I was born in Los Angeles, in the waning months of the seventies. This means that I grew up with easy access to avocados, a Meyer lemon tree in my grandmother's backyard and a Trader Joe's just down the street. Some of my earliest memories of life are intertwined with the Trader Joe's on Colorado Blvd. (in Eagle Rock).

Back in the early days, Trader Joe's was more of a full-service grocery store and had a deli counter where you could order sliced meats and cheeses, as well as made-to-order sandwiches. My father was a huge fan of those sandwiches, and somehow managed to always include reference to Trader Joe's sandwiches in the bedtime stories he told to my sister and me. After my family moved to Portland (before TJ's expanded northward), we'd drive to California at least once a year to visit relative and stock up on precious snacks, juices and dog food from Trader Joe's.

The last two paragraphs were all to say, I love Trader Joe's. My life is inextricably intertwined with the Hawaiian-themed grocery store and so it's no wonder that I was totally charmed by the above video.

About a year ago, I went shopping at a new grocery store. To my surprise, this store expected you to take your bagged produce over to a scale, select the variety of fruit or veg and print out a label to apply to the bag. This was done in the name of saving the check-out person the work of having to determine what type of apple or lettuce you'd just heaped into your grocery cart and speed things along. I was a little irritated when I first had to do it, and although I've come to enjoy playing with the machine, I still shudder over the process, as it creates more waste and renders the bag difficult to reuse due to the sticker.

However, engineers have created a new check-out scanner/scale and this one is all set to put these produce-section scales with label printers out of business. This new scanner contains a camera that snaps an image of the non-barcoded produce. It compares the picture to its database of images in order to determine whether it is a bunch of bananas, an orange or a bag of brussels sprouts. This way the produce is identified, weighed and price is determined, simply by placing the item or bag on the scanner.

As the Appliances & Kitchen Gadgets blog points out, there are still elements that would require human input. How could the scanner tell whether the produce was organic or conventional? Additionally, some stores price their produce by unit instead of by the pound (four ears of corn for a $1). Would it also be able count quantities? Despite the limitations, it's still an interesting innovation.

Here are a few tips on how to save at the grocery store, straight from the grocer's mouth via the New York Times business section. Tom Heinen, owner of the Cleveland-area Heinen's Fine Foods chain, gives us the dirt. This is a recap:

1) DIY everything is not always your best bet. Sometimes it can be cheaper to buy certain pre-washed, pre-cut or otherwise pre-prepared items, because the factory that makes them probably wastes less lettuce/pepper/carrot than you would.

2) Look for local "artisan deals," like Wisconsin cheddar instead of the imported New Zealand kind, or locally grown radishes. If your grocery doesn't have good local deals, ask why not. Whole Foods does.

3) In fact, ask tons of questions of store employees. What's the best deal this week? What did you buy for your own kitchen today? I'm guessing this wouldn't work too well at your local Supervalu. Try it, and let me know!

Man, the Asian countries have it so good.

First we hear about Dunkin Donuts going to Shanghai and offering things like honeydew flavored doughnuts, then we find out that Costco in Taiwan is pretty much the picture of bulk Asian food awesomeness. (I didn't even know that Costco was anywhere except the United States).

Teczcape documented a trip to Costco in Taiwan, and though the ridiculously long lines at the rotisserie chicken counter and the requirement that all payments are made in cash are nothing to envy, I couldn't help but covet the bulk bags of kimchi (in the picture, lower left bag in the cart). It's Costco, so who knows about the quality of the kimchi, but at least it's not Kirkland brand!

We don't know why we're feeling especially green this weekend, but we were tickled when we came across news that Safeway, the nation's third-largest grocer, announced that it will convert its entire fleet of trucks to run on biodiesel. This will reduce Safeway's carbon emissions by 75 millions pounds each year.

The move is just another step in the grocery chain's full-scale initiative that executives call their "green energy tree." The program includes recycling, energy efficiency, and using sustainable sources of fuel like solar power in stores and now, biodiesel based on soy in their 1,000 trucks.

Ever buy seasonings in those packets (not that I am particularly endorsing that behavior as they are often full of chemicals) from the grocery store but struggle with how best to store them? Then this tip from the Unclutterer might be up your alley. Get yourself one of those plastic 3x5 (or 4x6 for the larger packets) notecard boxes and pop the packets in there. Keeps them contained, orderly and bug-free (if you really want to satisfying your inner anal retentive, go ahead and alphabetize them)!

I'm not exactly sure how much time or energy this web technology saves, but apparently, Grocist allows you to scan products to create an electronic grocery list.

You keep a barcode scanner in your kitchen and when you run out of a product, you scan the barcode from the package before you throw it away. The web application searches a UPC database to determine the product and keeps a running grocery list for you.

While the idea of this sounds pretty cool, I can't see how scanning a barcode is any faster or easier than jotting something down on a list that's taped to your refrigerator door. I also can't really see people running out to buy a barcode scanner. Additionally, using Grocist assumes that a lot of your groceries are packaged goods that would be found in the UPC database. I don't know this for sure, but the last time I went to the grocery store, there weren't any barcodes on garlic and lettuce.

However, if the Grocist were to actually send that information at the end of every week via email to the grocery store who could deliver the groceries to my front door, then I'd pay attention!

[via: Lifehacker]

The California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA) just released the results of a study they conducted on California's Food Landscape, entitled "Searching for Healthy Food." Basically, the study started with the facts that the state of California had " more than four times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors" back in 2005 and the CCPHA wanted to see if California was in a better state today.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things have improved all that much during the course of 2006. There are still an average of just over 4 times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors, with a range of 1.84 in Santa Cruz County to 5.72 in San Bernardino County. CCPHA suggests trying to encourage supermarkets and farmers markets to develop in underserved areas to try to stop the spread of the convenience-types of stores and restaurants, as the greater their concentration, the higher the obesity risk tends to be.

The worst counties were: San Bernardino, Sacramento (5.66), Fresno (5.34), Orange (5.13), Solano (5.08), Kern (4.87), Stanislaus (4.79), Contra Costa (4.66), Riverside (4.63) and Alameda (4.61).

The worst cities were: Bakersfield (6.63), Fresno (6.23), Long Beach (5.80), Riverside (5.58), Sacramento (4.97), Anaheim (4.79), Stockton (4.73), San Jose (4.62), San Diego (4.58), Santa Ana (4.40) and Los Angeles (4.24), with San Francisco (3.85) and Oakland (3.81) just barely cutting under the state average.

Grocery shopping is not usually the activity at the top of the "fun things to do" list, but Whole Foods wants to change your mind about that by making the experience relaxing and pleasurable. The company has just opened The Everyday Spa, a prototype full-service spa, at their Dallas store.

The spa is 4,500-sq. feet and is entirely enclosed in a soundproof section of the store. It offers the same services as other day spas, including a wide variety of skin treatments, massages, nutritionists and "wellness consultants." There is also a "private balcony where lunch is served" and a store that carries most of the skin care products and cosmetics that are currently located in the Whole Body aisle/section of most Whole Foods Markets, in addition to jewelry, shoes and clothing made with organic materials.

Grocery shopping and spa treatments, despite the fact that WF is trying to emphasize the organic connection between the two services at their stores, don't seem like the best matchup. The point of getting a full body massage, for example, is to help you relax and clear your mind, not to think about what to buy for lunch tomorrow. That said, if their prices and services are good, there's no reason to rule out one of their spas if this one is successful and they decide to roll them out to locations across the country.

In keeping with the spirit of my last post on Trader Joe's, I noticed something new - and rather surprising - at my local store this weekend. On the fruit display, where four-packs of apples of all kinds are usually stacked, there was a large, open bin of various kinds of apples. There was also a roll of plastic bags and a sign exhorting the benefits of mixing and matching Fujis, Galas and Braeburns, both organic and conventional.

If you're not familiar with TJ's, you're probably thinking that this isn't such a strange thing. After all - in most grocery stores, you can bag your own apples. Trader Joe's has always had their fruit pre-packed, though, and to see all the types of apples loose and mixed together was just... not very Trader Joe's-like!

It took me a minute or two - as opposed to a few seconds - to pick out four organic Fujis. Is the TJ's in your area doing this, too? And, if so, do you prefer this type of display?

With the opening of an exhibition about the tools used for eating at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Julia Moskin asks are we really afraid of flatware? (Of course not. We’re just saving it for a special occasion!)

The message to eat local, organic and avoid processed foods is at the core of a Berkeley nutrition professor's book What to Eat, which tells you how to shop for groceries and select the most nutritious foods.

An oyster zealot shares his passion along with the history and flavors of the oyster in the Northwest.

Foraging for wild plants in the woods is what really gets some chefs heated up in spring, though the seasonal ramps, ferns and bitter greens are not always the easiest sell to diners.

The minimalist, Mark Bittman, does a video preparation of grilled lamb with miso-chili sauce at the NY Times website.

Frank Bruni dines at August and gives it two stars.

[Image NYT]

Is grocery shopping the new national past time? Sometimes, it can certainly seem that way. With lines around the block at store openings for Trader Joe's and Whole Foods markets, one would think that the customers were lining up to see a Broadway show or a blockbuster movie, not to pick up a quart of milk and some specialty produce. Shoppers drive for hours to visit a Wegman's grocery in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland or Virginia - not only to get all the goodies they need to stock their kitchens, but for the fun of it. Cheese tasting, gourmet and artisan prepared goods and other foods, like sushi, prepared on the spot by skilled chefs are all draws of markets like these, whether their prices are high, low or midrange.

Why is shopping becoming entertainment, though? USA Today tried to answer that very question and found that the answer lay in a combination of factors. Americans are more interested in new and quality foods than ever before. They want healthier foods, international flavors and they want to find it all in one store because the long-standing tradition of one-stop shopping is the only kind that fits into a busy schedule. Consequently, the stores that offer everything do well, so well that people want to visit them more than other stores. "Nothing compares with it," a customer said of Wegman's. "You can spend an entire day there."

Trader Joe's plans to open their first store in New York City  within the next three months. The southern California-based specialty grocery chain already has several locations in New York State, but none in Manhattan. The store will definitely give New Yorkers - particularly those who for some reason do not feel the need to leave the city, ever - a chance to see what they have been missing for all these years. 

The new Trader Joe's will be in Union Square, near the huge Whole Foods Market, though its dramatically different stock and lower price points will probably not put it in direct competition with the massive, high-end grocer. Trader Joe's is famous for their generally high-quality prepared and frozen foods, as well as their low prices on specialty goods, from well-priced vanilla extract and high-end chocolates to exotically-spiced curry simmer sauces. Most of the items they carry are sold under their own brand, with some notable exceptions like Charles Shaw wine, which is lovingly referred to in California as "two-buck Chuck".

Some of Slashfood's current Trader Joe's favorites are the Milk Chocolate Calcium Supplements, Mediterranean Potato Gnocchi and Cocoa Hazelnut Spread but we may have a few new ones in the weeks to come.

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.