TJ’s Indian Fare Rocks My Chappals

I love you, Trader Joe.  To the moon and back.

This is going to be a short post because I’m up late tonight writing an essay on free indirect discourse in Jane Austen’s Emma for my Literature & Linguistics class.  But I could not let the opportunity go by without telling you how, in the midst of the writing frenzy that accompanies my usual eleventh-hour inspiration, I would have starved tonight if it wasn’t for Trader Joe.

This was almost going to be me, but it wasn't.

Dinner?  Who has time for petty societal conventions like dinner when there is free indirect discourse to be analyzed, preferably before 2 pm in the third-floor English office of Wheeler Hall the following day?

Me, that’s who.  Thanks to my trusty Trader Joe’s Indian Fare in a box, I was able to enjoy a meal of Pav Bhaji, jasmine rice, and garlic naan before getting back to work on that tense-aspect analysis.  What is Pav Bhaji, you ask?  Good question.  I like to describe it to people as The One In The Teal Box.

Told you. (Flickr credit: cinemafia)

See, Indian Fare is ready-to-heat Indian food just like your roommate’s mom so lovingly brings her in thirty thousand tiny labeled Tupperware single-meal portions every other week.  The only difference is that Trader Joe encloses them in silver pouches that you can dunk in boiling water or slit open and dump into the microwave, so you feel way more badass when you heat up your dinner, like a Navy SEAL preparing C-rations or something.

While you’re at Trader Joe’s picking up your multicolored boxes, you should also be sure to swing by the frozen foods aisle and pick up some Garlic Naan, which heats up marvelously in a toaster oven.

This is actually sort of what frozen garlic naan from a bag looks like.

I think that food this good deserves its own stereotypical ethnic Trader name, to join the proud ranks of Trader José, Trader Giotto, and Trader Ming.