Eating on Jitneys

Lately I have been trying to steer clear of Trader Joe’s. I got really into doing all of my shopping there for about 6 months. But whenever I got home I tried to find something to eat and realized all I had bought was bagels, cheese, mustard, and wine. Maybe some toilet paper. Oh, and cereal. You get the idea. It’s cheap for some things, like wine and cheese, but other than that all you can find are in a pre-packaged form. And their produce selection sucks. Do you really have to put three tomatoes in plastic packaging?

So since yesterday was the first semi-acceptable temperature in the past few weeks I decided to do a biking tour of some grocery stores in a four mile radius of my apartment. I had planned on going to a lot but my bag filled up and I had to go home. Here are some of my finds:

The canned items came from Al Khayyam in Albany Park. They were CHEAP, as well as pretty healthy. For example: the ingredients for the Baba Ghanoush are grilled eggplants, ground sesame seeds, citric acid, sea salt. Not bad. I wouldn’t go out of your way to come here. But if you happen to be riding up towards the 4700 N. block of Kedzie on a Sunday afternoon and are in need of either Middle Eastern canned foods or flavored tobacco for your hookah, you are in luck.

After leaving Al Khayyam, I headed east on Lawrence to Harvestime. This is my new favorite grocery store, for the time being. Right when I walked in I found those dried figs in the picture. They have a ton of produce for such a medium sized grocery store. They also have lots of international options while also selling…say…Diet Coke and Oreos. Not that I like Oreos, but if I did I would not only have the option of buying Italian, French, Mexican, Polish, or Lebanese cookies. I could also buy some Oreos. Their deli looked ok, but honestly I didn’t look too closely. I was more concerned with their cheese selection which looked just fine to me. Not quite Trader Joe’s cheese prices but very very close. They also have a humongous selection of spreads for very decent prices.

The moral of this entry is: go explore your grocery options. Especially if you live in Chicago. We have so so so many great neighborhood grocery stores in this city. Exploring is fun, and it’s for your own good. I realize that sandwiches are tasty and all, but sometimes it is nice to come home with dried figs and fancy italian pasta in your bag for the same price as that same old box of Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese.

Sidenote:
If my posts become more sporadic it is because I am spending all of my time doing this…