Lidl goes USA!

That is the headline on this week's advertisement booklet from the supermarket Lidl. Lidl is one of the two German discount grocery stores with locations in the Netherlands, Aldi is the other. At Lidl you find brands you can't find at other stores, most I'm not familiar with. There is also a good aisle or two of non-food featured items. Every week has "highlight"s around a theme or two or more. This week you can find various cleaning supplies--up to a steam cleaner; hardware supplies including work clothing--a super mini Home Depot with marks including Stanley and Black & Decker; and women's clothing including under garments and shoes. To look at this and watch the store's weekly ad, you could plan it so you only had to shop at Lidl for most all your needs.

Then there's the food. There's a good fruit and vegetable section, with sale prices on a couple items, changing the items every Monday and Thursday, so you can often find cheaper fruits and vegetables there. In addition there's a frozen food section, a meat section--and they were rated as having the best and leanest ground meat/hamburg in the Netherlands but it's usually more expensive, cleaning products, dairy and cold cuts, wine, drinks, pet food, spices, and canned goods. Those items are always available. Then they focus on someplace or thing special and bring in products specifically to sell that week and they cycle through them about once a year. There has been China week, Greek week, Italian week and a British week--sure enjoyed some of those products as well.

But now, with summer and the 4th of July coming, this week's focus is on the USA. It is even being celebrated by saving stamps, or some such thing, to get a Grill Meister BBQ apron. There's even a cowboy on a horse with a lasso in that ad. You can also win a trip to Texas. Their USA mark is McEnnedy. I'm sure you noticed how close to Kennedy that is. There are other marks with "American" food but none I've ever seen in the US.

Here's the available items in their USA week:

BBQ marinades-classic, honey, garlic

Hamburger Saus--that "gives hamburgers a typical American taste", looks like ketchup and mayo to me which I certainly didn't grow up having on my hamburgers and you don't find on a McDonald's or Burger King hamburger.

Cheese-Onion Baguettes--isn't that a French word?

T-Bone Steak for 1.99/100 grams, making it 10 Euros/pound--and I'm so tempted to buy one because you just can't get good steak here.

Chicken nuggets with saus

Onion Rings

Chicken Dippers with saus--chicken pieces rolled in corn flakes

Snackbox--??? where'd that come from? Packaged, complete in buns, mini hotdogs, mini hamburgers, American Rib burger, and I think it's like BBQed beef sandwich, shredded rib meat in saus on a bun. They go for 1.79 a piece. (I'll make my own, thank you, and wait for a trip to the US for a hot dog.)

Hot dogs in a jar--sounds so unappetizing to me.

Frozen rib burger that's "only" 1.69

American sauces--ketchup BBQ, ketchup hot dog--never heard of that in the US, and Sandwich sauce

Salad dressing--Ranch, Blue Cheese, Honey Mustard, American Caeser, and Thousand Island

American style mustard--I have come to prefer the French style popular here.

Ketchup flavored potato twists that appear to be curly potato sticks with a flavor added.

Easy cake mix for cranberry cake--that looks more like bread that you just add water to and bake in the pan, reminds me of Snack 'n Cake only a bread. (I'll wait for the fresh cranberries to appear in the regular grocery stores in the fall.)

Dried cranberries--which you can find here.

Cranberry Drink--The Aldi often has Trader's Joes cranberry drink, the only Trader Joe's product I've seen here.

American cookies--apple cookies with raisins or brownie cookies with chocolate--both the crispy/hard type. Where's the chocolate chip??????

Muffin mix--with chocolate pieces, chocolate with a chocolate glaze, or with a bluberry filling

Honey roasted almonds

Cashews and pecans

Microwave popcorn

BBQ marshmallows--Marshmallows have become more common to see in stores here but these are all white and only 1 Euro.

Ice cream sundaes--cups of soft ice cream with carmel, strawberry or chocolate sauce through it--I'll pay a little more for a McDonald's sundae when I want something like that, and better yet, wait till it's on McDonalds 1 Euro sale, think it's regularly 1.25. (Every few months McDonald's puts 6 products on sale for 1 or 2 Euros...from this time what I remember seeing advertised for 1 Euro was yogurt & fruit and 4 bitterballen--a Dutch food--I should pop in and get them to take a picture and tell you about them and a fish sandwich for 2 Euro.)

American peanut butter, crunchy or smooth--I'll keep buying the Skippy at Jumbo when I want American PB.

And these:



They're really Jelly Belly jelly beans. Ok, they don't say Jelly Belly so they must be a kick off, but they sure taste and look like Jelly Belly beans. What a treat and only one flavor I don't like--peach.

I Miss Target

It is a challenge here at times to find an item. It often involves a hunt to numerous stores, and still not finding it or what found is too expensive. On these days I miss just being able to go by Target and pick up what I'm looking for, besides just liking to peruse the store even if I'm not buying anything.

Now I'm on the hunt for a step can for the kitchen. We have a plastic white push down garbage now but what happens, besides at first everything piling up right at the opening, is the bag holds more and by time it's to the top, you can't push it in anymore. You end up having to pick up the whole top to put the trash in and then set the lid back on without garbage falling all over the place. In addition, this white container is used to white the whites and soak the spotted colors before washing. This results in the garbage being put on the floor for a day or so.

As a solution to this situation I want to buy a step can. Then the white one can be for laundry only. Well, right now I'm only finding a name brand that in some stores sells for 169 Euros, and the cheapest I've found them on sale is 59. Isn't there something cheaper than that here? I have to laugh that one of the home improvement stores, where I was heading next on my hunt, has one on sale in the coming week for 59 but instead of the 30L, it's 40L, so at least it's bigger but too big for our bags.

All I was thinking was how easy it would be to go to Grossmont Center Target and if they don't have it simply walk down to Walmart.