Totally unrelated to music or relationships or trivia or anything we normally talk about, but....

I LOVE TRADER JOE'S!

Where else can you get fresh pizza dough for .79?
Where else can you get a decent bottle of red wine for less than $5?
Where else can you get fresh flowers in a bunch for less than $2?
Where else can you get healthy, natural foods for less than Whole (Foods) Paycheck?

Anybody else love their TJ's as much as I do?

What is this Trader Joe's of which you speak?

I do.

i like em but i never go there enough.

I recently went on a road trip down to San Fran stopping all along the way, including Portland. I've been meaning to make a thread about it. Portland is fukn wicked, btw, and I'm very jealous of everyone who lives there. But back to the topic at hand...

Trader Joe's!!! We stopped in there a couple of times in SF. What a place!! There's booze. 1 litre of blended scotch for $9, never mind 2 Buck Chuck wine!!! Then there's a ton of food items too. San Pellegrino Limonata - $3 for a six pack!!! That's half as cheap as I could find it anywhere else!!

There are a lot of exclamation points in this post! That is how I feel about Trader Joes! (!)

never been but my sisters are addicted to the place.
in fact they also carry a heavy torch for duran duran and love shopping and have a wickedly twisted senses of humor and like to drink.
if you're loud and never stop talking you could join the clan.

I love the TJ, but I always spend way too much money whenever I go there.

It's more of a once-every-2-months shopping trip, rather than an every-other-week one...

Plus, they stock my main man, Charles Shaw. Nothin' beats $2 blended leftovers from the Winery....

I wanna know the story on 2 Buck Chuck. Why is it so cheap? I've heard two stories. One involving rich dot commers planting expensive grapes, then the crash and the poor dot commers selling of grapes for cheap. The other is a spiteful divorce profit hiding story.

Does anyone know the story???

i miss trader joe's so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much.

I like Trader Joes but don't go there as often because it ain't exactly convenient. Ours don't sell no booze, though. Goddamn liquor Nazis.

i said it after my last trip to pdx...I LOVE TRADER JOE'S!!!! they NEED to come out to colorado soon!

when my buddy from portland came out to visit last month, i made him buy me a couple bags of the yin & yang - wasabi iso peanuts with honey roasted peanuts. so friggin good.

Whenever I'm in Coolidge Corner (which is fairly often since I live near there) I stop in there even if I'm not buying anything, just so I can get whatever samples they have out.

The only problem with trader joe's is that there's only like what...3 of them in our area of Portland?

Anyway yeah, I do a lot of shopping there.

The story is, most winerys will not bottle the first X gallons of wine that comes out of a barrel, nor the last X gallons, for whatever quality purposes. They then sell this wine to Chuck, who bottles it and sends it out w/their label slapped on the front.
Usually you'll get multiple labels/brands together, but Chablis is Chablis. It's the same stuff as the $8-$20 bottles, it just might be diff. brands mixed together....
If you're looking for a good one-brand bottle from TJ for a dinner/spec. occassion/ect., Yellowtail (from Australia) always goes well, and I believe it's under $10..

Big fan of the Joe.

Love the Joe.

Love the chicken taquitos, the potato pancakes, the dynamo juice, the antioxident juice, bottles of Jameson for $20, hawaiian coffee, various crackers, candies.... the list goes on

oh plus Joe's has the best price on cliff bars and dried mango slices, two primo snacking options.

They have packages of little prosciutto bits that are terrific tossed into the pasta of yr choice. Also, just my opinion, but I've tried the 2 buck chuck a couple of times- I'm no wine snob by any stretch, but it tastes very much like kerosene. Pay another 6 or 7 bucks per and get Black Opal. You won't feel as much like a carney fire-eater.

I just went for the first time the other day. Pretty nifty.

This is from the Trader Joe's website. About Charles Shaw.

Why's this mythic wine so inexpensive?
Would you believe we won it all in a poker game? No? Good instincts. The real story is that we made a timely purchase of the stuff when a certain airline (rhymes with bamerican) was unable to have corkscrews on their aircraft any longer. OK, that's a ruse, too, so count that out as well. Those urban myth folks have been burning the midnight oil on this one. The true reason is admittedly a bit more pedestrian, but true nonetheless. Here's the scoop:
• There is a massive glut of wine grapes in California as a result of grape overplanting in the 1990's. This has resulted in excess grape inventories yielding wine for a dramatic reduction in costs.

• The influx of everyday, valued priced wines from places like Chile, Australia and New Zealand also play a role, giving customers more wine options from which to choose. Our capitalist system at work.
• Trader Joe's has a great relationship with our wine supplier. Great meaning that we buy as direct as we can. We've cut out as many middlemen as is legally possible. The supplier buys in huge volume (huge being an understatement at best), is one of the biggest vineyard owners in the world, has the capability to bottle large quantities and can deliver the wine very efficiently for us. So we're able to pass along a great deal to our customers.

I heart Trader Joe's. Plus, there are usually cute boys who shop there.

Thank you!

fp

I think this thread just gave me an idea to get another gift there tomorrow for my dad and stepmom.

The get lots of thumbs up for being so cheap.

They get a thumbs down for no longer carrying Anne's Organic Green Garlic dressing.

I have family members ship me TJ's Butternut Squash soup on a regular basis.


Yes, it's that good.