I happened upon a Trader Joe's today with some time to kill and decided to run in and grab a few things. $113 dollars later I walked out all pie-eyed and loaded the 3 full paper bags and one wine tote into the car.
What just happened?
Here's a few tips about Trader Joe's:
- Be careful if you're watching your girlish figure. Their frozen entrees are laden with fatty deliciousness. The atmosphere in that place says healthy but their food is actually screaming "run away unless you want to be a giant cow."
- They have gone the Whole Foods route and only use paper bags now. I appreciate that. This recent reversion back to paper bags makes me want to cut one up and cover a text book...you know just to see if I can. Actually, that's not a bad idea for my cook books is it? Protects them from yuckies. I think I have a rainy day project ahead of me!
- Trader Joe's caries wine. Good cheap wine.
Trader Joe's is known for their awesome frozen foods. They have high quality fish frozen, some seasoned some not. I went a little crazy in the frozen foods isle. Veggie burgers and frozen chimichurri salmon...in the cart. Frozen spinach and artichoke hearts...in the cart. I looked down at all the frozen food and said to myself "Hey lady, you're going to have to clean out your freezer, 'cause there ain't room for all these goodies in there, no siree.
Back at home I opened up my freezer and winced. Oh my. What is going on in there?
I know lots of people that utilize their freezer space so well. They shop sales and wrap up chicken and freeze it for another day. I tried to do that once when we bought the house. I'm a homeowner now, I thought, I have to freeze things and save them for another day. That's what homeowners do. The freezer I was looking into had some issues. Long ago purchased food issues. Let me give you a sampling of what I found in my freezer today:
- A gallon ziplock of Jamaican beef patties left over from the party for no reason...which we held in April.
- 2 bags of frozen spinach with about a half serving in them
- A full bag of frozen spinach (clearly I didn't need the one I threw in the cart. Dinner anyone? Frozen spinach is on the menu)
- A Haddock filet that we'd gotten in Alaska. I hope that's still good. It's sealed up pretty well. Fingers crossed.
- A plastic container of cranberry bread batter that I thought I'd surely bust out and bake at some point.
- A half eaten Charlston Chew. I didn't even know they made Charlston Chews anymore. Where did that come from?
I could go on and on, suffice to say, there are many ways I'm like my mother and freezer utilization is not one of them. My mom's freezer is like tetris; she knows exactly what's in there and she uses every morsel. I have seen that woman plunge her hand into her freezer (she has 2 by the way...freezers and hands...one freezer on the fridge and a full sized one in the laundry room) and pull out an anonymous looking foil package out of a hundred other anonymous looking packages and have it be the exact thing she's looking for. It is a talent I did not inherit. My freezer is a black hole.
