Hmmm...sort of. Most of the stock is not well known brands. It's mostly imported (but then again, so is most of our processed food), but from different places than we're used to. It's kind of like an alternate food universe really.

It's good for cured meats, the sort of sausages you don't usually see, and they do a really good value mixed salad. Or is that Lidl? They're very close to one another in Aylesbury, and close in type. It's £0.99 for a 500g bag, which is much better than Sainsbury's or Tesco - I always buy it if I'm providing salad as part of any meal I'm preparing.

Oh and fish - very good for fish for their size. Our smaller supermarkets tend to stock only breaded or battered, but both Aldi and Lidl (of a comparable size) do a range of plain fish, which suits me a lot better. More expensive on fizzy water though. But I've checked every supermarket in a 3 mile radius and I don't really think I'll improve on 12p for 2 litres!

To me they're nothing like the shops at petrol stations, but then I can't be sure that ours are anything like yours anyway :)

petrol stations are where you go to get Rizlas and chocolate milk at 4 am....


*misspent youth*

We have Aldi's here but I've never heard of any of the brands of anything they carry. My friend shops there and swears by it. I usually do Kroger or Dorothy Lane Market. We have a Trader Joe's and it's ok...but DLM is better.

Clod, take your supermarket, remove all sections around the edge. No butcher, no bakery, no deli. The one I was in had no fresh produce either.

Remove all brands, leaving only store brands. But not one store brand... every product seems to have its very own mysterious brand, which only applies to its category. At times the branding seems modern, at other times it's weird and coldly generic. You will have heard of none of them.

With only one brand of toilet paper, one brand of orange soda, one brand of bread, etc. this reduces the size of the market to about a third of what it previously was. Now there is no need for aisle marking, as there are only 4 aisles.

This allows the prices to drop dramatically, at least for the things people recognize, and then this in turn attracts a certain type of customer, which the store is full of. Imagine the Walmart clientele but a little less discriminating about their products. They don't shop per se, since there's no decision about which toilet paper to buy, they just fill their carts.

Wow, UT. That's quite the sneer.

Most people I know who shop at Aldi do so because they're on a tight budget, not because they can't evaluate quality.

That was my experience; it may be affected in this location because there's a Walmart in the same shopping center...

It's the communist ideal of shopping!

State of Origin Cupcakes!

QUEENSLANDER!!! Dazza is from New South Wales, so I had to make both blue and maroon (pink) cupcakes.

Attachment 23988

:haggis:

Cornbread muffins substituting water and oil for the milk. Not only did I manage not to burn them but they are fluffy and moist. I think I will never use milk again.

I went to make cornbread the other night and was much chagrined to find that I was out of meal !

I admire you Alluvial. I haven't mastered baking anything from stratch.

Aww! Thank you.

Did you hear the one about the new bride searching in the grocery store for a box of "Scratch", the baking mix? :D

I started out from zero. My mom could.not.cook. So I am self-taught, with some help from different folks at different times in my life. Now that I'm pushing 50, I finally feel as if I know what I'm doing.

But I think Aliantha is ahead of both of us !!

haha good joke Alluvail. I would be fun to ask a grocery clerk for a scratch mix sometime but I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face.

yes and ali is marvelous cook. I've been ignoring the cupcakes on purpose. mmm That frosting is to die for.