"traderjoes" news and stories

• The FoodDay tests a variety of cooking chocolates, to determine whether the high priced ones are really the best.
• Take acorn squash beyond the traditional roasted with butter and maple syrup treatment. Try this Acorn Squash, Sage and Portobello Mushroom Penne.
  
• A trip to Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Store in Milwaukie reveals far more than just grains. Try some of these whole grain recipes: Quinoa With Saffron, Spinach and Apples, Rosemary and Cheddar Multi-grain Crackers and Red Wine Braised Cranberry Beans With Smoked Pork.
  
• The holidays are a good time to hoist a pint. Check out this guide to seasonal brew fests.
• With lots of nutrients, it's time to give turnips a chance.
• An easy preparation for mussels lets their natural flavors shine.
• Tips for keeping your cookies in good shape for gifting and shipping.
• An assortment of tasty Trader Joe wines for under $10 a bottle (oh how I wish the Philadelphia liquor stores were allowed to sell beer and wine).
• Mexico meets Italy with this enchilada dish.

First off, I should probably admit that I'm a huge fan of Trader Joe's. Like many people, I go there every week or two; unlike many people, my pilgrimages involve two 45-minute subway rides and about a mile of walking with armloads of groceries. Even these struggles, however, are worth it, as the great TJs can usually be counted upon to serve up first-rate food at prices that are often half of what I pay in my neighborhood. Better yet, their heavy tendency toward organic (or at least HFCS-free) food has gained them my unending loyalty.

Every time I go to the store, I try to pick up one or two things that I haven't tried before. Recently, I tried out a few of their foil-packed Indian dishes, including their palak paneer. While the food was fresh, the seasoning seemed to be inspired by Campbell's, not Calcutta. They were bland, mainstream, and borderline unpalatable.

This was particularly disappointing, given the fairly high bar that I've set for Indian convenience foods. Years ago, when my wife and I were trying to cut back on our meal expenditures, we started bringing home Gits foil-packed convenience foods from our local international grocery store. The dishes weren't quite as good as the fresh-made food we could get at our local Indian restaurant or the dishes that we made from scratch, but they also retailed for under $2 per pack, which meant that we could eat three dishes and have leftovers for about $6. Moreover, they blew away pretty much any American convience food maker, both in terms of price and quality.

As of now, it's Pomegranate located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The 20,000 square feet of shopping space includes aisles full kosher gourmet foods. An article from New York magazine calls Pomegranate a "kosher gourmet megastore." The supermarket seems to be a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

Unlike other specialty markets, Pomegranate caters to the thousands of Orthodox Jewish families living in New York City. The store has three kitchens: dairy, meat, and parve (fish, vegetables, fruit and grains). Each has its own on-duty full-time rabbi. Customers can choose from a rich selection of freshly baked challah and homemade cheeses to aged prime beef-rib steaks to an olive bar and sushi bar. The gourmet food market is an obvious business trend. Is the kosher version of Whole Foods the new trend?

I live in Brooklyn, not far from Pomegranate, and I see several smaller gourmet kosher markets on Kings Highway. The prices are not cheap. So, I do not think that Pomegranate will have a hard time competing with existing stores. You can now visit the supermarket that's located on Coney Island Avenue at the corner of Avenue L.

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.