Shopping, Food and Clubs

Aside from the normal attention to family, friends and World Peace, there are three things I hold dear: shopping, food and clubs. Shopping is on hiatus until after Easter-- I gave up non-essential shopping for Lent so I could better guage spiritual needs to worldly needs. So far it's been a week and I'm doing well, not feeling undernourished or overly deprived. It helps, too, that I recently got a pay cut at work.
The New York Times highlighted my other passions, sometimes in tandem!, very clearly yesterday, however. I was pleased to see not one, not two, but three articles on Trader Joe's! Soon a store will open in New York-- Bostonians had this to hold above New Yorkers heads for awhile, but alas, New Yorkers will soon enjoy this food shopper's paradise for themselves. From one of the articles:
"Long before Trader Joe's went national, its inexpensive but unusual products — things like wild blueberry juice, Sicilian extra-virgin olive oil and frozen chicken-lemon grass spring rolls — inspired an intense following among American food lovers, rarely seen in the aisles of a supermarket.
The stores are small, the selection is uneven and the corporate culture can be described as dorky. But because its products are often not available anywhere else; because they mysteriously appear, disappear, then reappear on the shelves; or perhaps simply because they often taste very, very good, Trader Joe's has become tremendously popular among Americans who like to be entertained and educated by what they eat, as well as nourished by it."
The article also highlighted the making of the spicy Thai Chili Lime Peanuts-- a new household favorite for us.
The Times also featured an article on The Dames of Beef-- a group of 12 or so women in New York who meet once a month to get cocktails and eat at one of New Yorks older eating establishments (before it's demise, The Russian Tea Room came to mind). This club has few rules, but one it does have is that one must be female. This pulled at my heartstrings for my love of Book Club, where just this past Friday we gathered to snack, drink Floot (a delightful sparkling wine beverage enjoyed out of a can and with a straw. It comes not from France, or even California, but Indiana. Which explains the can.) and play karaoke on Steph's PlayStation 2. Ahem, and discuss the book. Our club has remained female only for the past several years (we've had a few men, but they haven't stayed long) mostly because we read books of interest to woman and discuss things men probably don't care to discuss, or if they do, the prefer to in the company of other men.