It isn't "home" without Trader Joe's!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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If you are on the East or West Coast, you may not have heard of it - Trader Joe’s. ( http://www.traderjoes.com .) It’s this great grocery/health food store, they are a chain of stores. They have the best cookes, breads, candies (especially chocolates, sauces, frozen dinners, coffees, wines, and many other foods. They also have soaps, vitamins, etc. etc.) Well, I don’t drink wine and rarely coffee, but I’ll take others’ word for that. They are really great for vegetarians…lots of unique food, gourmet foods. Sigh. And cheap. Everything so cheap. It’s this wonderful, unique place.

I grew up with Trader Joe’s, and then I recently moved to the Midwest. No Trader Joe’s. This is bad. Very bad. I grumble a lot about the Midwest because of it. I visit my hometown of L.A. about twice a year, and I started buying LOTS of Trader Joe’s goodies while back home, and packing it in my luggage. After a while, I just decided that I could not take it anymore - I was sick of my bleak, Trader Joe-less life. So I bought even MORE Trader Joe’s stuff, and mailed it back to myself in several boxes. And, when that supply runs out, I have several friends and relatives who will mail me out a fresh supply. I’ve got a plan, man…I’ve got a plan… I intend to keep myself in Trader Joe’s products all year 'round.

So - the point to this topic? I dunno. An “Ode to Trader Joe’s”. Just had to share. If you live in an area where it is, pat yourself on the back. You don’t know how lucky you are. Appreciate it a little more than you do right now. Think of me the next time you go. And, if you have some special favorite Trader Joe’s product, let me know…I may want to try it out, and put it on my “shopping list” for the next time I stock up.

If you don’t know what Trader Joe’s is, you are kind of lucky in a way…you don’t know what you are missing. You’re better off not knowing - it’s painful to realize what you don’t have - I know. And, maybe some day Trader Joe’s will come to the middle of the country. They moved to the East Coast relatively recently…(started out only on West Coast.) Hope springs eternal.

Polydactyl Cats Unlimited
“A Cat Cannot Have Too Many Toes”

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I should have read my post better - If you are NOT on the East or West Coast, you may not have heard of it…

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Yup, they’re a great store. Interesting (and often cheaper!) food items.

Check them out on the internet:
http://www.traderjoes.com/

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We have Trader Joe’s here in Reno. I love their peanut butter filled pretzels. We just got a Wild Oats Market which is like Trader Joes, except more expensive.

–Gail
“Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place.” --John Cleese

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I feel for you. I lived in California starting with my sophmore year in college and then moved to the midwest for five years. I hated not being able to get all the exotic ingredients they sell at TJ’s. We moved back to San Diego a couple of years ago, and I won’t say Trader Joe’s is the best thing about it, but it’s definitely on the list.

Real Spanish sherry for $3.00 a bottle, mango chutney for $1.99, albacore tuna for $1.00 a can…I think I just wrote my grocery list.

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I don’t like 'em…although I don’t like Krispy Kreme and never had an In ‘n’ Out burger so I’m some sort of freak, I suppose.

“Mrs. Krabappel, are you trying to seduce me?”

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Yeah, I don’t get it. I’ve only been there once, admittedly, but nothing there seemed all that exotic to me. However, some of their prices were pretty good I must say, so I see the attraction. But is it really worth the trouble of shipping it?

If you want exotic go to your local ethnic market (for those Bay Area people - 99 Ranch, Rose Market in Mountain View, Bharat Bazaar in Sunnyvale, etc), or your local high-end supermarket (Draeger’s has things you can’t even get at the most exotic of ethnic markets), or your local farmers market.

To the OP- so you are in the Midwest? If you’re by Chicago, no problem - it shouldn’t be hard to find anything you want. If you are by St. Louis I can recommend Jai’s International Grocery on Grand. It has stuff I’ve never seen even in California…

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I think the best thing about Trader Joe’s is that they have interesting, high quality, inexpensive convenience foods. Yeah, I agree that if you want truly exotic, 99 Ranch is mecca, and I love to go there just to wander around and dream of having the time to make Thai curry paste from scratch. (For those who have never seen one, 99 Ranch is a supermarket-sized grocery chain that sells every imaginable ingredient for Chinese, Japanese and other Asian cuisines, including many ingredients that are still alive.)

But I love Trader Joe’s because I can go in and get a package of frozen gyoza or a bottle of spinach curry sauce that I can just heat up in a few minutes and they actually taste good.

I’m not sure why TJ’s hasn’t opened stores in the Midwest. My best guess is that a lot of their sales are from wine, beer, and liquor and Midwestern states have many more restrictions on these.

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Hmmm! Theres a trader joes here in vegas and I havent been yet, now I gotta go!! It just sounds too cool. I grew up in the midwest, never heard of it before here.

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Trader Joes excels in the area of exotic convenience foods.

Lots of asian and indian frozen dinners, great prices on frozen fish, and their really cool snack foods - the peanut butter filled pretzels, great olive spreads and interesting jarred salsas.

Plus a wide selection of organic convenience foods (jarred pasta sauces, indian sauces, etc).

It’s kind of like ethnic food for the American lifestyle - cheap and easy.

It’s not a replacement for a good ethnic grocery, or for a regular supermarket.

Things I buy everytime I go:
The boxed (non-frozen) Indain entrees - espcially the saag paneer and bombay potatoes
Peanut-butter filled pretzels - go great with beer!!!
Eggplant Arrabiata pasta sauce
Frozen vegetable gyoza
Frozen pierogi
Cranberry Crunch or Vanilla Almond Crunch cereal

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Cher beat me to the punch with the convenience foods comments.

Good to see someone agrees with me! :slight_smile:

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There are none where I live either – and there should be, since the Triangle is such a yuppie mecca. And now I’m hungry. Darn it.

“I can’t think why fancy religions should have such a ghastly effect on one’s grammar.”
– Dorothy L. Sayers

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Thank you everyone for your input to my Ode to Trader Joe’s!

And, yes, it is worth it to ship it out to the Midwest. I can’t ship out the frozen stuff, obviously, but I stock up on the asian crackers, the chocolates, the cookies, the nut/trail mixes, and the dry mixes/rice.

It’s true, it doesn’t replace a regular grocery store, but it has great stuff. Great veggies sushi, great vegetarian (and vegan) frozen dinners, and great speciality and unusual foods, sauces, spices. And all CHEAP.

Polydactyl Cats Unlimited
“A Cat Cannot Have Too Many Toes”

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And where else can you get chocolate-covered almonds rolled in cocoa? Mmmmmm! Everyone has chocolate-covered almonds, but Trader Joe’s is the only place I know that has them rolled in cocoa!

It’s the only place I buy coffee. French-roast beans in the 26-oz. can for $7.69!

Cheese. Lots of it, and different kinds.

“Burger Champignon” and “Burger Nouveau”. Great when I feel like vegetarian.

Better dolmas than I’ve had at Middle-Eastern restaurants.

Two things I wish they’d bring back: They used to have “Merquez” or “Merguez” spicy lamb sausage back in the 80s. It was killer! Around the same time they had frozen escargots in the shell. Just heat’n’eat! Now they have frozen escargots with pastry caps. Too much bread, not enough snail. They need to bring back the ones in the shell. (And the sausage!)

“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry

Are you a turtle?

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Ah, yes - the “Burger Champignon” and “Burger Nouveau” - I LOVE them! I wish they could travel in my luggage, but frozen things don’t make the trip real well.

Right now I am eating “UFOs” - the Ghiradelli (sp?) mint chocolate jumbo “chips”. Man, are they good. Addictive.

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And around Christmas they always have those 10 lb bars of Ghirardelli Chocolate. Every year I want to buy one but haven’t yet!

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Oh, that reminds me. Some of you may be familiar with Odwalla beverages: fruit/vegetable juices. I love their limeade, but of course, anything I like is going to be the most difficult variety to find, and the first to be discontinued. We went past the Whole Foods Market on, I think, Telegraph Avenue, so I just had to stop. They had Odwalla juices, but no limeade, so I guess it’s history. If it’s not available in Berkeley, it’s not available. :frowning:

“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”