Harris Teeter

Oh, for the record, I take these images with the camera on my iPhone. Periodically I have a digital camera with me and no doubt it'll be apparent when I post a photo from that. Anyway, my love affair with Harris Teeter continues. This is the store in Bethesda, Maryland on Old Georgetown Road. The store opened this past Spring and is brand spanking new top to bottom. The standard grocery store sections are on the first floor with a specialty bakery, cheese section, sushi bar, dining area upstairs. I rarely get up top unless I need something like Gruyere cheese or prosciutto. The image below is the first third of their extremely expansive and well stocked produce section. This greets you as soon as you walk in.

The meat counter.....

Below are the boneless premium ribeye from the meat counter. It's hard to tell from the images but those already cut steaks were abuout 2 1/2" thick and were calling softly to me. I was strong.....


Below, the middle section of the fish counter. From left to right: tuna medallions from the Phillipines; mahi fillets from Panama; Tilapia from...who am I kiddin, I don't care where it comes from; farm raised Chilean salmon; American caught Dover sole, yellow fin tuna from Mexico; wild caught U.S. flounder; organic salmon from Ireland, rock fish (striped bass) fillets from the U.S., prepared salmon fillets. All the way to the left in this photo you can just see the cod....


It's almost always around $5 a pound which seems pretty reasonable to me. I went looking for some cod this past Spring at Bloom (Food Lion-owned) and it was $12.99 a pound! To the left of the cod is pollock which was going for $6.99. I was doing a little reading on cod and cod-like fishes (pollock, hake, etc.) and it was my understanding that these other fisheries developed as cod stocks dropped. Now, it seems, the cod stocks have recovered, the prices have dropped, but people who switched in the past to the then cheaper species have not come back. That artfully placed bit of greenery (lettuce?) really sells classy right off the bat.



At any rate, I skipped the meat counter and went to the already wrapped meats and grabbed two bone-in rib steaks. The store's premium line of steaks is referred to as "Reserve Angus" and are served from the aforementioned counter, while their standard line is mere "Rancher" and is cut and wrapped in advance. The price is usually $1 more for the premium but since I didn't notice any great difference in marbling between the two I opted for the cheaper grade. Here they are coming to room temperature on my cutting board.


I prepped them with a little olive oil and then rubbed them with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Pan seared on a very hot dry pan for two minutes a side and then into a 450 degree oven to finish them off.



Neglected to take a photo of the finished steak. Things were late, smokey, smudgy and I was pretty hungry....

Had several ears of corn I picked up at a roadside stand I pass on the way home from work. $4 a dozen and oh so sweet. Harris Teeter, strangely, was selling two ears for $2.


It's Friday! Back off to the island tomorrow. The fishing is red hot right now and I'm hoping to get a few rockfish. If they prove elusive, and they shouldn't, I'll fall back on the trusty white perch. Depedning on the wind I may hack my way over to Tilghman Point and drift for flounder. Whatever I pull in I'm thinking tempura.....