Feeling cheated

Time was when we never checked prices of the same item at different stores, specially if we already bought it from a favorite establishment. But after a bad experience, we advise shoppers to be aware of what costs less and where. We recently got a bathroom brush set at a popular chain of stores where we usually shop. A few days later, we visited another store and to our surprise, our girl pointed out that the brush set we got for more than P110 was selling here for just P49! We felt cheated and our girl asked if we could bring a case against the store for over-pricing. We need to look into this some more.

Michelle is the supervisor at the Jollibee in Robinson’s Imus, Cavite and we’d like to commend her for her very fast response to our complaint. The amiable lady did not bother to go into what could have been a laborious "we will look into it" spiel, but rather graciously replaced our cheeseburger.

Where there’s an SM, most likely there’s Robinson’s. And now where these two are, in all probability there is Puregold. We have not been to any Robinson’s in a while and so we drove to the R Mall on Aguinaldo Highway in Imus. At mid-day the parking lot was not full, the crowd was headed toward the food chains and, after a light meal, we headed for the supermarket.

The familiar Magnolia Chicken station with cut-up parts seems to be a popular stop for shoppers, wherever it is located. But we’d like to share an observation we heard from a lady—is the company focusing more on chicken parts rather than whole birds? We’ve noticed that where the stations are (in at least two supermarkets), there are no dressed whole chicken. The parts are priced higher, could this be the reason?

Back to Robinson’s. As with all stores, this one has its special offers, including Silver Swan budget packs tagged at P32.50. Each plastic bag contains two bottles of soy sauce and vinegar. Their supply of powdered spices should be a much welcome treat to homemakers who do not use much, but on special cooking sprees, need them. They’ve got powdered garlic and onion, curry and chili powder, black pepper, etc. They cost from P32.50 for 100 grams. In this same raised platform are coffee beans, robusta and excelsa, as well as green peas. At the meat section we noted pork chops at P155 a kilo, pork steak at P155, ground pork at P133, beef brisket at P240 and kenchi at P255.They are offering wholesale prices for purchases of five kilos and above.

They have the usual varieties of rice—Sinandomeng at P139.50, premium at P155. White sugar sells for P37.50 a kilo. Dizon Farms dressing is available, so are strawberries (P200 plus a kilo, 250 gms per pack). We got red onions, unusually flat in shape, at P82 a kilo.

Thirteen years ago, Maya Kitchen (Liberty Flour Mills, Inc) through Anvil Publishing, produced the "Pack-along Snacks and Baon Cookbook", which we again re-discovered. It is a very practical guide for those who prepare baon for their families. It carries suggestions/recipes for packed lunches, sandwiches and bread meals, cakes and pastries, meat pies and home-style crunchies. What is good about this book are the tips on shortcuts in the preparation, the history of the sandwich and how to mix and match fillings. If one follows this book with regard to baon (for kids and adults alike), there will be no boring quick meals. Personally, the system we have adopted for packed food is to prepare a daily week-long list and repeat this every two weeks. So far nobody in the family has complained about ‘repeat’ baon.

We find so many bread brands in the market. For pan de sal, Marby is one of the best, but their loaves are a bit too flaky, they sort of disintegrate. Some are labeled ‘thick’ but are not really. To our sibling the best tasting is Gardenia.

Do you or your kids spill sauces while eating? There are stain remover tubes that clear fabric instantly: Tide-to-go and Clorox, available at True Value in the Alabang Town Center between P300 plus and P400 plus.

Tocino fanciers might want to know that Purefoods has come up with a new variant, garlic flavored pork, at a little over P49 per pack (no weight on the label). It is a one-person portion, having only five medium-size pieces.

The powers-that-be are encouraging our people to seek jobs abroad, specifically China which has opened its doors to Filipinos, from health care givers to communicators to tourism-oriented people (chefs, etc). Under the Trade in Services (TIS) agreement, there is supposed to be an exchange of workers. What bothers us is we might be depleting our own human resources for the benefit of other people. Shouldn’t we try to keep our workers by giving them the opportunity to earn without leaving the country?

E-mail comments and questions to: lydia_d_castillo@yahoo.com