Re: Trader Joe's

Max Hauser said:

the firm carries all sorts of frozen stuff including
lately fresh Bolete wild mushrooms, frozen; excellent house-label fruit
preserves; the Appel Feinkost line of superior tinned-fish products from
Germany including the smoked trout filets; various deli items and cheeses
refrigerated, et cetera.

I bought a bag of frozen fresh porccini mushrooms the other
day. 🙂

Quoted message said:

And it's no longer necessary for everyone to make a trip to Los Angeles, not
all prospective TJ shoppers live near there.

It hasn't been that bad for at least 30 years. Granted, it
was a small California chain for a long time, but it wasn't
limited to LA.

http://www.traderjoes.com/locations/index.asp

sf

"sf" in news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Max Hauser said:

...
And it's no longer necessary for everyone to make a trip to
Los Angeles, not all prospective TJ shoppers live near there.

It hasn't been that bad for at least 30 years. Granted, it
was a small California chain for a long time, but it wasn't
limited to LA.

Los Angeles or somewhere in the general latitude. We did not have these
shops in northern California, to speak of, at least through the early and
middle 1980s when, as I mentioned, one friend of mine who was posting at
that time would scout out good wine values at TJ in Southern California, 400
miles away. (Louis Roederer Champagne at $11, at one point, I still have
the notes on it.) Early-middle 1980s was less than 30 years by my math,
though of course I could be wrong.

Anyway my point was, if still unclear, that what was a localized _southern_
California chain is wider now, and, as the first post implied, still
growing.

Cheers -- Max

Max Hauser said:

We did not have these shops in northern California,
to speak of, at least through the early and
middle 1980s

About the time (1988) that Karl Albrecht bought the chain
from Joe Coulombe.

Max Hauser said:

We did not have these
shops in northern California, to speak of, at least through the early and
middle 1980s

We most certainly did. The one I used was in Santa Rosa,
granted it was the ONLY one I knew of at the time.

sf

Max Hauser said:

sf said:

Granted, it was a small California chain for a long time, but
it wasn't limited to LA.

Los Angeles or somewhere in the general latitude. We did not
have these shops in northern California, to speak of, at least
through the early and middle 1980s ...

In 1976 when I moved to Pasadena, CA to go to college,
there were under 10 TJ stores in existance and they were all
in the LA suburbs. The original is in South Pasadena, and
others were in Pasadena (the one I went to), Glendale and so
on. All suburbs north and/or east of downtown LA.

At some point in the early 1980s they stopped listing all of
their locations on their Fearless Flyer because the list no
loner fit on the page. Since then they have undergone
explosive growth.

For a long time, if I encountered something that I thought I
would like at TJs I knew I had to purchase it *then* or I
might neve see it again. I remember buying a bottle of
wine, liking it, going back the *next day* and finding them
out of it forever. To some extent TJs are still like that but
now most of their items are there for years at a time.

On 3 Jan 2005 12:49:18 -0800, "Doug Freyburger" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Max Hauser said:

sf said:

Granted, it was a small California chain for a long time, but
it wasn't limited to LA.

Los Angeles or somewhere in the general latitude. We did not
have these shops in northern California, to speak of, at least
through the early and middle 1980s ...

In 1976 when I moved to Pasadena, CA to go to college,
there were under 10 TJ stores in existance and they were all
in the LA suburbs. The original is in South Pasadena, and
others were in Pasadena (the one I went to), Glendale and so
on. All suburbs north and/or east of downtown LA.

I know I shopped at the West Los Angeles TJ's on National Blvd. as
early as 1978 (I remember buying a case of Stag's Leap Merlot for a
Thankgiving bash there) and it appeared at that time to have been open
for some time previously. So TJ's had already expanded beyond N and E
of downtown LA.

"sf" in news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Max Hauser said:

We did not have these shops in northern California,
to speak of, at least through the early and middle 1980s

We most certainly did. The one I used was in Santa Rosa,
granted it was the ONLY one I knew of at the time.

Sorry, sf, I keep expressing myself to your dissatisfaction. WE did not
have Trader Joe's at that time. YOU may have had them in Santa Rosa in
particular. But Mark Thorson, Steve Pope (who used to go to SoCal and shop
at TJs), the folks who spun off the "alt" net in 1987, and millions of other
people in northern California who now have TJ's nearby did not have them at
that time. It was known (on and off the Usenet, rightly or wrongly) as a
southern-California chain. (I may be beating a dead horse here ...)

Cheers -- Max

Max Hauser said:

It was known (on and off the Usenet, rightly or wrongly) as a
southern-California chain. (I may be beating a dead horse here ...)

LOL! Yes, you are beating a dead horse, because in my part
of the world there WAS a TJs and I didn't have a clue it
wasn't the only one in existance. Didn't care either. Very
simply, I liked it a lot and wished I didn't have to cross
the Golden Gate Bridge and drive for 20 minutes more to get
to the store.

sf

Doug Freyburger said:

For a long time, if I encountered something that I thought I
would like at TJs I knew I had to purchase it *then* or I
might neve see it again.

Wow, the long lost memories are returning...

Quoted message said:

I remember buying a bottle of
wine, liking it, going back the *next day* and finding them
out of it forever.

You can say that again. I bought the BEST bottle of Spanish
red at TJs and never was able to find it again there or in
any other wine/liquor shop (we had quite a few specialy wine
shops in those days).

sf

On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:40:29 GMT, Dog3 <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Steve Pope rings a bell too. I've been reading
this group for at least 20 years, off and on.

You been reading this group for 20 years? Oh, now that I
think of it... I've been online nearly as long. GAWD, I'm
old.

Why'd you bring that up? :P

sf

Dog3 said:

this group for at least 20 years, off and on....

Seriously? Really Dog, has rfc been around that long? If so, thanks for
making me feel young again. 😉

nb

"notbob" in news:G0rCd.21813$3m6.1827@attbi_s51...

Quoted message said:

Dog3 said:

this group for at least 20 years, off and on....

Seriously? Really Dog, has rfc been around that long?

Hi notbob. No, prior to late 1986, the group was called net.cooks. Here is
a sample from 1983, as currently archived by Google:

http://tinyurl.com/5zbd2

I don't know how much of the associated thread was archived. (The H-P
"Notes" posting tool obscured the threading.)

The reference to purists who dislike garlic presses was in reality a dig at
Steve Upstill, an avid cook and software engineer who argued that point in
person, who also later produced the commercial "-MU" recipe formatting macro
package for the Troff typesetting program from Bell Labs (widely used at the
time to typeset documents). Later in 1983 Steve sent me an email message
beginning "Re garlic presses: [censored] you, Max" and proceeding to other and
pleasant matters.

-- Max

Max Hauser said:

The reference to purists who dislike garlic presses was in reality a dig at

Dang, that's usenet archaeology. And I take issue with the
anti-garlic-press attitude. Presses are superior in some applications.
Even the most finely minced garlic is inferior to pressed garlic in a garlic
butter.

nb

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

simply, I liked it a lot and wished I didn't have to cross
the Golden Gate Bridge and drive for 20 minutes more to get
to the store.

20 minutes to Santa Rosa? Please let me know when you are going to be up
this way. I'll stay off the roads! It's 50 miles, so in 20 minutes
that's 150mph!

--
Dan Abel
Sonoma State University
AIS
[email hidden]

(Dan Abel) said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

simply, I liked it a lot and wished I didn't have to cross
the Golden Gate Bridge and drive for 20 minutes more to get
to the store.

20 minutes to Santa Rosa? Please let me know when you are going to be up
this way. I'll stay off the roads! It's 50 miles, so in 20 minutes
that's 150mph!

The only Trader Joes I knew about up in Marin at that time frame, was
in San Rafael. It is still there. And that would be about 20 minutes
from the GG Bridge.

Christine

sf said:

You been reading this group for 20 years?

The oldest posting for RFC in the Google archive is from Nov 1986.
It is a crosspost that replies to a net.cooks posting. No clearcut
sign that it is actually the first posting ever as Google's archives
are incomplete that far back. My oldest posting is from 1983 but
I posted on net.lang.c in 1982 at least once. Stuff that long ago
never got archived in many cases.

So Nov 1986 minus Jan 2005, nope not 20 years yet. Real Soon
Now though.

Dog3 said:

"Max Hauser" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

... prior to late 1986, the group was called net.cooks.
... a sample from 1983, as currently archived by Google:

http://tinyurl.com/5zbd2

[Anecdote on how that message came about]

Thanks Max, I could not remember. In '77 I was not
sure what server what was on. Usenet was so new then.

Very new: It had not been born yet! Newsgroups (and by extension,
self-service public Internet forums in general) are attributed to Steve
Bellovin at UNC-CH in 1979, and to his associates who converted his
original script into source code. (I'm using "Usenet" in the
traditional meaning, which is to say, newsgroups. Whether carried over
the Internet proper or by other means, as usual.)

My first contact with the Internet proper (called ARPAnet then, and a
few years later, ARPA Internet) was very cursory and was in 1976. On
the other hand, one person I knew in those days, who reads this
newsgroup and whom I won't name, at present, was so active at playing
around with the Internet in those days that he got arrested, or at
least interviewed at uncomfortable length, by the FBI I believe. In 76
or 77. The wild old days.

Cheers -- Max

Quoted message said:

From: notbob [email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Dang, that's usenet archaeology. And I take issue with the
anti-garlic-press attitude. Presses are superior in some applications.
Even the most finely minced garlic is inferior to pressed garlic in a garlic
butter.

That's as may be. (And garlic itself is from the Sunset Isles.) But I can't
clean my sole garlic press.

E. P.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

From: notbob [email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Dang, that's usenet archaeology. And I take issue with the
anti-garlic-press attitude. Presses are superior in some applications.
Even the most finely minced garlic is inferior to pressed garlic in a garlic
butter.

I have begun almost exclusively to grate garlic with my
microplane grater. It's easier to clean than a press
and doesn't waste as much.

gloria p