an ode to ALDI.

saturday, september 2nd, 2023.

I'm eagerly awaiting my set of Schwalbe Marathon Plus bicycle tires. They're in transit from Schwalbe's warehouse in Washington by truck and look to be about halfway here. FedEx reports they'll arrive Tuesday. I'm super hyped to get back on the bicycle commute!

In other news, we've been shopping pretty regularly at ALDI since we've been eating at home and minding our budget. It used to be my go-to grocery when I lived in the Atlanta suburbs but I haven't really been shopping there too often since moving to middle Georgia.

Well, we've got our ALDI quarter and reusable shopping bags on speed dial and are back to shopping at the discount grocery chain we love. There's a bunch of stuff to love about ALDI, but the biggest reason is that they make cheaper, in-house versions of a bunch of brand-name groceries and our food budget goes much further than at other supermarkets.

Another nice thing: we've been buying quick meals in their frozen section for those weeknights when we're not feeling up for cooking a proper meal. A lot of times, these will be seasoned veggies that we'll eat with rice. Much healthier than a lot of the prepackaged meals we've been accustomed to. It's also pretty rad to have a full meal for two that costs us $3 or $4, rice included.

I suppose it's a little weird to love a grocery store as much as we do, but it feels good to shop there— the store is small and we don't get overwhelmed by all the options, the price is right, and it's nice to skip all the plastic bags. Or perhaps it's something about the innate European-ness of the chain that draws us to ALDI. I'm not sure exactly, but we sure love it!

While I'm waxing poetic about awesome European stuff, check out this video by Not Just Bikes about bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in the Netherlands:

I've gotta admit, I'm a little jealous about the infrastructure over there! Still, I'm thankful to have a fairly safe route to work, a place to store my bike safely, and showers once I get there. That's certainly more than I can say about many of the places I've lived and worked!

That's all for today! Until next time, be well. :)