Ramble tagged 'Trader Joes'

We’ve taken to making our Pesto in the blender and using brown sugar. We rarely add nuts, so I guess I shouldn’t be calling it Pesto. We do throw some pitted Kalamata olives in sometimes; awesome on pizza’s and pasta.

Also thought I’d mention that growing our own basil saved us heaps during summer. But, now that the winter chill has put an end to that, we’ve found Trader Joe’s has the best value for money on packets of fresh Basil. I really like their Spanish olive oil too.

If you’re sick of photos / talk of coffee, food and alcohol you can probably start tuning out. These things keep me running, what can I say.

This mug has managed to follow me around since the early days of my working life. I first purchased it because it helped to have such a preposterous thing to use every day in an environment I probably would have described as soul-crushing at the time. The world of fluorescent-lit office boxes is a hard pill to swallow for an idealistic university student; the realisation that a good proportion of the who and where you thought you were heading to was way off the mark. The terrifying thought that those boxes may well be a good proportion of the rest of your life. It’s all been covered by countless books, movies and such and anyway, we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about a coffee mug.

This mug has sat at the back of various cupboards for years, made it’s way to Jon’s house and became a pencil holder some time in ’06 (I think), sat on a shelf in San Francisco for a year and then back in a cupboard here in Portland.

I’ve avoided using it in recent years because it has a dubious vibe about it; a reminder of one of the odd ways one finds to deal with shitty periods of life. But I got it out the other day because I wanted a whole lot of coffee and it holds a whole lot of coffee, and all it made me think of was how content I am with where I’ve ended up. I took the wrong road but ended up in the right place anyway.

Cheesy perhaps, but that’s what it makes me think. So the old tall blue mug is back in circulation.

More importantly, what I meant to pass on when I clicked “new post”; I’m trying the Sumatra Blue Batak beans from Wholefoods. Very very good, but Trader Joe’s Sumatran may be just a little better, and cheaper.

Cheaper and better. Imagine that.