She's My Cherry Pie -- Cherry Pie

 

As the Lady and I were leaving ALDI last Sunday we made one final swoop back down the frozen foods into what I will graciously call the bakery section. Perched high above the three racks of L’Oven breads was a nearly empty box of single serve Baker’s Treat apple and cherry pies. A steal at $.49 each and I wasn’t the only one who thought so – apple was sold out. If there are two things I love it’s a bargain and pie. So into my shopping car…oh yeah we gave our shopping cart quarter to some family that looked like they needed it more than we did. Sometimes the Lady is a softie.

Side bar – for those of you unfamiliar with ALDI one of the many quirky things about it is you need a quarter, a case quarter, to get a shopping cart. You put a quarter into this manual contraption that chains all the carts together and it lets you pop out a cart. The quarter stays in the contraption until you return the cart to where you got it and then you can get your quarter back out. It’s a fairly ingenious way to get people to return the carts to the store. In fact, unlike Kroger, I’ve never seen a cart rolling around in the parking lot. 

But I digress…on with the review.

The Gentleman Caller Calls

It's me, the Gentleman Caller. I should tell you, in the interest of full disclosure, what I like about ALDI is it's cheap and it's crazy. What I don't particularly like about ALDI is eating the food. Unlike the Lady, I've shopped at ALDI on and off - mostly off - since it opened in my neighborhood. I like buying ten things and getting change back from a five and the dizzying feel of seeing boxes that are identical in every way to national brands except the name. I get woozy seeing the familiar yellow and blue cheerios box, only to discover its....Crispy Oats brand! It’s like I’ve stumbled into Bizzaro Kroger. And where else can you get a walker AND a gallon of milk? But of the many things I've tried, I would rate (using the Lady’s rating system) about three of them L or above. I'd give an A to the seasonally available Grandessa Salted Caramels (if you find these, buy all of them!) and the no longer available Millville Peanut Butter Cereal and an L to Southern Grove Trail Mix. Oh and an L to the AM/FM iPod playing radio thing I got there once. The rest of the things I’ve tried (coffee, yogurt, pizza, appetizers, candy, chips, etc.) I’d give a D and in some cases an I. I swear I got a headache from eating mozzarella sticks once. But the Lady does insist that I review and so with no further ado I give you my first review – Baker’s Treat Cherry Pie!

ALDI's Oreos

ALDI's version of Oreo's: Benton's Cookies "Original Chocolate Sandwich Cookies."

I am not going to tell you how many of these cookies I ate this afternoon (hint: fewer than ten, more than five). I will tell you, however, that I could have eaten more. And I will probably dispose of the rest seeing as how each cookie is more than 50 calories (after saving some for the Gentleman Caller, offering some to my roommate, and putting aside three for tomorrow, of course). You just can't maintain an active lifestyle while pounding off-brand sandwich cookies.

Guess Who Went to ALDI?

And look at what I brought home!

So what IS good at ALDI?

Welcome to what I'm sure will be a lovely blog about the groceries sold at ALDI. Inspired by the infinitely more useful and better done blog, What's Good at Trader Joe's?, this blog will explore the world of cheap, cheap knock-off groceries.

Until last week, I had never shopped at an ALDI before. I had mentioned to the gentleman caller that I had a previous boyfriend who would shop at ALDI, Kroger, and Publix three-bears style to get the best possible deal on groceries each week. Back then I was young and I thought this was just a solid waste of his time.  But now I'm older and wiser and truly understand the joy of spending less than $1.50 on lunch.

My new (and improved) gentleman caller took me there last Saturday morning and it was amazing. It's the Twilight Zone of grocery stores, meaning that everything seems normal except that one thing you just can't quite put your finger on. Except at ALDI, I can. These groceries look like groceries on sitcoms, instead of "Fritos!" they say "Corn Chips!". Obviously, I was delighted at every turn.


Through the magic of ALDI, this should be a pretty affordable blog to maintain. So here's to not quitting after two entries! (If ALDI sold champagne, now would be the time to pop one open.)