Ray's Food Place is the best supermarket ever.

So, I've been working a lot, and largely exhausted, and had sort of neglected the blog and the writing. It started with just the move distracting me, and then all the hours in the kitchen, but lately, it's been a bit intimidating coming back, because for once, I actually have things to write about.

Too many things, in fact. I've had some time to experiment since my last entry, with a whole bunch of things, and produced some really excellent food, and learned a few things. So look for more blog entries to come as I try and catch up and all the back log of new recipes.

However, for the moment, there's just one thing I want to talk about: Ray's Food Place. This is, hands down, the best goddamn supermarket I've ever been to, and I love it with all my heart.

Why is it so wonderful? Well, here's my menu for today. For lunch, a fresh comice pear, smoked gouda, jalapeno cheese bread, and Mexican grapefruit soda. For dinner, I've got a lovely pork sirloin chop, rubbed liberally with the house porketta spice, and a Nappa Valley sangiovese.

And how much did I pay for all this bounty? $10.70. No, I'm not joking. And all of it, except possibly the wine as I've not tasted it yet, and WineSpectator.com is no help at all, is positively lovely.

Largely, this is all a result, oddly enough actually, not of a relentless focus on quantity and cheapness, but seemingly paradoxically, on quality and freshness. Ray's policy, as best I can figure out, is that everything must be absolutely, gloriously, fresh, and great quality.

So that pear? On sale, got it for about 50 cents, because while it is still perfectly delicious, and in fact, just the right ripeness, it's just barely too ripe, and they'd rather just sell it off.

The pork chop was only a buck and 50 cents, for exactly the same reason. It only just got cut two days ago tops, and is probably fresh enough still that if it were beef, you could make a carpaccio with it.

I've yet to buy anything from their meat department that wasn't absolutely awesome, in fact. I never get that feeling I get walking into most grocery stores and being genuinely nervous about the meat, or realizing the butcher doesn't actually know what the fuck he's doing, or that half this meat's probably already been frozen once, and looks about like it.

Generally speaking, when I walk in through those doors, I know I'm going to be able to get something really good, for not a whole lot of money. I have lived like a king since moving here, because of that store.