jasmine’s friends started the company last year which is called Raw Paw.
Wanna see what’s in there?
I won’t lie, I’m afraid to touch what’s inside.  One of my friends said she wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing they were in the house, lol.  I’m not quite that bad but I’m leaving it up to J to hand out these little fishie items.
The funny thing is when Jasmine contacted me to see if I had any food allergies or dislikes I told her I wasn’t big on fish, but that I didn’t expect she would be sending me any (besides, why would someone in Montreal be sending someone on the east coast fish?) but she did!  Thankfully not for me too eat though!
A related dried fish story…
A few years ago when my brother=in-law was teaching in South Korea he sent us all weird (to us) stuff for Christmas.  One of the things he sent us was a bag of dried minnows or some tiny little fish.  Anyway, that sat in our pantry for well over a year before we decided it was time to toss them.  Without thinking I left the bag (which had never been opened) on the kitchen table over night.  The next morning when I got up I found all these gross little dried fish scattered on the floor and the mat in front of the door.   I was sure for days that I was walking on dried little fish eyes.  {{shudders}}
So that is it!  All my goodies from Jasmine :)  it was a great experience for y first Foodie Pen Pal and I’m excited to see what’s in store for May!
Are you a Foodie Pen Pal?
If you are leave me a link to your unveiling so I can go check out your haul!  And if you’re not you should totally pop over to the Lean Green Bean and sign up.  Remember, you don’t have to be a blogger to participate :)
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