Trader Joe's!!

Well, I finally got to experience the wonder that is Trader Joe's! Aaron had invited Jeremy and me to join him and Katie for a night in Chicago. He travels a lot for his job and has a bunch of free hotel points through Hilton. He and Katie had a hotel room at the Palmer House Hilton on Monroe Street (right downtown!) for Saturday night and were planning on attending a Smashing Pumpkins' concert that night as well (the concert ended up being postponed :(, but that's another story!). Jeremy and I just planned to tag along and I asked if we could find a Trader Joe's on the way back to Bloomington on Sunday.
Honestly, I didn't know much about Trader Joe's before Sunday...I had first heard of it while I was in graduate school at Purdue. Some of the girls would talk about LOVING it and would go on weekends to Trader Joe's stores in Indianapolis and/or Chicago. Lately, naturally, Trader Joe's has become more intriguing to me because they have many gluten free items. Well, we ended up passing a Trader Joe's on Ontario in Chicago during our wanderings about (we were shopping and just generally meandering about).
A friend from work, Jillian, was VERY excited when I told her I was planning to go to Trader Joe's...she even made up a shopping list of items she wanted me to search for and bring back for her! :) I ended up finding four things for her. I actually forgot to bring them with me to work today, so I will bring them to her tomorrow. I think she is pretty excited ;).
I ended up getting quite a few things for myself. The most exciting item, I think, that I walked away with was a case of 16 Peanut Butter Cookie Larabars (I posted about them previously!). I also got 3 each of Apple Pie and Cherry Pie flavored Larabars, some gluten free French rolls (a bakery package of 4), some chunky apple sauce, a jar of chunky spiced apples, a package of light string cheese sticks, a package of shredded Mexican cheese, some fruit leather-like bars, some boxes of chicken and vegetable broth, organic canned sweet potato puree, frozen salmon patties (also quite excited about these!!)...and I think that's about it. Good sounding stuff!
I tried the gluten free French rolls last night because I was very excited about the prospect of being able to eat a sandwich. I haven't had a sandwich in over a month! Can you imagine?! I am definitely cravin' me a sammich! ;) Well, it was kind of disappointing. It wasn't terrible...it is just an odd, dense texture...and it is kind of too sweet for my taste. Sure, I like sweet things...but this was kind of odd. Not exactly what I was looking for for a sandwich. Oh well! Now I know! I toasted it (I had read that gluten free bread is generally better when toasted) and spread some light cream cheese and some of the aforementioned chunky spiced apples on top. Not too shabby!
Today when I came home from work on my lunch break I decided to try my second of the 4 gluten-free French rolls. This time, I decided to split it in half, put some cheddar cheese on each half, and put it in my toaster oven on the broil function. As I said previously, I have been craving sandwiches....particularly grilled cheese. I even had some DELICIOUS gluten-free tomato soup (from Meijer, a local grocery store) to go with it! I was SO pumped. Well, as I mentioned before...the bread is kind of sweet. It wasn't exactly conducive to cheese and tomato soup. Oh well. It wasn't terrible...but it wasn't the same as my old favorite comfort food, either! The quest continues! ;)
Can I just say, thoughts of sandwiches are haunting me, plaguing me?! ARGH!
Ok, time for me to shower...we just got back from a swim...and get ready for bed. I have to be at work at 7am tomorrow! Sigh...
But it's ALMOST Thanksgiving! I am sure I will post lots of stuff about my Thanksgiving adventures! Here's hoping I can survive ;). I am bringing gluten-free pumpkin bars to our family celebration...but I am hoping I can eat some other things, too! We will see...I think my mom is going to do her best to help me out :). I am kind of nervous, though, about Thanksgiving! Not to sound corny, but I don't want to feel like an outcast!