In St. Louis, Missouri, there is a chain of cafe-style fast-casual restaurants that serve a variety of upscale soups, salads, sandwiches, and baked goods. The restaurant is called St. Louis Bread Co., but outside of St. Louis they are known by another name: Panera. St. Louis Bread Co. — Panera…
Often, I only want a few small slices of onion for a single sandwich or an individual salad. Sometimes a casserole recipe calls for only half of an onion. As a result, I’ve used a lot of plastic sandwich bags to store partially used onions. In an effort to be…
Not long ago, my family and I traveled out of state to attend a relative’s funeral. We stayed at a hotel where, among other things, we started our morning with the hotel’s continental breakfast. Prominent among the offerings was a setup for making Belgian waffles, with batter and a large…
EDITOR’S NOTE: Check out our review of another desk that Aldi sells, the SOHL Furniture Writing Desk, at this link. My house has small bedrooms, but it would be nice for my children to have desks in their rooms for homework, art projects, journaling, and all the things kids do.…
When I graduated from college, one of the first things to go was my backpack. Backpacks were, after all, the kind of thing students used, and I was no longer a student. Instead, I opted for a quality messenger bag, and over the years I’ve replaced that messenger bag with…
Sometimes you have to wonder just who thought up certain products. I mean, does a person just say, “You know, I should totally invent a quality banana slicer,” or does someone wake up one day and proclaim, “You know, what the world really needs is a dog selfie stick“? I have…
Aldi’s cereal selection often frustrates me. Most of their cereals contain much higher amounts of sugar than I’m comfortable serving to myself or my children. The lower-sugar offerings are very few, and not all of them are good (I’m looking at you, plain Toasty O’s.). We usually end up buying…
I dry many of my clothes on a drying rack because conventional machine dryers shrink my clothing too much for my liking. I’m slightly taller than the average woman, which means that when shirts shrink in length in the dryer, they can become too short on my longer waist. Regardless…
Few things are more synonymous with Aldi than the almighty quarter. It is the gatekeeper, the shopping companion, and the collateral for something borrowed. Or, to be less poetic about it: in order to get a cart from Aldi, you need to insert a quarter into the cart, releasing it from…
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love shellfish and those who are missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures. Fortunately my children are being raised right and will eat pretty much anything that once lived in water (yes, even sushi.) Even then, I eyed…
