I went to TJ's today for their bag of frozen, sliced, multi-colored
sweet peppers, got that. But I was out of EVOO... well, not really.
I have several bottles of the designer EVOO that I've bought thinking
about "dipping", but the reality is that we don't eat bread with
dinner. We occasionally have garlic bread with some pasta dish, but
that isn't even once a year these days. Sooo, I picked up a bottle of
"mixed" olive oil at Trader Joe's today. It's a mixture of regular
and extra virgin olive oil. I mainly use my olive oil to cook with
and for vinaigrette, so I really do not need to buy EVOO exclusively
the way I do (plus, I'm using TJ's sunflower oil too now). Anyway it
was a good buy: $5.99 for 32 ounces. Then I turned my focus to the
dried herbs... as per usual, it's a limited selection - but I needed
thyme and they had a regular sized bottle of French Thyme for $1.99 -
all the salts & peppers that come in reusable grinders are the same
price. These are some of the reasons why I love TJ's.

No, I never rely on it as my MAIN grocery store. I shopped at TJ's
before it was owned by Aldi and have not liked their steady trend
toward product stability. The fun of TJ's back in the day was finding
something different and interesting and the entire store was brand new
every time you went (40 minutes and a toll bridge away).

While I was there, I checked the raw shrimp to see where they were
sourced and there were none in the freezer, so I went to customer
service. They said that their raw shrimp are usually sourced from
Argentina, but they have not been restocked in two weeks so it seems
like corporate is looking for a new supplier. As I said before, their
cooked shrimp is sourced from Thailand. Hopefully their raw shrimp
won't be Asian... I know the games they play with the Americans who
are supposed to be observing how they conduct their business and it
ain't pretty. I know because my son's MIL did that for Apple and she
is very conscious of how they tried to pull the wool over her eyes.


--

Good Food.
Good Friends.
Good Memories.