Recipes

[Katcat1]

@x Hedge  It depends on what state you live in and what store you shop in.  I did not feel like running to another store for celery but the price shocked me.  In fact, I asked the Produce guy if the price was right.  My recipe is for an American chop suey.  It certainly is not the Chinese chop suey but it is good.

[RedTop]

I only buy celery for chicken/turkey dressing, nothing else, and won’t pay more than $1.79 for it.

[ceekay]

In the DC area, celery was $3.49 for a regular old bunch at the Safeway near my house right before Mother's Day.  I had sticker shock and even commented to my sister about it.  I usually buy at Trader Joe's but have not recently so not sure of the price there.  Needless to say I did not buy celery that day.  The Safeway used to sell individual stalks and I could get just a couple for a recipe but they don't do that anymore.  Food prices do seem to be on the rise (along with many other things).

[ValuSkr]

At Wegmans, a bunch of celery has been $1.50 for months.

[Tissyanne]

@Katcat1 , 

Your recipie sounds very good Thank you for sharing it. Enjoy the day. 

[ahoymate]

$6.99 where I live - celery. Lots of rain, couldn't plant.

[Daysdee]

Celery is available here--in CA.   I think between $1.79-$2.79. depending on the store.

[DiAnne]

I was at Krogers yesterday - organic celery was $2.29 here in the PNW.  

[gardenman]

Celery juice is apparently a hot new diet trend in parts of the country and has caused shortages and inflated prices. Speaking as a gardener, celery is a pain to grow. It's very much a Goldilocks plant that doesn't want it too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry, then requires blanching before being harvested, then has a shortish shelf life. It's also a crop with a long growing season. Celery seeds are very small and germinate erratically. It won't tolerate temps much below fifty degrees, likes six hours of sun, but prefers shade during the hottest part of the day. It's got a five plus month growing season where it needs nearly perfect conditions for all five months. If you grew it yourself, you'd probably think $4.99 a pound was insanely cheap. Commercial growers have learned how to grow it efficiently, but when demand suddenly spikes, like for a diet trend, there's no way to quickly ramp up the supply. And as with all things, when demand outstrips supply, prices rise. Nearly all produce prices are set at local/regional auctions where crops are bid on. If you suddenly need ten cases of celery to stock your store, you have to outbid the other stores that need ten cases also. Those higher bids then get passed down to the consumer in the form of higher prices. If you charted celery prices around the country, you could pretty much see where the celery juice trend is going strong and where it isn't. 

[aroc3435]

@Katcat1   In case you are still interested in comparisons, I went to Harris Teeter here in DC this morning and a fresh celery bunch (not the packaged type where they cut most of the top leaves off) was $2.79.

So as someone else noted up-thread it must depend on the demand in a particular area.  I was going to check on the price for the organic celery which is in a separate section but my wonderful significant other distracted me, as he usually does by asking what something was--which was fresh turmeric which I didn't know they carried.  

If I didn't have a list I would have wound up not getting the sales on the good items that we needed for main dish meals.  As it is, I felt happy; I got 44% off my original

total; so except for two weekend specials that I'll pick up tomorrow, eggs for 77 cents a dozen and some canned beans at 27 cents each that he wants for chili, we should be set for the week.

When he walks over on his own to shop he spends a lot more and gets much less value for his hard earned money.

I certainly hope the price comes down for you soon.  Do you know the trick how to keep it fresh longer in the fridge?  If it's in a plastic bag take it out of that and wrap it up in aluminum foil--it stays good much longer.