First, let me apologize to every foodie who reads this blog. I deeply regret making this admission: I do sometimes consume microwavable food.

The new obsession is making me do it.

Black bean and jack cheese burritos from Trader Joe's.

I buy three. Over the course of a week, I eat three. I hide them from my kids. They're perfect for lunch. I work from home, blogging, blogging, blogging, and often waiting until my blood sugar is so low I can barely make it down the stairs into the kitchen. With great effort, I reach into the fridge, pull out a burrito, rip open the wrapper and slap it in the microwave. Two minutes later, I'm shoveling cheesy, beany-goodness into my pate.

I normally turn my nose up at such processed food, but (and I speak here as a native Los Angeleno and lifelong burrito lover), these taste pretty darn good. The cheese melts, the beans taste fresh, the tortilla is firm yet moist....it's the next best thing to running out and buying a fresh burrito. And God knows I'm not taking the time to do that.

Give it a try. Keep a couple of these babies in your fridge for when you need a quick bite. You'll be grateful. And let me know what you think.

I grew up in a household that was nearly devoid of junk food. My sister and I each got a single box of sugar cereal each year (on our birthdays), Halloween candy was strictly rationed and bread was dark and made from whole wheat. Potato chips were very definitely a special, once-in-a-very-great-while kind of treat.

Because of the chip control that went on during my childhood, the moments when they did appear on the scene remain present in my memory, even 20+ years later. They became especially associated with roadtrips for me, as my dad would insist that we have some "car snacks" and my mom, who actually loves potato chips, would cave to the special occasion energy.

We'd make a stop at Trader Joe's or some other local natural foods store for thick-cut, kettle cooked potato chips (Kettle Chips play a prominent role in my memories, but the TJ's Hawaiian-style chips also showed up fairly regularly). Handfuls would be carefully doled out to my sister and me in the back seat of the station wagon and we'd slowly crunch our way through our portions. Raina would suck all the salt off the chips before eating, where I'd nibble along the edges, trying to make the treat last as long as possible. We'd ask for seconds and would get them, until my mom determined that we'd all had enough (typically determined by her own salt/grease satiation level), and folded up the bag, tucking it down by her feet for safekeeping.

These days, I occasionally buy a bag of Kettle Chips (I had a salt and vinegar phase during college) but I am untrustworthy around open bags of potato chips. They call to me until I surrender and crunch my way through the entire bag. However, while I do enjoy them, potato chips now are never quite as delightful as those measured handfuls of chips that we'd eat while criss-crossing the highways of the west coast.

Trader Joe's is looking for recipes that are HiiP (Highly Innovative Ingredient Pairings). The requirements are that recipes use up to four Trader Joe's products, no alcohol, and take 20 minutes or less to prepare and cook.

I'm left wondering just how innovative of a recipe they are looking for. Do they want recipes like those featured in the blog event Things that Go Really Well Together that have pairings as unique as white chocolate and caviar, or are they looking for something a bit more mainstream? I'll be very interested to see the results.

If you are in need of inspiration, check out the foodpairing site. Click any food and it will tell you what it best pairs with chemically. Read the rest of the contest details on the Trader Joe's site and enter by May 15th. Good luck!

Thanks, Alanna, for the tip!

When I was growing up in Los Angeles, we lived down the street from one of the very first Trader Joe's (Eagle Rock). My family moved up to Portland when I was nine and one of the things that we all missed most was Trader Joe's. My parents, sister and I were all thrilled when the expanded north to Portland. These days I am lucky to live three blocks from the Center City Philly Trader Joe's and do more than half of my grocery shopping there.

I know that there are many folks out there who practically live at their local Trader Joe's and now there's a cookbook expressly for them. Written by Dana Gunn and Wona Miniati, Cooking with all Things Trader Joe's, offers more than 250 pages of recipes and photos in which all the dishes are made with ingredients from TJ's. Their theory is that we could all cook tasty and beautiful meals, if only we hand someone to help with the prep. Trader Joe's becomes your sous chef and these recipes makes it possible to create an array of dishes using just a few things straight off the shelves.

It's a fun book, with lots of big, colorful pictures and easy to understand recipes. It would make a great gift for a new cook or someone who doesn't have a whole lot of time to cook (most of the recipes come together really quickly). For those of you who are thinking about getting yourself a copy, the authors have a special deal to offer Slashfood readers. If you buy it from their website, you can get $5 off if you input the code SLASH5 when you're checking out (this offer is good through April 31st).

It looks like Trader Joe's is set to open a store in yet another Joe-less town. Though they have not released the address yet, Trader Joe's has confirmed that they are planning to enter the Pittsburg market. Local speculation and city officials say that the specialty grocer has plans to move into the Wheeler Paint Co. building on Penn Ave in the neighborhood of East Liberty. There are only five TJ's locations in Pennsylvania at the moment, so this should be good news to Pittsburg residents who are fans of the store.

Now that TJ's has store-opening almost down to a science, it's no surprise to hear that the store should be open by the end of the year.

I'm a coffee aficionado (or as they might say it in Panama, aficionado de café), but I'm also on a budget. And although I'd love to drink nothing but that lyrical Stumptown Sidamo or the deep, dark, delicious Thundermuck, well, $10 a pound is a but much for every day.

Thus I was delighted to see a new 12-ounce can of coffee for only $3.99 at Trader Joe's last week: Panama Café Duran. My little sister Jenny lives in Panama and I've drunk Duran before; it's the everyday coffee found in every Panamanian supermarket. I know it's decent, and in the hands of Trader Joe's it is fresh, balanced, and just dark enough to satisfy that part of me that longs for those polished mucky beans so revered here in Portland.

Yesterday I picked up another can and as I was reaching for it another woman was looking at the green-and-yellow can, considering. "It's good!" I said, "and cheap!" I know you're going to be in Trader Joe's, and you'll be wondering, too. Go for it.

Alongside their article about Trader Joe's opening in New York, last week's New York Times ran a list of the top ten most popular items at Trader Joe's by volume sold.

• Charles Shaw Wines
• Mandarin Orange Chicken
• Nuts About Antioxidants Trek Mix
• Lite Shredded 3 Cheese Blend
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Trader Darwin's High Potency Chewable Multiple Vitamin & Mineral Formula Dietary Supplements
• Crumbled Gorgonzola Cheese
• Dark Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans
• Trader Giotto's Pizza Formaggi (Four Cheese Pizza)
• Cheese & Green Chili Tamales

Strangely, I only buy two out of the top ten items - Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Dark Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans. My top trail mix pick would be the one that has all the peanut brittle in it, not the antioxidant mix. If I'm getting cheese, I'll go for the imported Feta or Parmigiano Reggiano, not pre-crumbled Gorgonzola. With only 10 out of the three thousand items, I supposed that I shouldn’t be surprised that I only regularly purchase two of these items. Which of these are your favorites?

This photo, it's lovely, no? And you can totally see why I had to buy this cookie. If nothing else, there was the Weissella logo, red and German and totally appealing. Plus, I have to tell you: I adore ginger cookies of all sorts. "Soft gingerbread cookies" spoke volumes to me. And look, just look at the nice chocolate coating. The bottom of the cookie looks a little odd - almost like a thin piece of white paper on the bottom of the cookie. What is that?

I shopped, I brought home, I cooked, I photographed. And you'd like to know, wouldn't you? What I thought of Trader Joe's new product: Mexican-style chili One Pot Sauce. ("Just add Meat or Chicken" - isn't chicken "meat"? Just curious.)

Well, it was o.k. Maybe I'm not a big fan of Mexican-style chili. Maybe... I don't get the need for this product. I sautéed my ground turkey (completely violating the suggestions of beef or chicken), I added in a bit of chipotle pepper for extra spice, I stirred in the cup of water and kidney beans on cue. I even added the optional corn (though not canned corn! ick. I used frozen).

It makes sense, right? I'm a food writer, and I spend an inordinate amount of time at my local Trader Joe's - it's only a few blocks away and, when my kids are restless or I just need one final ingredient for my dinner, I'll run over there with the boys in the stroller. I have my camera with me everywhere I go, and I've been known to snap a photo or two.

It hadn't occurred to me to be secretive until the whole dust-up over DC Foodie's camera phone pictures of his meal, but I suppose I have been. Because on Wednesday I was shopping for ingredients for the gardiane (neither Trader Joe's nor New Seasons had beef stew meat, btw), and as usual I had my camera. I decided to take a few photos of the organic cereal, thinking how much I could have used that as an illustration for my post. I continued snapping a few photos here and there, and pulled out my camera at the checkstand. The checker looked panicked.

Trader Joe's has recently released a new line of supplements. The Milk Chocolate Calcium supplements are foil-covered balls of milk chocolate that contain 500 mg of calcium each, which is 50% of the recommended daily minimum. The chocolate isn't quite as rich and smooth as the rest of the chocolate that Trader Joe's carries, but this is hardly surprising - as this chocolate is not classified as candy, but as a nutritional supplement. It is a pleasantly sweet milk chocolate and is perhaps ever so slightly grainy, though the chocolate does melt fairly smoothly in your mouth after several moments. Compared with other chocolaty nutritional supplements I've had, these are far and away the best. While I won't be replacing any of my favorite chocolate snacks, each ball contains only 45 calories, and with 50% of my daily calcium requirement, I'll be having them on a regular basis.

The classification as a nutritional supplement also means that directions for use had to be put on the container, unlike regular tins of chocolate, where people are left to their own devices to discern they must  "Chew thoroughly before swallowing."

[Photo by Nicole Weston]