Ok, I am owning it.. I had a opps on my March challange, it was grey, it was drizzling, it was cold and I wanted a little trip off the farm in the morning, I didn’t want to spend alot but it was not good weather for a outdoor trip, and so I said to hubby.. hey, has that huge new asian supermarket openned now and the answer is yes.. so off we went for a drive and to the store.. Now I gave myself a 50 dollar budget and the rest was to be just looking, pricing and writing down names of things so I could reseach them and learn how to use it..

I was good on the pricing, I only spent 55 dollars in total, but I was so BAD! I had fresh shimp dimsum, then I bought amazingly cheap fresh oyster mushrooms, and fresh tripe, a bit pack of beef soup bones, the other things got are all dried and storage items that can be held till after march challange is over.. but I am planning on making a lovely pasta tripe lunch today, I can freeze the beef bones to hold them off but those fresh mushrooms are going to be eaten over the next couple days..

So there is my opps, now on to the good stuff.. O my god, what a store, they have a fresh food court, and they have so many real dishes, and much to DH’s pleasure a tiny little section of canadian style dishes, the veggie sections was amazing, I finally can get a base price on things like what a burdock root is worth, or what chickweed by the bunch is worth,love it!

Then we hit the butcher shop and while most of the folks that walked down the row did a face ehhh, I was delighted!, they have ox tail, pigs feet, tripe, necks, duck and chicken feet, all kinds of organs available all at really! good prices, two huge turkey necks for less then a dollar each, 11 beef soup bones for less then 2 dollars in total, and then the fish row.. wow, I wrote down at least a dozen names of fish I had never even heard of before.

The dried and fresh mushrooms deserve a shout out, over 15 different kinds, and the prices were excellent, we had a good selection of mushrooms at the farm boy but the prices are so high that I rarely buy anything but the basic, at this store, you can buy all the different ones for less then the cost of plain white button ones at the local store.

Found laundy soap bars for a faction of the cost of the farm store or home hardware, and I won’t be buying the coconut oil from the health food store anymore, same brand, health food store 23 dollars, asian market 6 dollars.

Last but not least was the bulk area for spices, flours and rices, the prices were reasonable enough on the different ground flours to give them a try and be able to practise making some glutin free baked goods..

While it is a 40 plus min drive away, its still a place I can see myself wanting to get to four to six times a year to stock up and save hundreds doing so.. I also believe that I will move my old girl who has allergies over to a fish based diet for a change in protein for her.

The funny thing was that by the time we came out of the store it was sunshine and we drove home to bright sun and had lovely weather for the rest of the day for working on the farm, got another bird pen cleaned out, and the small barn gutters done and the rain barrels set up..