Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I've used both.

When we got married, my best friend gave us a Weber kettle grill and it was easily the best gift we got. After 6 years and a lot of use, I bought a gas grill. Last year I supplemented it with a Weber bullet and it's been the best of both worlds.

Trader Joe's is the one place I always walk out of with 5 more things than I meant to get.

I got hooked on, of all things, their frozen chicken burgers with lime chile seasoning. Perfect for those days when I get home and don't feel like anything but something quick.

Their Kung Pao sauce is pretty fantastic as well.

And their organic beef tenderloin pieces are very good and perfectly sized.

CANDY CANE JOE JOES!! They are the best, unfotunately they are only seasonal. I also love the CORN CHIPS WITH FLAX but Trader Joes are discontinuing them and selling them at 49 Cents a piece!! Get them while you can!!!!!

I wish I had thought of this before I left Ann Arbor for TJ's bereft San Antonio.

One item, it would be the Truffle Brownie mix. Just about the only brownie mix I can find that has no corn or milk in it (family member allergies).

I would be awful sad to leave without a log of their super-affordable chevre. Alway 2 or 3 bucks less per log than anyone else for the same brands. Maybe I'd send my wife back in for that ...

Everyone should be blessed with a Trader Joe's, although I protest the price increases (in my head only). Before I got braces, it would have been the English Toffee -- pistachios, toffee, chocolate. I used to eat it on the way home from the store.

Now, I have to go with the very reasonably priced Valrhona chocolate. I will admit that I've never gone into the store without picking up some sun-dried tomatoes and kalamata olives. I wish they had wild-caught shrimp.

Tomatoes. It may be weird, but I'm devastated when TJ's is out of canned, unsalted whole plum tomatoes with basil, which at least on the West Coast are *much* better than even most of the fancypants brands, at about half the price. (I make a lot of tomato sauce.)

Other stock-up items: unsalted butter and the Pound Plus bittersweet chocolate bars, for baking. So good and so cheap! I actually don't love a lot of the frozen and prepackaged food -- but the pizzas are a lifesaver.

Oh, and white cheddar popcorn.

This California girl began going to TJ's in childhood, at least 35 years ago. Back when it was a well-kept secret, a great place for sandwiches and cheese and snacks to go with the wine you were really there to buy. Back before it got trendy, and before they became a mega-chain. Back when TJ's was an insiders' term and never actually used by the company.

Let me share a very important lesson I've learned... one which became such a problem for me, that it's one of the primary reasons I and most of the other old-timers I know almost never shop there anymore:

Don't get too hooked on any one item TJ's carries, even if it's a staple. Why? Because at some point it's almost guaranteed they will do one of the following:

(1) discontinue it... they do this constantly... not necessarily a terrible thing, but very disappointing if you're hooked and can't find it elsewhere

(2) reformulate it to a mere ghost of its original goodness, although since it will be in the exact same packaging, and appear to be the exact same thing, you'll be scratching your head trying to figure out why it doesn't taste right

(3) if it's a brand-name item, discontinue it temporarily, then bring it back under private label, either using an inferior recipe or eventually going to step 2 above... the "new" product is often in smaller packaging and always sold at the same price they charged for the brand-name... this one is is standard operating procedure and absolutely infuriating

Don't get me wrong. I do completely understand why people who are new to TJ's get so excited about it, especially since they never knew it when it really WAS a truly remarkable store.

Just trying to be helpful by passing along some hard-earned wisdom!