Mantou Joe

Not exactly a health food by any means. But sometimes, you just want a bit of salty meat to go with your breakfast eggs. I've found that chicken sausage - yes it's a thing - that I find at the regular grocery store appears...undernourished (Kinda like turkey bacon. I'm not knocking turkey bacon - in fact I like turkey bacon. A, on the other hand, does not. He sees it as a severely inadequate substitute for the real thing). But at TJ's? Never a problem. So I found myself craving chicken sausage and picked up the smoked andouille version.  

Not the cheapest food. $3.99 for like 3/4 pound. But also not the most expensive - this is a pretty comparable price to regular store prices. Plus, they look nice and hefty. 

Everything looked okay except for OH MY CHICKEN check out that sodium count. It could be bad. That's a third of your daily sodium intake in ONE sausage. 
Okay - I'll admit that I probably didn't choose the best method to prepare these sausages. I cho…

I caved and bought some Lactaid pills last week. Because what is life without cheese? And I had a sudden craving for greek yogurt, you know the creamy and smelly kind that you open and everyone in the room knows you're eating yogurt. And of course, I've made it my business to try all most of the varieties of Trader Joe's greek yogurt.

It seems that Trader Joe's has heard my cry for loose leaf tea. If I'm not mistaken, TJ's hasn't released many versions of loose leaf tea. Finally, something "real tea drinkers" (I'm not. Biodegradable tea bags are wonderful) can appreciate. And can I just say America needs to adopt some version of afternoon tea? The British have it. The Chinese have it. We should have it too.

On the twelfth day of 2018, my true love said to me, "what is this trash doing on the ground?" By trash he meant the empty cardboard packaging of these mini greek spirals. Uhhh...I keep empty TJ's trash around to remind me to write the reviews for specific products. Like a hoarder. And not to be all gloom and doom (though it's hard not to considering the gray and strangely warm weather outside), China isn't taking our recycling anymore. Is my recycling meaningless? Is my TJ's patronage contributing to the destruction of the earth? These are the things I contemplate as I eat my morning cereal. That and...oh yeah these mini greek spirals I had on New Years Day. 

We are well into the season I like to call the annual "Your Best Life Now" reset. Y'know. New year, new you. Something along those lines. I'm not a big believer in resolutions. Goals though with specific, time-sensitive intervention with measurable outcomes? I'll listen. 

I hit up my dear old Joe yesterday before the bomb cyclone struck (which in our area didn't turn out to be so bad...not as bad as the snowpocalypse that I remember) and before the frantic crowds arrived to raid the shelves for bread and milk (bread I baked and milk I'm lactose-intolerant so I was set :D). It's quite nice seeing the holiday products leave the shelves. Usually you can still find random holiday stuff that didn't sell well or was just in surplus. I'm hoping that these crackers are not holiday items but snacks staying with us year round.