Trader Joe's

Description

I'm amused by people who seem to do all of their food shopping at Trader Joe's.To me, it's a specialty shop where you buy a few items you can't get anywhere else.

I think I bought an eggplant at Trader Joe's once; I used to buy lemons here before I joined Costco. But the products doesn't really interest me. No Rapini or Italian parsley at Joe's.

I also don't buy meats at Trader Jones; at least not beef or chicken. It's expensive and it bags. I don't like buying steak in bags.

One thing they do have here is fresh chicken sausage. Most of the chicken sausages are smoked, and none of them have the fat that make sausage what it's supposed to be.

It's a bit mushy and not nearly as good as frresh pork sausage, but if you're trying to cut calories it's 150 calories less than similar pork sausage.

I get my pecorino here; they have a good selection of cheese at fair prices.

They have a few flavors of ice cream, but the stuff they have is good and not wildly overpriced. I like the coffee.

They have all kinds of private branded stuff; pasta, tomato sauce. Olives. I used to buy Orecchiette and they had mince ginger 9better than the paste you get at Walmart), but they've discontinued those items.

These things are really good. Don't buy them unless you're willing to eat all of them. Maybe at one time.

Olive oil is one of those items that's wildly overpriced. You never really know if you're getting what you pay for. Here they have tiered quality oil at fair prices.

You can find very cheap wine here that isn't terrible. $6 a bottle? Plenty of choices. It's n ot good wine, but it's not terrible.

The checkout can be hectic and it's a bit odd, but this store is better than others as the checkouts are staggered. Some stored have them in a row and you can't figure out which side of the box you're supposed to be on. And most of the checkout people are friendly.

Summary

Trader Joes isn't Aldi (although the same outfit owns both), but they have some interesting items as well as some regular food. You could do all of your shopping here, but for me it's just a few items that they only have here.