There’s never any warning. Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer doesn’t have a set schedule – without any notice it shows up in my Inbox. In the olden days (back when the dinosaurs roamed the planet) it would appear in the snail mail box. It’s the same document these days but I have to admit that I enjoyed relaxing with a cup of coffee or tea and leafing through the hard copy.
But this is not a rant about the death of print. I swear. It’s more a rant about how YA and I are completely helpless in the face of this flyer. It’s unbelievable; we are both completely drawn to the new (and probably never-to-be-seen-again) products that are featured. A little bit like the seasonally colored items that I can’t stay away from.
The theme of the flyer and the seasonal items this time is “strawberry”. While I love fresh strawberries and I practically live on my strawberry jam, I’m not otherwise a massive strawberry fan. But YA is. And there are certainly lots more items featured in addition to the strawberry-laden stuff. We made a list and I headed out. Managed to find everything on the list with the assistance of a customer service gentleman who went to the back and found two items that were out on the shelves. Here is a partial list of what I came home with:
- Pickle Potato Chips: these were primarily for YA – she’s also a fan of Pickle Pizza at the fair.
- Parmesan Tapenade: I love all kinds of tapenade, so this looked promising. It made a great pizza topping on Tuesday.
- Potato Cheese Stix: like it says. Cubed potatoes, mixed with cheese, frozen on a stick. YA says they’re pretty good.
- Spicy Taco Sauce: This turned out to be a great sauce for the afore-mentioned potato-cheese stix.
- Strawberry Gummy Bears. Completely for YA. I never even liked jujubes when I was a kid, so no gummies for me now.
- Turkish flatbread with cheeses, spinach and onion. In the freezer section – can’t wait.
- Spicy Spuds. Another freezer options – spicy roasted potatoes.
- Oat Bites. There are two kids – PB&J and Raspberry. Bitty little muffins with filling.
- Strawberry Snickerdoodles. I might try this although YA will probably eat most of them
- Garlic Salted Mixed Nuts. They also have little garlic toasted chips in the can. Quite nice.
There were several other things, including a six-pack of San Pellegrino; we splurge on this a couple of times a year. None of these items were necessary and neither of us had a plan for any of it, although I did get a pizza dough while I was there, thinking about the tapenade. I’m of two minds about this silliness. One the one hand, it was a lot of money for nothing that we had a plan for. On the other hand, it’s food; we have to eat regardless of the absurdity of the food items.
Tried anything new (food or otherwise) the past couple of weeks?
Trail Baboon 
I usually ignore the Fearless Flyer. While I am a regular Trader Joe’s shopper, I rarely buy any of their frozen ready-to-heat products, which I find usually disappointing. I also buy very few snack items except some crackers, some nuts and dried fruit, and an occasional bag of peanut butter filled pretzels. Most other ready snacks go uneaten in our house. I also buy fresh produce very selectively at TJ’s, avoiding most of the bagged stuff.
Somehow I still manage to spend plenty of money there. One new thing I purchased last visit was a shrink-wrapped pack of prepared ready-to-eat lentils. I have nothing against lentils per se, and they’re healthy enough but they need some help. We don’t have any go-to recipes for lentils. Having them ready to use is a helpful shortcut but I need a way to make them interesting. Maybe a curry. Suggestions?
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I made a big batch of tomato lentil soup last fall when I was overloaded with tomatos. Just took the last batch out of the freezer. I’ll have to go look for the recipe.
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I bought a new rice steamer with a “granite” non-stick pot inside. It’s bigger than any rice steamer I’ve ever had before. I was trying to find one that has a safer non-stick surface. I tried it a few days ago. I steamed some brown rice and it worked well. I want to try steaming some fresh asparagus in it later today.
Northfield Yarn organized a movie night for knitters last night. They arranged it with the Dundas movie theater for a viewing of “Sheep Detectives” with the house lights on. I went with a group of our Fiber Friends, but the event was sold out and we weren’t able to get seats next to each other. The house lights didn’t allow enough light for me to knit well, but I checked my work when I got home and, amazingly, I didn’t make any mistakes! I should’ve brought my reading light. Coulda shoulda woulda. I had just finished reading “Three Bags Full,” so I’ll only say that the movie doesn’t follow the book closely at all. It was cute, but I wasn’t wild about it. I don’t go to many movies at all – that’s only the second time I’ve ever been in that theater – so it was a new experience for me.
I’m having trouble “liking” things again. If I like one of your comments, it will comply. When I check back later, my “like” has been eliminated. Same old, same old WP.
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YA took me to Sheep Detectives for Mother’s Day. I concur with your comments – cute but really veered off the plot details in the book. YA didn’t care about what was different, so I just zipped it. We both figured out the murderer very early on — unlike the book which took me basically to the end!
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Yes. The murderer was a different person. I thought the characters in the book were well-developed and charming, but they changed most of the characters too, including the murderer.
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What terrific activities!
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I tried a chicken wrap something the other day. I think it was a Kwik Trip food item. It wasn’t bad.
I don’t venture out of my known foods very much, so that was kind of a big deal.
Sheep Detective is on daughters ‘to see’ list. Today, she and a buddy are going to ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’. Far over daughters head but she’s only there for the “activity” of it. And popcorn. And a nap most likely… Her buddy will probably like it.
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Your shopping haul sounds delicious, VS. The new items at Trader Joe’s are indeed tempting, but I usually shop with Husband, who’s a strict “go by what’s on the list” guy. I can lend him to you for your next trip. He made an exception about a month ago when he agreed to try their chicken tikka samosas, which were good enough that he bought them again.
Charlotte got a new kind of cat treat, which she likes a lot. Otherwise, we haven’t been very adventurous lately.
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Well, he would’ve been happy to shop with me then because literally almost every single thing and all those bags was on my list. Pizza dough, the San Pellegrino and the trail mix crackers — those were not on the list.
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i buy san pelagrino in the glass bottles from costco when theyre on sale. 3 or 4 cases at a time.
today i had a meeting with my first follow up from a full day of mayo once over. they told me drink more water. less tea, cut back on san pelagrino and citrus juice.
went in to initisl meeting with 4 meetings and quickly added 11 more including a total of 9 on tuesday
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Good Grief, the day got away!
I have been in the garden much of the day today, planting the end of the spring flower seedlings and a few veggies. I am exhausted! My allergies are better than yesterday, although that is not saying much.
This year I tried some wire cloches to keep the rabbits at bay. (I have long used cloches made of mild/water jugs. I wish I could post a picture). These are a newer product that seem to be working. The plants for which I used them are in tact and growing beautifully. They will also allow the covered plant to grow taller than the plastic jug cloches allow. So to this point I am pleased. I also purchase a couple of large ones that cover a number of plants. Last year I noticed that my hollyhocks peaked up out of the ground, then vanished. This year I caught a bunny eating them! Hah. The hollyhocks are now tucked into a long cloche, making them inaccessible to Peter Rabbit, leaving me feeling very successful as Farmer MacGregor, sans firearm and pitchfork.
I also just purchased an electric lawn mower. I have mowed with it one time. I find it much lighter and far easier to start than the old gas mower. So far, so good.
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YA loves our electric mower. I could never get her to mow when we had the old gas mower but now she’s more than willing!!
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We love ours, but now we have a lawn service that mows for us.
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I recently discovered fresh lavash, which I order from Amazon. It is thin, pliable, and delicious.wevusecut for wraps and in place of tortillas.
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Yes, the day got away here too.
Once or twice a month I try some newish entree from Aldi’s freezer section. The other night it was a fairly decent Beef LoMein. Sometimes I enhance them with extra veggies (think frozen peas)…
We did finally get to Rochester’s TJ’s a couple of weeks ago, and I was able to stock up on my favorites: their Irish Breakfast Tea, Fig & Olive Crisps, Unexpected Cheddar, and the package of 3 Chocolate Bars.
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amazon davison irish breakfast, english breakfast and earl gray are good tea at good price for bulk tea
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