My Dilemma With Trader Joe's

This is pretty simple. I'm just mystified that some of Trader Joe's products are so good and some are so bad. Like their avocados—always ripen to a lovely creamy consistency. Or their frozen chocolate croissants which you bake at home—turns your home into a bakery. So why are their cheese so bad? Their "Parmesan" is horrendous. Their Monterey Jack doesn't even melt. And their frozen ethnic foods, like the gyozas, have the consistency of wet cardboard. But great apple juice.

My Dilemma With Whole Foods

My dilemma with Whole Foods? They're just weird. Like they've got stuff I really like to buy, but the shopping experience is just so confusing. Like sometimes the meat you get at the counter is really fresh and sometimes it's really not fresh. Like I'm at the produce section and they've got all this stuff with scanner codes but no prices. So finally, I ask a staff guy what's with the veggies with no prices? I'm assuming since they have scanner codes, there must be a scanner somewhere? Like where is it? So the guy says, "Well what do you need the price of?" And I'm like, no—week after week this happens—where's the scanner? Do you guys even have one? So the guy finally gets it and says, "Yeah. I'll show you." And then he take me to the tiniest computer behind some mushrooms and I say, "Uh—don't you think you guys should have a big sign so we can find this scanner?" And he looks at me like, "Why?" Shopping rage. I'm getting a headache just retelling this story.

Coming next, my dilemma with Trader Joe's.

Swiss Beer Fondue Macaroni and Cheese

Today I really had a craving for macaroni and cheese.  Usually I do the whole thing myself, make the béchamel sauce, grate the cheese, etc.  But today, we didn't have any Cheddar cheese.  Or milk.  But in the back of the fridge, I had my emergency package of Trader Joe's Swiss Beer Fondue (this thing has an obscenely long shelf life so you can keep it in the fridge for months).  Um, I'm not sure why TJ decided to do a fondue with Swiss beer — fondue is usually done with wine and kirsch — in addition, when was the last time you heard of Swiss beer?  Swiss beer is hard to find even in Switzerland, so all in all, it's kinda weird.  Well, the idea, that is — the Swiss Beer Fondue is actually pretty good.

To make the macaroni and cheese, I just smeared the thick goodness all over cooked conchiglie shells (the small ones) and put it in the oven.  So how did it turn out?  Pretty good.  Nice boozy smell all over the house.  Nice oozy cheese.  Took care of my craving!

Iced Peach Tea

 (These are peach blossoms.)

While shopping at Whole Foods, I was caught by that wonderful floral smell of ripening peaches and ended up buying three.  I'm always wary of buying peaches at supermarkets as they never ripen, or if they do, they just become mealy and tasteless.  (Avocados too.)  And sure enough, while these peaches continued to produce an amazing amount of fragrance, they never properly ripened, wizening and drying out instead of softening.  I tried tasting one, but the tannins nearly bit all my taste buds out.  So what to do?  I couldn't throw them out.  In desperation, I peeled and cut them up and threw them in a pot with water and tons of sugar.  The stewed peaches were OK, but the resulting sugar syrup was phenomenal.  I knew instantly what to do with the syrup — make iced tea!  Using my favorite jasmine green tea, of course.  If life gives you hard peaches, make iced tea! :)

BTW, I'm really not liking how these large fruit producers are now breeding fruit just for smell.  A pretty nasty way of tricking us shoppers.  Why I'm buying most of my fruit at farmer's markets.  Although, I have to say, I've been very impressed by the fruit that's on sale at Trader Joe's.  Their small watermelons have been real winners, nice and sweet with good texture, and I was very happy with the avocados that were on sale in May.