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

they probably are tho

yeah :-/

if you wanna get good stuff

beef: get grass-fed beef
chicken: get free-range chicken (no guarantee they haven't been fed other chickens or cows though)
pork: not sure what the feel good version of pork is

best of all is to become a vegetarian tho

kosher pork

i don't really like pork

was actually looking for a butcher shop around me but haven't come across one just yet

wasn't chicago the center of the meatpacking industry

hog butcher 2 da world

Things I go out of my way to get @ TJs: coffee, wine, frozen samosas, chili mango popsicles, cheese, meat, frozen puff pastry (seasonal, sadly)

I just got frozen veggie samosas!

their coffee is pretty good for what it is, but I wish they would offer more beans in medium roast and not medium dark roast

Some of the Chicago thread folks know of good butcher shops. I've seen a couple in the....is it actually called the meatpacking district? It's in the West Loop around Lake and Halsted where there are warehouses and trendy restaurants....

Fulton Market, not meatpacking district. Anyway, my commute takes me past a butcher and a seafood wholesaler. See: http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/travel/03surfacing.html

it's no bullshit that TJ's meat & produce are "better" than the shit you'd get at a normal grocery store, right

what? no? maybe? I don't understand this comment at all. they carry like 5 pieces of mediocre prepack meat in the back. do people really buy their expensive average beef?

costco's grass-fed beef is better and cheaper.

or it used to be; i haven't bought it in a while.

Veggie samosas + carrot ginger soup is my go-to lazymeal.

Also nuts & dried fruits are things I always get at tj's. For making cookies/scones/other baked goods, granola, oatmeal additions, w/e

produce is not that good at TJ's, possibly better than random megasupermarket (cheaper,more organic options)

yeah there's a farmer's market in the playground of an elementary school literally half a block from me on saturday mornings, so i can get good produce pretty easily thankfully

Oh j0rdan...that farmers mkt will not likely last all year. Is this your first Chicago winter?

ha, yeah

well for a few weeks anyway, then

yeah there's a farmer's market in the playground of an elementary school literally half a block from me on saturday mornings, so i can get good produce pretty easily thankfully

― yung huma (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, October 5, 2011 10:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

j0rd i think you live on my old street!

do i?????????

well i guess you could live on any number of parallel streets between broadway and sheridan?

or broadway and halsted?

but the school is n3ttleh0rst, right?

is it bad for me to be broadcasting where you live on ilx? my bad.

i live b/w broadway & halsted

it's okay

i lived on aldine between broadway and sheridan. y'all can have your thread back now!

but yeah, that's the school

grass fed blah blah blah

That's all I can muster at this point, carry on.

We used to live right there, too, at Broadway and Addison. You're like a block from Whole Foods if you want better meat. The produce at Treasure Island is pretty good and cheap. That grocery store is fun.

NOW you can have your thread back. :)

lol treasure island looks super skeezy

It's the perfect balance of skeezy enough to be interesting but not so skeezy that it's bad times in there. Also, it's Chicago's most European supermarket, whatever the hell that means. I miss shopping there. It is perfectly weird.

Aww jordan I envy you in getting to know a cool new city . That shit is the best

haha oh man that place i never knew what to make of it. lol at "Chicago's most European supermarket."

Some days I would go to Jewel, Treasure Island, and Whole Foods in one fell swoop.

Thai kao soi frozen soup, pretty sweet but also admirably spicy. Bit pricey at $4 a box though. I like the tom yam soup too but I get a little disgusted about how everything is in its own little plastic bag.

soy chorizo - why do they put it in a casing? when you take it out it looks like ground meat (being generous) or babyfood. pretty good though

pumpkin cream cheese!!!

I have since learned that chorizo is supposed to come in a casing? not sure though.

-goat cheese and sundried tomato ravioli - boring! kind of salty, no flavor, no tanginess of the sun dried tomatoes.

usually it does -- mexican chorizo does usually come in a casing ime
don't most sausages come in a casing, regardless of whether you eat it in or out of the casing?

isn't that what sausages are?

this one said you had to remove the casing. it was plastic, I think.

oh yeah you totally have to squeeze it out or cut it out or whatever. it really does not do any favors to the texture of that stuff. i have eaten it, but i can't recommend it.

fucking heavy w/ LEMON CRISP cookies... little lemon cookies with powdered sugar & chocolate. and i don't really like sweets.

also, brioche rolls: dope

was kinda pissed that my store didn't have CHORIZO, which is the only sausage i really like. they had SOY CHORIZO or some some such nonsense tho. also their fresh fish selection is kind of wack... it's mostly just salmon, at least out here. also they sell grated parm for $6 or something which i mean c'mon.

i'm not really into their fish selection although i bought some of the frozen swordfish steaks the other week and they were dece

The grated parm I get is like $4, which is probably what a can of bland kraft parm costs.