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ribarnica's Profile

Website: http://thefishmongersplace.blogspot.com

Location: Wisconsin

About: I'm a vegetarian and an analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. My wife and I have two children. I love food!

Favorite foods: cheese pizza, sauteed spinach with garlic, frozen custard, fresh apples, grapes, freshly brewed coffee, blue cheese

Last bite on earth: Corsendonk Xmas Ale;salad w/ walnut, pear & gorgonzola; hot gibanica (filo dough, cottage cheese, egg, butter); farmhouse torte (sour cream crust filled w/ cheese, roasted red pepper, kalamatas, tempeh); coffee; fruit sorbets w/ square of dk chocolate

The Ten Most Recent Comments By ribarnica

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

The baggers at the store I go to do an excellent job with the actual bagging: meats separated, cleaners separated, etc.
The problem I have is with the checkers. The scan the items, then fling them down the belt to the bagger. tomatoes (fling!) bread (fling!) bananas (fling!) canned goods (fling!) Ach! you've just ruined everything! cracked tomatoes, crushed bread, bruised bananas, split yogurt. At least the yogurt gets noticed (usually) and I don't have to pay for it.

From Serious Eats

Serious Easter Artisanal Chocolate Egg Giveaway

The number one traditional food for the easter season? Hot cross buns. And loaded - the more dried and candied fruit,the more spices, the better. Yum!

From Serious Eats

Is Cheese Vegetarian?

I totally agree, greenfield. People talk about the slippery slope, but ALL of morality is a slippery slope. Each of us needs to stake out a place on the slope where we can keep our footing - whether that entails a dietary restriction or not. With the inter-relatedness of each element of the earth, every action we take has consequences - intended and unintended. No one can achieve an impact-free life, so its a matter of reaching a point where we can deal with the results of our actions. Education is an important part of the equation - we can't judge whether we're comfortable with the consequences of our actions until we know what those consequences are. And that's why I really like this article. Informative and curious, without getting too judgemental.

Full disclosure: I've been an ovo-lacto vegetarian for almost 20 years. I never eat meat (though I still get the occassional unsatisfied craving for a liverwurst sandwich), and I try to avoid cheese made with animal rennet though I'm not rabid about it.

Responses to Comments by ribarnica

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

I too hate it when they try to put cleaning, personal hygiene, household pet products in with my food. That is when I start taking out the items and bag the items myself. They are not to keen about me taking the items out but I have to let em' know that is soooooooo wrong in sooooo many ways. I do compliment the ones that do a good job So far and between though.

By the way I like the idea of having the plastic bags against the law. I think all states should start right along with the plastic water bottles eg :Aquafina, Dasani the list goes on and on.....

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

From the other side of the fence, I work at a store that has self checkout but we often help the customers bag their groceries. Just like you all get annoyed that the checker just throws the items down to the bagger, we get annoyed when customers place things on the belt in an order that guarantees squishing unless we jump up and move things aside. I saw a women scan a watermelon and a cantaloupe directly after a loaf of bread and another scan a gallon of milk right after her eggs and bread. Not to mention the people who stand their bottles of wine (or other things) upright on the belt when there is obviously a problem when the item gets to the end of the belt.
Most of us have no problem bagging to your specifications as long as you let us know before we start bagging. I've seen the people who are incredibly interested in avoiding cross contamination as well as the people who don't care and just want as few bags as possible. If you tell us, (especially let us know you have your own bags before we've bagged half of your order) you'll save yourselves the anger or annoyance you've been expressing here.
And can I give a big thank you to people who scan (or place on the belt) their groceries in a logical bagging order, I love you all.

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

I would like to point out that the Hannford's chain in New England (and I think in some of the mid-Atlantic states too) has a great program for developmentally disabled kids. My daughter has been getting vocational education there for some time and is a complete "company woman" (she argues with me when I want to go to the other local stores). I can tell you that they train their packers very well...the first year my daughter was a "stocker" and placed products on shelves because she wasn't ready to concentrate on bagging. This year she is a bagger, and she has a great sense of accomplishment.

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

I had a frustrating experience at my local grocery store today (Wegman's) and remembered this thread on SE. My bagging rules are very simple and common sense: cold items together, heavier stuff on the bottom, lighter stuff on top, don't put all the heavy stuff in one bag. I don't eat meat so that's not an issue, and my favorite cleaning supplies are baking soda and vinegar so I don't care if those are together. I live a 5-10 min walk away from the store and I don't have a car, and I like being "green" so I always bring my own bags. It is much easier to carry 3 sturdy but heavier canvas bags than 12 flimsy plastic bags. Actually, they are the bags that the store sells, so you think the cashier would be used to them, but no.

The set up of the register is challenging if you have the reusable bags. Instead of having a belt that moves your items from the scanning area to the bagging area, there is an open space next to where the cashier stands that has the hooks with plastic baggies on them. That way, the cashier can scan the items and place them directly into the plastic bag. If you have reusable bags, which are a bit bigger, you have to loop the handles around the hooks. Some cashiers will just pick the items up and moved them to the bagging area, which involves *gasp* actually physically turning around! Now, today I was in a bad mood because the woman 2 people in front of me in line didn't have enough cash to pay for her groceries and had to get some items removed, which took a while. I only had $30 worth of groceries, about 1-2 bags worth. The cashier was a very pretty girl in her late teens/early 20s. First she asked me if I wanted her to "pass the items back" to me, and I had no idea what she meant, so I respectfully declined. Then she asked me to "hold the bag open" for her while she dropped the items in. I patiently explained how the other cashiers handled the reusable bags, and she whined, "But they fall off when I do that!" Honey, I am not your boyfriend, and batting your pretty little eyes at me is not going to get me to do your work for you. Funny how they don't fall off when the other cashiers do the same thing!

There is one very pleasant older woman who works there who actually thanks me for using reuseable bags. The rest are bored teenagers who seem pissed because they can't just use the plastic bags that are already there. I had one once who put the canvas bag I was buying INTO A SEPARATE PLASTIC BAG! I understand that earning $8/hr is not the pinnacle of your 16-year old life. But, please, exercise a little common sense and thought and you'll be much more prepared for whatever job the future holds, and you might even get a promotion, raise, or recommendation out of it!

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

I do my best to bag my own groceries in canvas bags. The closest supermarket to me has self-checkout so I always use it. The cashiers get too confused with I either a) tell them to use the bags that I brought, or b) tell them that I don't need a bag at all. The two of us went by the other day and bought 5 easily carryable things. When we told the cashier we didn't need a bag, it BLEW.HER.MIND. I will do self checkout from now on, thanks.

For large trips both of us always go, and one of us stands at the end of the lane and offers to bag everything ourselves. It makes the cashier very very happy. =)

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

@feistyfoodie - The dreaded folded gift bag situation! I so hear you on that one. I will be sure to incorporate the proper technique for "bagging" gift bags in my training video!

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

Ooh, the squished bread problem! I HATE squished bread, bf doesn't understand that! (He has squished my bread a few times - not a euphemism - and then gotten annoyed when I demanded he return it to the shelf and get me a new, unsquished one.)

Not grocery related, but I once went to buy gift bags and picked out some nice ones, and the cashier decided to fold them in half while my jaw dropped open and I cringed. I actually said "Umm... can you please not fold them" and she said it didn't matter. I went and got new ones... I don't want to give gifts looking all crumply and crap! WTF?

I would say the worst offense that happened to me was heavy stuff on top of my eggs. I want to say watermelon but I can't wrap my head around someone being that oblivious.

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

I work in a grocery store in Virginia,I bag my own grocerys. I am almost pschotic about my watermelon. In tne winter months when you can't by a whole watermelon for $4.99 I buy a section that has been cut and wrapped in the store.Usually about 1.00 a lb. not cheap. I take my time to pick out the best looking piece,nothing that looks bruised. I get up to the check out and carefully lay it on the belt.The check out person then procedes to scan it by dragging it face down across the scanner,then the bagger grabs it and has to literely put his thumb through the wrap to pick it up,In as little time as that takes my piece of watermelon is running with juice and hand and THUMB prints indented in it.Ibag my own grocerys!!!

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

@Barbara - LOL!

From Talk

Grocery bagging violations

I hate, (and have made a spectacle of myself by rebagging), when the bagger bags cleaning supplies and food for my animals. Yes, I know that it is not people food, but my animals eat this stuff, and would rather not like cleanser on the cat/dog/guineapig/fish/goat food.