We moved to Eagleville about a year ago, and I kept passing a sign for a little produce stand near Collegeville. Lori remembered buying fruits and vegetables there when she was growing up, but we hadn’t given it much thought.

Now that it’s summer, and we’re looking for some great salad ingredients, the prices at Genuardi’s aren’t cutting it. Trader Joe’s has good deals on whatever hasn’t been picked through, but eating healthy can still cost a lot.

Today, I tried out Jim & Ralph’s.

If you’re not used to shopping at a Philly-style produce stand, the place can be a little confusing. In fact, if you haven’t been shopping here for the generations that it’s been open, you might not know what’s going on at all.

Fussy foodies don’t necessarily love this place, because you can’t examine every single item the way you would in a grocery store. That’s one of the things that makes it cheap. However, a bunch of local chefs were waiting in line with me, picking up their goods for tonight’s service. If it’s good enough for them, it’s great for me.

Step One: Take a ticket. It’s all based on the number system. You will wait around for about a half hour, probably even an hour if it’s later in the day. (I used the time to draft this blog post, after I used the Grocery IQ app to make my shopping list and calculate the price.)

Step Two: Grab your melons. While you’re waiting your turn, watch what’s going on around you. Locals know that there’s no need to pull product from the displays. Runners will grab everything you need when it’s your turn to order. (Apparently, you can figure out who’s new by looking for folks wandering around with handfuls of loose vegetables.) The exception to the rule are large watermelons, cantaloupes, and huge sacks of potatoes near the front door that the team are happy to have you set aside for your turn at the counter.

Step Three: Order up. Have a list ready, and your runner will zip around grabbing bundles of fruits and vegetables. Everything has a “special” bundle price to keep things simple. Today’s specials included:

• Four HUGE cucumbers for $1
• Seven baby cucumbers for $1
• Seven kiwi for $1
• Bell peppers for $1/pound
• Three pounds of seedless grapes for $2.50
• Three pounds of beefsteak tomatoes for $2
• 24 eggs for $3.50

Step Four: Pay up. Jim & Ralph’s takes cash or check only. There is an ATM on site, with a $2 service fee. I met a guy in line with a worn-out checkbook. He says he pays all his bills online and uses his debit card when shopping, and that his shopping trips here are the only times he writes checks anymore.

Step Five: Get it to the car. I underestimated the amount of food I was going to leave with. The guys see this all the time, and they’re happy to help you get your boxes of produce out to your car. (If you’re a strapping guy like me, you can make multiple trips to the car by leaving boxes off to the side of the counter.) Here’s what $33 got me…

Box 1:

Box 2:

If you’d love to hang out with fun folks for a half hour while you watch fresh produce being unloaded from trucks before your eyes, you can’t beat it. (And, for most folks, you’ll save about twice what you make per hour compared to shopping at Genuardi’s or Acme.)

Hours:

Jim & Ralph’s Produce?
3941 Ridge Pike
Collegeville, PA?
(610) 489-4822?
View Larger Map

I may have taken leave of my senses. I think I actually just paid $7 for a jar of pasta sauce. And I liked it.

Here’s the story. For some reason, I have developed some kind of hypersensitivity to garlic. Still tastes good, and yet it causes me to emanate a horrible stench that causes my wife to don a hazmat suit. I seem to be immune to this, and I’m hoping that other folks have forgiven my occasional Italian lunch over the past few months.

Tonight, Lori and I wanted to cook up some chicken sausage with pasta, but I had run out of the tomato basil mariana I usually get from Trader Joe’s. Ran to Genuardi’s around the corner to find a similar low-sodium sauce, and stumbled upon the Mammarella line from director (and super-foodie) Francis Ford Coppola.

While I thought the packaging was a bit labored, a note from the director caught my eye:

The key to this sauce is a lot of chopped onion, but no garlic. Despite the contrary impression, Italians do not use garlic with everything. The art is in understanding when and with what to use it.

At the time, had there been a price tag on the shelf, I probably would have put the jar right back down. And I am too polite a guy to hold up a checkout line at dinnertime, even when fellow patrons saw me turn white at the sign of a $7.59 line item.

Got home, whipped it up, and holy cow — this is really awesome stuff. It tastes like I just picked the tomatoes from the garden out back. And the chopped onion is not overpowering, either. The whole blend is just excellent, especially when paired up with the high protein pasta we like.

I may just have to resign myself to indulging in this stuff regularly. At least I can order the sauce from Amazon if they stop carrying it at Genuardi’s!