Shopping

About a year ago now the dripping of the kitchen faucet had gotten bad enough that I finally took the cartridges out to examine them to see what needed to be done. As it turned out these cartridges had a lot of plastic parts that were worn and could not be replaced, so I'd have to replace the whole cartridge. In many cases there are simple washers on the cartridges which are really inexpensive to replace. So off I went to Home Depot where I'd bought the faucet, only to discover they did not have replacements for it. Wow, did that upset me!

My next stop was Preston Hardware in Little Italy. I knew they had a whole plumbing and bath store adjacent to the hardware store, and figured if anyone had a replacement, it would be them. Unfortunately, this proved not to be the case, so I had to buy a whole new faucet. I was going through all the options at Preston, and removing the cartridges from the faucets to ensure I was buying something with simple, replaceable parts. I honed in on one model for 60 bucks when (a guy who I am pretty sure is) one of the owners came over to see if I needed help

Today I decided to take a walk down to the Asian supermarket - the 168 Market here in Ottawa. It is just outside of Chinatown and not very far at all from my house. Wow, what an incredible experience! I hadn't been there in about 7 or 8 years, but after this visit I decided I will most certainly make regular visits from now on. It is like taking a vacation in the Far East because it is a pretty large supermarket, and there are virtually no products at all that are recognizable to a westerner like me! Mystery and excitement in every aisle!!! Even better is the fact that the prices are so reasonable.

I was especially impressed with the butchery and fish counter. I eyed some pork neck that was being sold in large chunks for 99 cents a pound, and after spending a half hour or so going through the whole store to check out every shelf, I came back and got a chunk. The butcher cut it up into several smaller chunks, and weighed it at 1.815 lb or 824g, which came to $1.80. I'm all about being frugal, and that seemed like a really good deal. So I was excited to get it home for a little experiment!