I love a cool package. They say a large part of product mark-up comes from and is made possible by creative packaging, especially for make-up. Well, I’m wise to make-up and buy that in drugstores, but when it comes to ice cream…doomed!
This noon I drove to the Social Security Administration’s offices up on Tatum, at the north end of Paradise Valley, a pretty tony venue for us welfare codgers. The Trader Joe’s that used to be nearest my house closed its doors in the ghost mall that is Metrocenter and moved to the corner of Tatum and Shea, in the same shopping center as—oh, yes!—Whole Foods. I hadn’t been into that Trader’s, because I can’t afford to shop at Whole Paycheck and because I rarely go into those rarefied climes. So, partly out of curiosity and partly because I needed to add a couple more pounds of TJ’s $2.76 butter to my horde, I stopped by the shopping center on the way home.
Trader Joe’s: no bigger, no fancier than the one at 20th Street and Camelback, but cleaner, tidier, less crowded, and ever so much more air-conditioned.
Trader’s doesn’t carry spices to speak of, and I’ve been needing some fennel seeds and some poppy seeds. Annnddd….I happen to know that Whole Foods carries a line of spices packaged in large bottles with the name of each spice emblazoned across the lid. So…if, like moi, you store the bottles on a slide-out pantry shelf below eye level, you can find what you’re looking for without having to write the spice name on the lid with a Sharpie (who would ever want to have to lift her dainty little hand for that kind of labor?) and without having to pick up each bottle in search of whatever you need.
Do they cost too much? Undoubtedly. Do I need a justification? Sure, here it is: these bottles are so big I can store all sorts of other things in them, such as dried herbs from my own garden. Love bottles I can reuse.
Now, it gets worse.
Headed out of the place, what should I pass but the ice cream freezer. It is not possible to avert your eyes from ice cream, is it? No. Ah, Ciao Bella…love! But what is this? Something called “Talenti Italian Ice Cream”…in clear, hard plastic containers with screw-on lids. Stuff’s about 20 cents more than Ciao Bella and the like, but O…M…G… Just look at those amazing reusable containers! The size of an extra-large cold-cream container with an enormous wide mouth, exactly the thing I’ve been looking all over for but haven’t been able to find. Exactly the thing to store, say, home-made potato soup in the freezer.
So. There they are in my fridge: two fine plastic containers. Incidentally, there’s some peach-champagne and some lemon sorbet in there, too. And the containers only cost me 20 cents apiece.
😉
Glad you enjoyed my Trader Joe’s. Next time you’re in, ask for Patty and say hi. 🙂
Thanks, Patty! I did like the store quite a lot. Not only was it less hectic than some of the other outlets, it seemed to carry a few things I’ve not seen elsewhere–got some organic doggie treats that thrilled the Cassie no end.
In fact, I liked it enough that I’m thinking about whether it would be worth changing my shopping patterns, in the new once-a-month regime, to visit the stores in that part of town instead of trudging to my usual haunts. Only problem is…it would be hard to stay out of Whole Foods, which I really can NOT afford.
I have to stay out of the “other” store there, too. My favorite store besides TJ’s is a really nice Sprouts just north of Cactus on Tatum. Sounds like you might like to go there as well.Then you can get Cassie her treats on the same errands run. My little rescue hounds are rather fond of the organic treats as well. 🙂
I LOVE Talenti’s, expensive but a great self-treat! The roasted almond and chocolate are two of my favorites. Yum!! I dutifully make excellent use of those containers!
Given those excellent containers, I’d say the stuff is the best bargain in the ice-cream freezer. 😉