More Pack N Save meat

CB, a friend back home, was pretty excited about my pack-n-save pictures, and wondered what "rump-in-piece" is, so I tried to find out today while doing some shopping. Wouldn't you know they didn't have any rump in piece today? Figures. Fear not- I was able to find something even better:

Yep- BACON BONES.

Huh.
And they are cheap too - at $5.82! A real bargain meat!
I'll have to look for some recipes featuring bacon bones. Surely Martha Stewart's got some good ones. If nothing else, good for split pea soup?

Looks like crocodile tail fillet (pronounced fil-ut, not fillay) has gone up in price - now $79.99 a kilogram. Funny that a place called Pack N Save, where the consumer bags/boxes their own purchases in the name of saving money, offers such an expensive food.

And, as always a weird and wonderful collection of meats. Rabbit saddles, fresh or frozen goat...

...whatever Hogget is...

but no ox tongue or pickled pork - very misleading signs. Perhaps those things under the ox tongue sign are rump in piece?

Offal is still my favorite.


I'm intrigued that various chicken vicera don't fall into this category and instead get an area all to themselves (with no special signage)-

Evidently necks, hearts, livers and gizzards are not offal.
I have a lot to learn.

Pak-N-Save Adventures

If you want to buy cheap plastic crap in NZ you go to The Warehouse, as Wallmart hasn't made it here yet. If you want to go to Costco you are out of luck. But you can go to Pack-N-Save where they don't bag your groceries, letting you bag them yourself using their leftover cardboard boxes (or bags you bring with you). But even if you bring your own bags, and even if you have a broken hand they will not bag/box your groceries for you and you must go to the designated packing area and do it yourself.

I believe the strategy behind this is that we, the consumers, are saving money because Pack-N-Save is cheaper since it has lower labor costs without baggers. Also, by not having bags, they are saving the sea turtles and maybe the rest of the planet too. In reality Pack-N-Save is not really any cheaper, but I love it for another reason- The Meat Department! All sorts of weird and wonderful here! Imports from Australia:
A small kangaroo steak will cost you $16NZ. Crocodile is more expensive at $59NZ for something that looked like a roast.
Bones. A popular enough item that it gets it's own space next to the sausages, rack of lamb and rump roasts.

But my favorite, favorite, favorite is this:
Need a close up of the sign?
I always thought offal was the stuff that got turned into pet food. But it is clearly on the human side of the meat department:
Pet food here comes in tubes like Jimmy Dean sausage. If the offal is edible I am at a loss as to what goes into the pet food.

Adventures at Trolley Bay and Trundler Park

Among other adventures, P and I have spent some time at Trolley Bay this week on Holiday (aka school vacation):

We've also been to Trundler Park:

It's been a shopping kind of week as P has outgrown all of her clothes, and summer is on its way!

Big, little.

I wish I could say that the reason our blog has been so quiet is because we have been busy exploring and having adventures. We have in fact been busy, we have been exploring and we have all had some adventures, but these are not blog worthy events as all we have been doing lately is moving into our new house, biking to work, working a lot and sleeping. In a few weeks things will settle down and we will slip back into our lives of leisure and pleasure here in New Zealand. We have some fun plans - a train ride south to visit our good friend RL who recently moved all the way across the planet to join us in NZ (albeit he is still a 12 hour train ride from Auckland), and a Great Walk (still voting on which one, suggestions?).

But let us now talk about things Big and little. Let's start by looking at a map:

So as to not embarrass all of you geography slobs in the US, let's orient ourselves: New Zealand, in orange, is top, center and the US, in green, is middle, left (geez, Canada's enormous, eh?). Mali, in green, is middle, right, but that really has nothing to do with this.

So America is a big country, coming in at almost 4 million square miles (3,794,083). The land area of New Zealand is much smaller at just over 100,000 square miles (103,733). Look at the map again. See how small NZ is? It looks like it's about the size of Florida and Maine combined. Actually that was a lucky guess on my part as the total square miles of Florida and Maine combined equal 101,073 square miles. Here is a neat factoid: The coastline of New Zealand is almost double the coastline of the continental US. The NZ coastline is 9,824 miles, and the coastline for the lower 48 is only 5,089 miles! Supposedly this is possible because of all the harbours, islands, fjords, firths, nooks and crannies that make up the coast, but I think some investigating is in order. Sea kayaking, anyone?

Let's continue our Big, little comparison on a smaller, more personal scale. In preparation to move overseas, and knowing we were sending a big shipment over, I stocked up on some necessities at Costco.

Here we have some deodorant. The deodorant on the left is from the US and weighs in at 92 grams. I should note this is an "average" American-sized deodorant, but is not super-Costco sized. The deodorant on the right is from NZ, is typical of the size of deodorant found here, and weighs 50 grams. Note the baseless statement on the American product "25% higher performing odor protection."

Here is some Colgate toothpaste. The top tube, weighing 110 grams is from New Zealand. The bottom tube may not appear much larger than the top tube, but is in fact double the size at 221 grams. Surprising to note that the Shrek advertising gimmick is on the NZ tube (It's P's tube). Having used both sizes I can say that the US tube is difficult to use one handed, as it really requires two hands to squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube (B doesn't have this problem and likes his tubes big).

Shampoo. I'm fairly certain that y'all can figure out which one came from Costco. What can I say - I'm a Pantene girl. And look how long it has lasted me! (Aside: I would like to officially declare that the Pantene bought here is NOT the same as the Pantene bought at home, and is in fact inferior. Alas.) Granted, 1.18 liters is a lot of shampoo, but it cost the same as the 350ml bottle I bought here in NZ. Which brings me to my final Big, little comparison: the soda.

Ah, the Big Gulp, and it's buddy the Double Gulp. Coming in a 44 and 64 fluid ounces, respectively, I grew up knowing these as "bladder busters." Sometimes you just need a lot of soda.

Here are some hastily taken photos of Coca-Cola in a local gas station. For some reason taking these pictures made me nervous. Anyway, the bottle on the upper shelf is 600ml (equal to about 2.5 cups in the US, or "small"). The bottom bottle is 1.5 liters (that's 52 fl oz - midway between the super big and double Gulps) and will cost you NZ$2.99 (~US$2.35).

Here is the really interesting part: the 600ml bottle is NZ$3.20!

So for 21 cents you get 900ml less! This is a common theme with soda here - less is more. It's as if people think that 1.5 liters of soda is more than one person could handle at a time! too much soda- better to get the small one! Somehow I don't think this will be catching on at 7-11.

Coming up next... a trip to the grocery store (oh the chaos!) in search of Mexican food!

Foreign Markets

I needed some toothpaste so I went to the only large market I'd found up to that point - a FoodTown near downtown. I've also found that visiting markets is a wonderful way to peer into the everyday lives of the places you visit. For instance, the supermarkets in Cebu, Phillippines were tiny and filled with lots of neato items but had then general feel of an expanded quickie-mart. Contrast that to the carbon market near downtown Cebu City that was as scary a place as I've been. You walk through puddles of congealed blood on the putrid walks no matter how careful you are. Anyway, things here are much more modern.
I found this gem of a billboard on my way to the market. Apparently these women are advertising some TV program. Notice however, the small size of these milk just when compared to the US gallons, tiny! ;)
Here it is! Food Town Downtown! And with, gasp, a pharmacy in the store! That's modern!
Alas, who cares so long as I can get my favorite licorice (made in NZ) for super cheap. This stuff runs US$5 a bag at Liberty Heights Fresh in SLC, here it is less than half of that (well, on sale). I should have bought them out.
Pascal can rest easy, there will be a ready supply of ketchup in Auckland, her favorite brand too! All in all, this NZ supermarket was like a small supermarket in the states, lots of everything available. Check, I'm still in civilization. Can't wait to go for a tour of the countryside to find out what's NZ is like without all of this cosmopolitan homogenization.