No, not the late activist Cesar Chavez. I’m talking about Chavez Market in Redwood City. We discovered its taqueria, which is also inside the market, relatively early on after moving to the area. Fresh is the word. For the first, I tasted pico de gallo made with red, ripe tomatoes. Freshly made corn tortillas hot off the grill melted in our mouths. If they don’t smell like popcorn, they just ain’t fresh.
Then, a couple of days ago, I rediscovered the place. I had always assumed that their groceries were probably a bit cheaper than prices at Safeway, Draegers and other markets in the upscale Menlo Park where I live. The produce, selection of spices, dairy and practically everything else is a noticeably cheaper. Of course, Chavez doesn’t have the variety of other markets.
I mostly purchased ingredients to make chili. Since I chose a recipe (from Williams Sonoma’s “Vegetarian”) that called for dried beans, I saved mucho moolah. I spent a total of $11.47 on beans. It’s enough for around 8 batches of chili. One batch would require about four cans of beans. At roughly $1 each, one batch would require $4 of beans. You could only make three batches with canned beans for every eight batches with dried beans.
On the other hand, each can of pureed tomatoes cost $2.39. Since I bought four cans (I made two batches of chili), I spent $9.56 on pureed tomatoes. Time to stock up on pureed tomatoes from Costco.
Total spent at Chavez? $36.02.
What’s left? $3542.74
