Pouring one out for the TC for giving me hope for a future that hasn't quite materialized for me yet.
That kid lives on inside me, so I'm always a little soft when I see European stuff in Aldi.
This Aldi run with B. turned into a veritable tour of Western Europe, one that Samantha Brown could be proud of, if I were like, her daughter, which is definitely something I've never fantasized about or even thought about until just right now.
First up, some "Bavarian bratwurst" fresh outta GER. This was B's idea because I don't typically go for sausages, especially not light-colored ones. I don't know why, they just remind me of corpses or something.
And the package has them as browning up a little bit but you know they don't do that. So there you are, eating a white sausage with white sauerkraut on a white hot dog bun and probably drinking a glass of old skim milk because if you're eating that meal you probably have an empty fridge except for that milk you know you need to use up before it goes bad. But you're at your dad's house so you just fantasize that you're in Germany and after dinner you're going to go walk some mountains and not just try to follow Jimmy's pregnant cat into the woods to figure out what she does.
We also got some Frank's (haha, get it) sauerkraut despite B's protestations about potassium benzoate, which inevitably reminded me of the Simpsons frogurt episode:
Being that it was a store-bought brand (from Ohio, also, not from the motherland), the sauerkraut was a little too sour, and the sausages also had a slightly sour taste, and it was just too sour. Again, if you must buy sausages from Aldi I recommend some darker ones.
Evil white meal
But not to worry, because we had some Dooch Kooch strudels for dessert. They had two kinds, apple and "Fruits of the Forest" and we obviously went with the latter. THESE TOO also start off as a pure white and they definitely don't get all toasty and brown like that, but I did take them out too early and began eating them before B found me and suggested in her reasonable way that maybe we should heat them up some more. I don't have any pictures probably because they were so damn tasty, but beware: one strudel is 6 servings, which is a cruel joke. They have to know that people are going to eat a whole strudel and then look at the nutrition facts (which may be putting too much faith in the public, but).
But one of the main reasons we made this trip was because B was thirsty, and so we ended up with some sparkling lemonade from a brand called "Journey to...France." The key word in here is "sparkling," which I don't think B. or I noticed, because if we had, we might not have opened it in the bag-loading counter area in front of a long line of customers (that might be placing too much faith in us, though). Only to have it explode everywhere, while the dead-eyed Aldi cashiers did not react in ANY way. I helped myself to some paper towels and we quickly re-located to drink lemonade in the parking lot. I happened to know that the cashiers keep paper towels by the cash register because of a yogurt-dropping episode I had had a day previously, which elicited the same non-reaction as this lemonade incident. I had to practically beg to wipe up the floor, you guys. I felt weirdly humiliated, not by my clumsiness, but by the cashiers' total indifference to like, 2 pounds of yogurt being all over the floor. These people should work in a trendy consignment shop for the shame they inspired in me. Why was I being such normie basketcase and having a reaction to this?
Which brings me to another point: people's bad opinions of Aldi. When I was searching the internet to see if another blog like this already existed, I found a ton of mommy blogs talking about "Oh, I'm not poor but I shop at Aldi, I know, RIGHT?!" or some version of "I'd never stepped foot into an Aldi because I assumed it was where poor people shop at and even though my wife and kids and I had $80,000 worth of credit card debt, we weren't poor." Before moving to Pittsburgh I was unclear on what Aldi really was, but I have two near me because I'm lucky now. But my friends here had lots to say. My first date with B. is vivid in my mind. I see her clearly, laughing with my friends as they made fun of Aldi. "I mean, it's fine but it all fell off the back of a truck, right? I don't buy meat there."
Besides, other people have somewhat more forgiving opinions of Aldi. My friend in Philly wants to know "How they got all that nice cheese for so cheap?" My other friend G. is of the mind that "Aldi is the indie label of grocery stores." As if they're saying, "Go find a normal grocery store to shop at, lame-o. One where they still care about things like wet floors and lawsuits."
