The Trader Joe's Product Discussion Thread (S/D)

i just discovered they have chipwiches! i used to freaking love chipwiches.

i had to buy ice cream sandwiches in honor of greenberg, which i saw today. i got white wine instead of whiskey, though.

UNGH I am soooooooooooo loving this Triple Berry-O's cereal. I am really excited about the Soy Chorizo in my fridge, too, and the Roasted Garlic Marinara I caved and bought (I haven't purchased jarred tomato sauce in abt 3 years but I have a hunch this one is rly rly good). I also have the Vegetable Masala burgers in my freezer which I already love.

oatmeal. raisin. cookies.

I live by one of these now, however it's too full to get IN THE DOOR most of the time. Is it worth my taking a couple of hours off work to try to do some shopping? Am on super-tight budget for a while longer, maybe I should be looking at TJ's...?

Triple Berry-O's cereal = yesss, I just restocked on this yesterday.

The best TJ's shopping experience Jeff and I had was when we went late on the Saturday adjacent to St. Patrick's day and in a snow storm. There was room to move around in there!

Is it worth my taking a couple of hours off work to try to do some shopping?

yes...unless you mostly buy produce

lol @ city folks, my average trader joes shopping trip from walking in to walking out is ~5 min

That TJs on Lincoln/Grace is expanding into the old CB2, fortunately.

I know! That's super exciting.

i meant to offer my support for the panang curry sticks. they're delicious and so quick in the toaster oven.

making their nitrate (etc) free hot dogs tonight, along with their chicken sundried tomato sausage.

me n the gf ate considerably more than half a box of ginger snaps yesterday night. I think that might be my POO: tj's answer

i still haven't kicked my tj's tikka masala habit and i've added their nan to the problem.

I've found a good time to go to TJs in order to beat the insanity is late on weekends. Like after 7 on Saturday or Sunday Nights. This requires you, like me, be super lame, however.

laurel, if you go by on friday night around 9pm, you'll be good! just plan a shopping trip before your friday night goings out since you never go out til like 11 or 12 anyway!

lol @ city folks, my average trader joes shopping trip from walking in to walking out is ~5 min

knew a guy who used to drive out of the city to CT, where TJs shopping was a whole other roomy aisled experience. i actually like getting to zone out in lines for a long while.

i actually like getting to zone out in lines for a long while.

you, sir/ma'am, are a masochist.

For real.

It's not even the lines that are the hassle. It's being unable to stand anywhere that is not in somebody else's way/not be able to go anywhere else because somebody else is in your way. Like, I want to compare the ingredients list on the ging carrot soup and the butternut squash soup, without having to grab a box of each and go huddle in the corner by the vitamins to read.

monday nights around 9pm are the best time to go to our local TJ's with a car -- we can actually find a parking space.

The checkout lines here can wrap all the way around the perimeter of the store and back out onto the sidewalk, but they actually move pretty fast. The even bigger problem is what Jenny said -- it takes probably 4x or 5x as long to do ANYTHING because you can't move until the person in front of you does, and she can't move until that man's cart moves, and so on.

i usually go on mondays around 11am and the place is literally crawling with children/mothers. many of these kids enjoy pushing their own carts and it's chaos sometimes trying to get ava/sophie/hank to move his cart, pls.

Pro tip to Chicago TJ's shoppers: I try to go in one of the far left lines, over by the beer. They're usually shorter.

ava/sophie/hank

Haha.

Pro tips to TJs shoppers: try to embrace serenity; think of the line as an extension of yourself, a spiritual family extending forward from your heartspace. The children are our future and learning to push miniature shopping carts is a valuable lyfe skill. Reward your own patience with free samples of mango lemonade.

i know i know
the shopping has to get done sometime

We are going to stop going to TJ and pay other ppl to do the shopping for us.

cool, more room for me and my kids ava, sophie, and hank

one time i saw a confrontation between a mom, her ava and a girl she was friends with in high school. they were all like HIEEE, HOW ARRRRRE YOUUUU and then mom introduced ava and said she had another one on the way and friend pretended to be happy, but i could tell she wanted out of that conversation pronto
it was a scene from a nicole holofcener movie
this was in the yogurt area btw

cool, more room for me and my kids ava, sophie, and hank

don't forget little max and taylor.

No Dylan?

(and don't forget Madison)

It's usually Hunter at my TJs. "Hunter, stop that or no balloon!"

Where's Mason?

Hunter and Madison are too old to care about having their own baby carts. Josephine and Aloysius can't walk yet, so they can't push a cart.

So, the soyrizo TASTES amazing but it just crumbles to bits when I take it out of the plastic. Is there a way to avoid this, really? Or is the product just basically ground "meat" packaged in a plastic sausage casing?

It's great for tacos. I think the flavor might even be too intense as an actual encased sausage?

Hunh, this just popped up:

http://www.utne.com/Environment/The-EcoMyth-of-Trader-Joes.aspx

The Eco-Myth of Trader Joe’s
5/14/2010 12:40:08 PM

by Danielle Maestretti

the eco-myth? you can't buy an apple at tj's without getting 2 pounds of plastic.

when did they ever claim to be eco-conscious?

projection from their primary audience, i'd imagine

One thing that bugs me about TJs is how a lot of their frozen Mexican items contain a lot of extra ingredients that aren't covered by the product name. So you'll get like a "Black Bean and Cheese" burrito and it'll also have pieces of tofu and broccoli in it. Which isn't necessarily bad, but they should call it a Veggie Burrito or something. And sometimes I just want beans and cheese and nothing else. But I am boring.

However I had the green chili and cheese tamales for the first time last night and those are dang good and don't have a bunch of weird vegetables in them.

yeah all their tamales are solid

I used to get their Vegetable Burritos and they were delicious, but there were two burritos per package and I almost always found myself eating both and then feeling guilty about it.

(Oh, I guess I mentioned this upthread.)

you felt so guilty you mentioned it 2x

uncrystallized candied ginger is off the hook

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2408/1846858567_cebf0b7194.jpg

holy shit yes

are the trader joe's hot dogs (nitrate/nitrite-free, hormone-free, etc) just repackaged hebrew national? they're pretty good.

I just had some of that filled pasta, think it was prosciutto in little pasta bundles. It wasn't good.