Best place to go shopping before dinner
Regular grocery stores sell food you have to … cook. Or worse, frozen dinners with enough sodium to send
your blood pressure into the danger zone. What you need when you're hungry and want a home-cooked meal but
don't want to spend time with your stove is a specialty grocery store. But not one that's so special it'll
wipe out your bank account. What are we talking about? Trader Joe's. It's not like other grocery stores. It
doesn't take coupons. And it doesn't stock loss leaders (underpriced items like milk to get you into the
store; the discount is absorbed by jacking up prices on other items). What it does have is gourmet items
from around the world that are healthy, cheap, and - here's the best part - can be prepared quickly. The
stock changes often enough that you really don't know what you're going to find. But on a recent visit we
found tri-steak-tip-chili bowls - black beans and steak tips over rice with plenty of spices - for $2.49;
16-ounce bags of vegan meatless meatballs for $3.99; organic Italian pizza with black olives, asparagus
spears, mushrooms, and artichokes for $4.29 (the three-cheese version went for $3.69); and 22-ounce bags
of sweet-and-sour shrimp with rice, broccoli, carrots, pineapple, sugar snap peas, and water chestnuts
for $4.29. Okay, it's not what your mother used to make, but it's the best place to shop on an empty stomach.
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