Trader Joe's

The vanilla/almond granola cereal is almost like candy.

 

Five times in a day is too much.
Slow down, man.

 

The Downtown News in LA recently polled the 30K or so who live downtown and asked them what they want the most to move in: TJ's finished first with about 75 percent of the vote. Target was second with 10 percent.

TJ's is remarkable. My favorite items are Tito's Vodka (at $19, it's 3 times better than the Stoli Elite I was drinking at $60 a bottle!) and the olive tapenade schmeered on a cracker. Yum.

 

Vodka at TJ's?

Haven't seen that. But in Mass, I don't think ANY supermarket can sell hard liquor. Even for beer and wine, there's a law here that only three locations in a chain can get a license (hence only 3 TJs in Mass sell it). A couple of years ago there was a ballot measure to get rid of that law, but the liquor stores ran a scare campaign that allowing more supermarkets to sell beer and wine would encourage DUIs and underage drinking, implying that only packies had the expertise to sell alcohol responsibly. Yeah right.

 

Trader Joe's is notorious for bad parking, verging on dangerous. So the one near us is across the (busy) street from Ralph's, and people park in the Ralph's lot and brave traffic to get their T.J.'s on. Good foreign wine, vegetarian selections and lots of nice snacks.

 

I'm in PA, so no beer/liquor at our Trader Joe's....

I highly recommend their various varieties of hummus and they have a white bean/gorganzola dip that's to die for.
I also like their frozen mini beef and chicken tacos, their canned soups (specifically minestrone and french onion), their peanut butter crackers (think Ritz mini's), and their cheese straws (in the cracker section).

I will have to try that trail mix!

 

Wisconsin laughs at your stupid law.

And buys another case of beer at the grocery store.

On a Sunday.

 

Please say you've been to Capital Ale House.

 

Yes, and I have read that beer menu.

Actaully, I think the Ale House jumped the shark becuase there is one now in fucking Fredericksburg.

 

So I finally walked into a Whole Foods this weekend, and honestly, I was less than impressed.

It was gorgeous, brand new store with tons of food choices. The prepared foods were magnificent and the choices up and down the aisles was very impressive. I also thought the produce and butcher departments seemed out of this world.

But money is an object to me, and everything I looked at seemed about 30-40% higher than I would be buying something very similar at Trader Joe's, Costco or on sale at Kroger. So I walked out of there only spending $11. I hate, hate, hate spending too much money on something.

I think the food rotation for my family will be Trader Joe's, Costco and Kroger. I just do not make enough money to shop at Whole Foods.