Aug
11
August 11, 2007
Okay, Whole Foods-lovers, don’t go getting your organic sustainably-harvested cotton undies in a knot — I like their stuff just fine, especially their insanely wonderful selection of chantrelles and their salmon-cream cheese spread and their mango salsa. I do, however, reserve the right to bitch about 1) their Kleenex selection, which is limited to Seventh Generation and I don’t care how great that shit is for the earth, it will rip your nose-flesh right the hell off, and 2) the fact that I can’t make it out of there without spending at least $100.
Oh, and the shopping experience itself kind of blows. Maybe it’s just my local store, but my fellow shoppers always seem to be sort of . . . you know when you’re pushing your cart down an aisle, and there’s someone standing smack dab in the middle staring at the selection of Spinach-Paprika Puffs or whatever, and they don’t move? Until you finally clear your throat and say, “Excuse me,” and they have the nerve to look annoyed? I don’t know, my store seems full of these folks, and I can tell you from personal experience that if you try and squeeze your cart as close to the edge of the aisle as possible so you don’t cause any further annoyance to Healthy McShithead, the eagle-eyed toddler in your cart seat is going to end up shoplifting at least seven cans of Annie’s Certified Organic “P’sghetti Loops with Soy Meatballs” , which he is not even going to EAT.
Anyway! Enough about Whole Freaking Foods. Did you know I grow my own tomatoes and thus am a fine upstanding citizen after all? Well, sure, they’re green and tiny and seem to be suffering from some sort of blight, but still. Why, if I had to live off the land . . . um, yeah, we’d be fucked. Can you grow a Two-Bite Brownie plant? I’m just wondering.
Also, the boy has entered a new stage of toddlerhood. I call it All Weird, All The Time.
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We are finally getting a Trader Joe’s in our area (Chapel Hill), in a space where a store named Earth Fare (out of Asheville, NC) couldn’t stand the competition from the local Whole Foods.
I was in a room with grad students and a professor, and we were chatting about grocery shopping (and the crazy expensiveness of it) and I brought up the new TJ’s coming in. The professor asked something like “What is this Trader Joe’s of which you speak?” Another student chimed in, “They’re like Whole Foods, but cheaper. They’re THE PEOPLE’s Whole Foods!” So general excitement ensued, especially when someone brought up the $4 bottles of wine. (Hey, we’re students.)
Anyway, I wanted to ask you Trader Joe’s veterans: what are your favorite things to buy there? What products does their brand do especially well? And produce? Is it not an arm and a leg?
The produce at TJ’s is cheaper but it is not always, how you say … good? They are a little overfond of plastic packaging and the tomatoes I’ve bought at our local one were not the freshest. I will occasionally splurge on the sliced papaya or mango there.
That said, I love the TJ’s. Their dark chocolate-covered pretzels are to die for, and if you’re into keeping a few frozen foods on hand just in case you don’t have time to make dinner, you can’t go wrong with their selections. I love their Trader Ming’s chicken shu mai, their pierogies are good, their pizzas are not bad, their little caramelized-onion-and-brie pastry puffs are good hot snacks. Get the profiteroles too. We routinely get the frozen salmon and buffalo.
I also like their trail mixes, but I am the type of crunchy sort-of-hippie person who thinks the antioxidant blend mix is a great snack.
If you like something at TJ’s, do not hesitate to stock up: the company rotates out its underperforming flavors/foods on a regular basis (see more here).
The Jack Nicholson face is back!!! Wasn’t he always weird all the time, though?
Riley’s pajamas are to-die-for cute!