Doesn't make an ounce of sense to me, but......

 what do I know?

Let me explain.  If you go to a drive through restaurant or coffee shop, you generally see a timer on the wall.  The employee's are expected to get each order out and the customer through the drive through within a certain time.  I am sure many of you are familiar with this?

I went to the grocery store on Saturday morning, which is unusual for me, as I tend to avoid stores on the weekend.  Anyhow, this is a Zehrs store, which are overseen by Loblaws, which is one of the major grocery retailers here in Canada.

Fast forward to checking out, and there was a guy in front of me, who was taking advantage of some deals, exclusively posted on the store's Facebook page.  I sighed when I saw this as none of the cashiers have any idea how to put these deals in the system.  And this cashier true to form had no idea, anyhow, I told the cashier to call over the superviser, as there were two of them standing talking a little down the way.  They ignored her, so I called the supervisor over.  She had no choice but to walk on over now, and I guess she sucked on a lemon on the way over by the expression on her face...LOL  Anyhow got everything sorted out with that and the poor guy went on his merry way, and the supervisor went and sucked on some more lemons!!

Then it was my turn and I was chatting away with the cashier and she started telling me about how the till times each transaction now.  They are expected to get people's orders through in a certain time.  They are made to sign some paperwork about this.  Another cashier came over to talk to me as well about it, as I was in disbelief about this.  I even asked, "What just like a drive through?"  They said yes.  What is you have coupons?  What if you have a huge order?  What if an item is priced wrong?  What like the guy in front of me who had the Facebook pricing and no one knows how to ring in those items?

My "surrogate daughter," worked for Loblaws, so I was telling her this story and she said honestly she's not surprised.  She was saying that none of the higher end Loblaws brick and mortar stores any making any money.  The online ordering and delivery's are making money.  They are building more "lower prices," grocery stores, like No Frills, Independent, etc, as folk are shopping there more.  They are trying to reduce costs when ever they can.

Now I can almost guarantee if this chain of stores is doing this, the rest will follow suit.  It must be so demoralizing for the staff who are not that well paid to now have to make sure they keep to a strict timetable when putting people's orders through.

Thoughts?

March fruit and veggie bag............

 I picked up March fruit and veggie bag, which I paid $20 for.

The fruit was 1lb of strawberries, 3lbs Gala apples, 2 extra large naval oranges.........they were good!!

The veggies were 10lbs potatoes, 2 lbs onions (I gave them to a neighbour), 2lbs carrots, an extra large sweet potato, a green leaf lettuce, 2 heads of broccoli

Not sure if I got my money's worth this month?  I guess I did.

I will use the sweet potato to make wedges.  The carrots for soup.  The potatoes to make baked potatoes and I plan on making a couple of shepherd's pies for the freezer.  Had the lettuce, just dressed with a parmesan and basil dressing, got two meals out of it as it was a large head of lettuce.  The broccoli as a side veg with a meal.

Better than the original?

 

I think so, do you?

Pre-Birthday treat....

Hubby took me out for Afternoon Tea on Friday.  I knew all about it and it was at a British Store/Restaurant close to where we live.  We went for breakfast there the other week, and I wrote about it here.

The cost per person was $42.50 plus taxes, which worked out too around $48 each, with tip we paid a total of $110.  There was a lot of food!  The top tier included a shortbread cookie with jam in the middle, dark chocolate mousse, and Eton Mess.

Middle tier one plain and one cheese scone each.  It came with jam and clotted cream which was homemade.  We had to ask for butter for the plain scone, and she brought a container of margarine 😐

Bottom tier there were 3 Coronation chicken (cooked chicken, mayo and curry powder) sandwiches each, 3 cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches each, and 3 egg mayo and spring onion (salad onions) each. A mini broccoli and cheese quiche, and a mini bacon, egg and cheese quiche each.

Drinks was unlimited tea or coffee, we chose coffee.

As the scones and quiche's were warm we ate those.  Due to having different flour over here in Canada, the scone's were very dense, but putting the clotted cream and jam on the plain one, made that taste better.  Putting marg on the cheese scone didn't help; I suggested they supply butter in future as it had a better taste than cheap margarine.  The lady was surprised we asked for butter as she thought we would put the clotted cream and jam on the cheese scone????

The quiches were just the standard store bought quiches, or at least the pastry cases were store bought.

We had to eat the Eton Mess and the Chocolate Mousse as we couldn't take those home with us.  The Eton Mess was good, the chocolate mousse was nasty.  I love chocolate but this mousse was again very dense and bitter,  and I could taste the cocoa powder in the teaspoon I tried.  The lady said that the mousse seemed to be left most of the time.  I suggested a light lemon mousse as by the time you have worked your way through the bottom two tiers you are looking for a lighter finish.

We tried a sandwich each and they were fine.  The bread they used was really nice.

We took home the rest of the sandwiches and the cookie and had them for supper.

So all in all it covered both our lunch and supper.  The sandwiches wouldn't have lasted any longer as they were already drying out by supper time.

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed it.  It made a super nice treat and the coffee as I said before is really good.

Overall well worth the price for the amount of food we got, they just need to make a couple of adjustments in my opinion to make it even better.

P.S. I just wanted to say I loved all your comments you made about the sugar sandwiches.💖

Sugar Sandwiches.........

I was talking to my mother the other day and she was telling me how after the war and with food being rationed, how parents wanted to "fatten their children up and treat them," when more food became available.

One of the things my mother remembered eating was sugar sandwiches.  Bread was buttered and sugar sprinkled over it.  She also remembers eating sandwiches of bread and butter with condensed milk spread over the buttered bread.

Once bananas became available, they would mash up a banana, sprinkle sugar over it and pour condensed or Carnation milk over it.  They would also mash up bananas to put in sandwiches as well.

Jam sandwiches were a staple, as my Nana made jam, bramble jelly was my favourite.  

Every night before she went to bed as a child, my Nana would crumble an OXO cube into a bowl, pour boiling water over it, mix it up and crumble in a slice of bread and my mam would eat that before bed.

I had never heard of sugar sandwiches, as we were never given them.  

Is this something you have heard of?

Guaranteed to please..............

As you know I have multiple grand children between the ages of 4 through 13, yep one's a teenager already!!  Anyhow to eldest five are ages  nearly 10 to 13 years old.  They are past the easy to please with cheap chocolate and toys stage, cash is key with those guys....LOL

I will be seeing those five over the next week or so and I am not sure if I'll see them before Easter, so decided to be organized and get their Easter gifts sorted.  Of the five, four are girls and one boy.  I headed to Dollarama and this is what I got!

In each bag I placed four bags of candy and a $10 Dollarama gift card.........

I popped them into a brown bag lunch bag, and decorated it with Easter stickers, remember they are tweens and teens, so baby things are not cool!!  They will tolerate a few stickers ....just...LOL I always do seven hugs and kisses on everything of theirs, one hug and kiss per grandchild.

I realize it is not a healthy or nutritious treat bag, but they will be thrilled with it, plus they get a gift card to go and buy more sugary treats!!!

By the way I use the brown bag lunch bags, to store my mushrooms in the fridge, they last way longer when you do that!

I haven't forgotten the two youngest ones, both boys, but as they are 4 and 7 they are still okay with just a toy and candy, oh and stickers!!!  I will get them closer to the time as we live closer to them.

Two Things................

MP3 Players and Leisure Arts.

Again when I was sorting through some paperwork I came across this pattern:

I hadn't thought about MP3 players or the company Leisure Arts in years, have you?

I had a MP3 player, and loved it.  I am sure if I went through some drawers I could find it.  I used it a lot at the farmhouse when I was cutting the grass.  A lot of people had the Sony Walkman; remember when that was all the rage?

Leisure Arts was a popular company for arts and crafts back in the day.  I haven't heard of them in years?  I looked them up at www.leisurearts.com  and as they're an American company, I am not sure if they ship up to Canada anymore?

Another blast from the past, eh!