Current Thoughts on HEB / Grocery Shopping

(I'm feeling a bit link-happy so don't complain and just click on them to open in another window/tab.)

So, my closest HEB no longer carries Stonyfield Farms organic yogurt in the single serving size. The new HEB over on Escarpment charges more for some items than Central Market does (and we all know that CM charges an automatic 10% upcharge on all items (not really on ALL items but on a great number of them)), not to mention that the store (HEB Escarpment) is the worst when it comes to layout - I've gone at least 5 times and have yet to have a pleasant shopping experience - so I'm not going to switch to that one just to get our yogurt. So today I tried the HEB on Brodie because while the kids don't mind me buying the big tub of vanilla and mixing fruit or granola into it for them when they (I) want, they (I) would really love it if they could do it themselves. Not only do they (HEB Brodie) not have the Stonyfield Farms organic in the single size but they don't even have half of the Central Market brand food items that the Oak Hill HEB carries. They (HEB Brodie) doesn't carry any of the Cascadian Farms organic cereals or the Organic Valley shredded cheeses or the Orowheat Oat Nut rolls, oh but they do have an in-house tortilla machine and sushi bar - like I have a need for those. I guess next week I'll go to the HEB on Bee Cave. We go there occasionally and it's identical in layout to the Brodie one and I know from prior experience that they also don't carry all of my usual food items that the Oak Hill HEB previously carried. The other issue with this is that Sam's (mother of The Evil Empire) now carries the yogurt in a 12-pack of single servings, unfortunately the only flavors are blueberry and strawberry and my kids really like the peach and vanilla too. And there is the fact that while the kids will eat 10 singles in a week of 4 different flavors, I'm not sure that they would eat 12 of just the 2 flavors. And I don't want to drive to Sam's every week just to get yogurt. As it is I really dislike shopping and having to go to HEB weekly, Wheatsvile bi-weekly, and Sam's and Bark'n'Purr once a month is enough to do me in. Silly me, I so dislike Albertson's that I won't even go into the one in my neighborhood to check if they have the yogurt. Then again, they're closing that one down anyway so why bother. I know, they said that they were going to keep that one open but you know how corporate takeovers are.

All this over some silly cultured milk, wow!

Oh, and last week we tried some of the new Daisy brand cottage cheese, the 4% small curd variety (it's so new that it's not even listed as a product on their website so I can't link to it). Our verdict here at Casa De Galletti is that they should stick with making their sour cream (which we love)! The curds were so uniform in size and shape that it was strange -extruded or cut but not formed naturally - and the flavor was good but rather blah even when I added in some Italian salad dressing (my favorite way to eat cottage cheese). Paul took one spoonfull and promptly spit it out - I think that from seeing the container he thought that he was getting a spoonfull of sour cream and when he tasted that it wasn't he was very unhappy. Giselle had two spoonfulls and declared that she prefers the sour cream.