mizchef

posted by admin on Sep 4

Hey, gang.  Looks like my cookbook, What, No Meat? Traditional Italian Cooking the Vegetarian Way, is being pushed to November. So, I have a couple of more months of sweating before it’s released. But I will definitely make an announcement. And for for those of you who have been trying to access my archived blogs, it seems there were some code shenanigans going on in the links. I apologize and it’s been fixed, so go ahead and gorge on my archived stuff—I know you’re just dying to!

Also, many people have been asking me about getting an audio of the radio interview I did at KHEN in Salida, CO, back in May (click HERE for that story). Well, I finally got a copy of it and I’ll be putting it here for anyone who cares to have a listen. (Hopefully, I’ll be able to figure out how to do that.)

So, it’s taken me a while, but I FINALLY paid a visit to the “new” Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn. It’s been there for about a year, but it took me this long to check it out. Here I am, a foodie, and it takes me a year to go check out a cool new food store in town? I should be ashamed of myself.

Trader Joe’s has been around since 1958, but New York City finally got its own store, on 14th Street in Manhattan, on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2006. And New Yorkers rejoiced. The opening day of Trader Joe’s saw lines of people going around the block. I haven’t been able to confirm this but, supposedly, they had to let people in in groups of 30 and had to have a security guard standing outside. Geez, we hadn’t seen anything like that since the days of Studio 54! All they needed were velvet ropes and Liza Minelli as hostess.

The Brooklyn location is housed in the landmark Independence Bank building on the corner of Court Street and Atlantic Avenue. It’s a clean, roomy space and while the selection is not as great as the Manhattan store, neither are the crowds or lines. I was actually able to move my cart around fairly easily and only waited on line for a few minutes.

The Manhattan location is housed in the Palladium building, which is a domitory for New York University. The funny thing is that before it was purchased by NYU, the Pallium was a disco. Yeah, that’s right, I tripped the light fantastic in the hallowed halls of the Palladium numerous times. And before that, it was a concert hall, showcasing the likes of Jay and the Americans, the Four Tops, and the Ronettes. That’s some cool history.

The legendary Two Buck Chuck wine can only be purchased at the Manhattan location, though. Technically, it is sold in a separate store, which is how they had to do it to comply with New York liquor laws. (Here’s a link to a Village Voice article that explains the whole sad saga.) But Brooklynites are out of luck if they want to grab a cheap bottle of wine to go with their organic, free-range, cage-free, hormone-free, ebola-free, whole-grain, unprocessed, earth-friendly, dog-friendly chips and dip.

P.S. For those of you who don’t know, Trader Joe’s is not a U.S. company; it’s owned by a German company, called Aldi (short for “ALbrecht DIscount”). Fortunately, they don’t seem to cause any controversy, except that their prices are so low that they’ve squeezed out Wal-Mart in some markets. (In the immortal words of Paris Hilton, “Do they sell walls?”) Hmmm, is that such a bad thing? Here are a couple of links for more info on that: funny … serious.

Anyway, enjoy the week. I feel autumn in the air, so cram in as many beach days, picnics, and nude sunbathing stints as you can. The party’s almost over. But then the beauty of autumn begins, and I do enjoy that, too. Ciao.