I got a call during the week from Mark Paul, a journalist with the Sunday Times, who wanted to ask about why I’d largely deserted Superquinn and now do my main shop in Lidl. I would have thought the reason was pretty obvious, but was happy to expand on it for him.

His article, in today’s Business Section, uses me as an example of the sort of shopper Superquinn chairman Simon Burke needs to woo back if he is to “staunch the flow of shoppers” to cheaper rivals.

Maybe he’s right. I was once a slavishly devoted Superquinn shopper, even something of a Fergal groupie. I did all my shopping there and I’m ashamed to admit that I slightly looked down on those who I felt were willing to compromise on quality by shopping in ‘inferior’ places, even if it saved them a few quid.

My desertion of Superquinn was gradual but pretty much total. I still shop there from time to time, but never with a trolley - it’s a place for occasional top-ups if I happen to be passing.

I initially went to Lidl from curiosity but was perplexed by unfamiliar brands, even unfamiliar foods, and found the basic displays and the absence of the high level of service to which I was accustomed disconcerting. I was used to having someone fill my bags, to real butchers and the smell of fresh baked bread, to pretty displays and interesting specials.

But, you know, the stuff I bought in Lidl was pretty good in the main and there were a couple of things I really liked a lot and that I couldn’t get in Superquinn - JD Gross chocolate was the biggie for me. So I went back and kept on trying new things, but was still not doing my main shop there.

The turning point came one day in Superquinn when I just popped in for a few things and half way around looked into a basket that contained bacon, nuts, cheese and some veg and realised that by taking a short trip across town I could not only cut the price of that basket in half but do so without making any compromise on quality at all.

I had this very strong feeling of being taken for a ride. I abandoned the basket, got in the car and pretty much never looked back.

One quote from Simon Burke in the article stands out for me:

“People should feel that shopping in Superquinn is something stylish to do. There should be a feeling that it is a cut above the rest.”

If he wants to woo me and my like back he won’t do it with that thinking.

It’s amazing how quickly you acclimatise to a more basic shopping environment. Once you do it brings all those prettied up and stylish displays elsewhere into sharp focus, you start to see them for what they really are, pointless distractions designed to make you spend more and overlook high prices.

We are after all talking about grocery shopping here. It’s a necessary chore, not a style statement. If I want stylish I can take the €2000-€3000 per year I save by shopping cannily and go in search of it, but I won’t be looking in a supermarket.

Tags: Style, Superquinn
Posted in Shopping Baskets, Wasting Money | 14 Comments »

This is something of a detour from Lidl, since neither of the two main ingredients in this cake - almonds and raspberries - are available there.

I mentioned previously that ground almonds are flour to those of us who eat low carb, and this cake, which I made this morning, is a good example of how well it works. It’s moist and light and very, very good and contains absolutely no flour. And you definitely don’t have to be eating low carb to enjoy it!

I’m always looking for ways to use raspberries, because I’m lucky enough to live near to a great year-round source of them - Purcell’s in Dunmore. Fresh in summer, frozen the rest of the year, their raspberries, grown on their own farm, are full of flavour and a great bargain at just €2.50 for a one pound punnet.

Of course raspberries are completely delicious just as they come  - I regularly pinch one from the freezer and suck it like a boiled sweet. But they work brilliantly with the almonds in this recipe.

What you need

120g Ground Almonds
60g (2 oz) chilled butter
4 dessert spoons of Splenda (not sure of weight)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bread soda
50mls cream
2 eggs
4 oz Mascarpone Cheese
About 1/3 lb of frozen raspberries
30g Flaked Almonds

1. Make the cake

Mix the ground almonds and 3 spoons of the splenda, put in a blender or food processor with the well chilled butter and pulse until it looks crumby - as on the left. Take about a quarter of this mix out and set it aside in a bowl.

Add the baking powder, bread soda, cream, a third of the mascarpone, 1 whole egg and one egg yolk (keep the white). Mix this thoroughly. Put into an 8″ flan dish.

2. Make the topping

Mix the rest of the splenda and mascarpone with the egg white, beating together very well. Add a few drops of Almond essence to this if you have it, but it’s not vital.

Pour this mixture over the cake mix and spread it out, not quite to the edges of the cake. Arrange the frozen raspberries on top, then sprinkle over the ground almonds and the crumby mix that you set aside earlier. It’ll look like this picture.

3. Cook it

You need to get it into the over right away, so the two layers don’t get overly mingled.

Cook in the centre of the oven at 180 for 30 minutes  - the almonds will be nicely browned when it’s done.

Leave to cool completely before eating.

The cake keeps well in the fridge overnight, so can be made ahead of time, and also freezes very well.

It’s not that cheap, because of the ground and flaked almonds, though the fact that the cream, butter and mascarpone can be saved on at Lidl helps bring the cost down a bit.  Here’s how it panned out:

Cost: Raspberries: 80c, Eggs 36c; cream 30c; Mascarpone 75c; ground almonds 1.60; flaked almonds 40c; cupboard stuff 25c.

Total: Approx €4.45

Still, that’s only about 55c per decadent and delicious slice!

Tags: Almond, Raspberries, Recipes
Posted in Recipes | 7 Comments »

Fascinating isn’t it? My own shopping is boring as it changes so little so I can never resist a peek at someone else’s trolley.

Today the trolley I picked at Lidl had someone’s till receipt in it, a very long one, so obviously someone shopping for more people than I do. In fact it looks like a fairly typical family shopping basket.

I’m giving you the chance to be nosy too and have reproduced it below, organised into categories to make it easier to visualise.

I’m not telling you the the total price though - have a guess, how much do you think this lot cost? I’m not sure of the weight of some items so you’ll have to guess wildly now and then, but if you shop elsewhere this is a chance to do a quick comparative tot.

The last item gives you an idea of the volume of this shop, they are pretty roomy carrier bags.

I’ll repost the list on Monday, with prices.

Tags: Prices, Shopping Basket
Posted in Shopping Baskets | 9 Comments »

I am old enough to have sat laughing uproariously at the telly when Geoff Read appeared on the Late Late Show in 1984 talking about his plans to launch bottled water on the Irish market. I thought it was a hoot but obviously doomed to failure, which shows how much I know when it comes to predicting what the market wants.

Like everyone else watching I not only swallowed my words later but swallowed plenty of Ballygowan along with them.

I mention this because I was strolling through the minerals aisle of Superquinn last week when I saw a women pop four quite attractive looking bottles into her trolley. I had to have a look to see what they were and it turned out they were water.

Finé “natural artisan water” to be exact, all the way from Japan according to the label and costing €6.59 per 750cl.

While I reeled from the shock of this, my eyes wandered down to a locked glass case displaying bottles of Bling H2O, encrusted with Swarovski crystals and priced at an utterly mind boggling €44.99 for the same sized bottle.

What amazed me most though was that a perfectly sane looking woman in Kilkenny was casually buying this stuff. I asked some of the staff and it appears that Bling is selling quite well too, if not exactly walking off the shelves.

Now I absolutely realise this isn’t about water, in spite of the flowery talk of volcanic springs and health giving properties. It’s about what carrying one of these, admittedly attractive, bottles says about you.

I have to assume that those who buy them believe they will, as a result, be set apart from ordinary mortals and publicly recognised as having “exquisite taste”, because the Bling website tells us it is so. Or maybe they believe that flaunting their “gourmet” water shows that they are deeply concerned about their health or will pursue quality without regard to such trivialities as price.

I mean they can’t think that it marks them out as gullible deluded fools can they?

It easy to calculate the cost of these relative to ordinary water - you could buy 50 litres of water in Lidl for the same price as one litre of Finé, in the case of Bling you’d need a good sized trailer to take home your 370 litres.

When it comes to calculating other costs it’s not so easy. The discerning folk of exquisite taste who want everything to be natural and pure and high quality might take a moment to think about the environmental impact of getting heavy glass bottles of water from Japan and Tennessee to the shelves of an Irish supermarket, not to mention making them and transporting them for filling beforehand.

All I can say is that I hope that once they have acquired their fancy bottles they take real good care of them and refill them from Lidl, or better still from the tap.

Tags: Bling, Superquinn, Water
Posted in Wasting Money | 10 Comments »

I’ve heard people complain that while Lidl cheese is cheap, there isn’t a big selection and it’s not uniformly good. There is some truth in this - sadly you won’t find any of the fabulous farmhouse cheeses being made in Ireland and there are not many speciality continental cheeses either.

Some of the real bargain basement cheeses are not that great tasting either, but then cheap cheese slices are not up to much no matter where you buy them. When Lidl recently had a go at Tesco’s value range, cheese slices were one of the products they highlighted. Lidl pointed out that their cheese slices had 51% cheese, while Tesco’s value slices had only 11%.

Now I don’t know about you but I was quite surprised to learn that any cheese slices were only about half cheese - but at just 11% I am kind of amazed they are allowed to call them cheese at all. Cheese flavoured plastic maybe?

Having said that the selection of cheeses available in Lidl is getting better all the time and last week I spotted some newcomers, or at least cheeses I’d never seen there before.

I bought this Double Gloucester but there is also a Stilton with Cranberry and Wensleydale with Apricot in the range, both of which look very good indeed.

This is my new favourite Lidl cheese.

Though somewhat softer textured than most Double Gloucester I’ve had, it has the lovely mature flavour and the rich butteriness that is characteristic of this cheese. The amount of onion and chive is just right - not overpowering, but definitely there. It’s very moreish.

I haven’t used this cheese for cooking yet - I am thinking it would be wonderful with cauliflower - but it is really really nice with some chopped scallions and garlic mayonnaise as a quick and simple lunch. Which is how I ate it yesterday.

Tags: Best Buys, Cheese, Lunch
Posted in Best Buys | 5 Comments »