I finally went to the Trader Joe’s in midtown on my way home from work Friday. Trader Joe’s isn’t new to me. My first experience with it was when I lived in the Berkeley hills and I went to the one in Emeryville, oh, about 1992. Back then I thought it was the shit. But back then I was just learning to cook and I wasn’t vegetarian, let alone vegan. I seem to remember a lot of yummy box food, similar to Nile Spice rices, couscous, etc. Easy for novice cooks and tasty.
Now, I’m the person the cashier dreads with usually 2/3 of my purchase come kind of produce. And not the normal stuff, but things like organic golden beets, galangal, random asian greens, etc. Side note: the produce section of the shopping cart needs to be much larger at the farmer’s market.
So, I already figured Trader Joe’s wasn’t going to be any good for my weekly shopping. And I was right. Although they did have a limited amount of fresh produce which I don’t remember from California. I was hoping for a bigger section of frozen veggies. That was actually my reason for stopping. I wanted a big bag of collards or mustard greens for my freezer. They had neither of those, but did have a pound of frozen organic spinach for $1.69. Not bad!
Another thing I remembered about Trader Joe’s is that they used to have a great selection of dried fruits and nuts. They did not disappoint. They had quite a few unsulphured, unsweetened fruits available. I got some mango. I also got some dried cherries that were sweetened. And I saw something that seems to be scarce around town, currants. So I’ll keep those in mind the next time a recipe calls for them. The prices were just average on the fruit. No deals here. But the selection will keep my home made muesli interesting.
The pasta section yielded a couple more things I could use. $1.99 for a jar of organic pasta sauce isn’t bad. And is good to have in the cabinet for emergency lazy food. And $.99 is unheard of for a pound of organic whole wheat rotelle. Now let’s see how it tastes. Because whole wheat pasta varies widely in its taste and texture. Hopefully this will be a good one.
Anyway, all in all I didn’t see any reason to go in there on a weekly basis. But since it is on my way home from work, I will probably stop in there more often than I would otherwise.