Trader Joe's

No I'm not talking about Potter-Joe, for those in the know.

Apparently St. Louis Park, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis, will have one of the largest Trader Joe's in the US and it's set to open May 19th, 2006. Kya and I fell in love with this place on our first visit to a location in Palo Alto, while staying with some friends in Mountain View, California (on the Caltrain line). This happened because there are not really much to speak of in terms of an honest-ta'-goodness-food co-ops... as is exactly not the case in the Minneapolis area, so Trader Joe's was our savior for the week of no Wedge Co-op living, because there were a good deal of organic foods for sale and healthy stuff in the snack department (not a fan of their 2-buck-chuck crappy, unsustainable wine though, it's trucked into Napa from the Central Valley, but carries the Napa label, not cool).

Hey, St. Paul school district is drafting plans for getting rid of junk food, mainly 'cus of the raising obesity in children. That is sooooo cool to me, it may not seem like much to some people, but this is a humongous thing, for this type of change has set in in just a few years after schools agreed to take cash from vending machine companies. While the vending machines will stay, the only convenience students and staff and teachers will be buying from them will be 100% juice, baked potato chips, trail mix, and pretzels. Bye-bye cola's, deep-fried fatty chips and sugary-salty-fat-laden candy. Plus the lunch room fair will not be junky either, there the first ingredient in a dish cannot be sugar, at least a step up.