This is a bit of a stupid one so I'm not even sure that it's going to get posted, but I'm enjoying writing some daft things at the moment, and also I'm battling a monster on 4thewords to try and beat a quest, so I need to keep going, because I want to finish this particular set of quests before NaNoWriMo starts or I'll have no room and want to focus on all of the main story stuff - and as you have likely already gathered, I don't do well with my attention divided!
My family started shopping at Aldi a while ago and for whatever reason, it wasn't me. It's nothing against Aldi, it was just I got too stressed in supermarkets and had no idea why. Oh the answers I have now mean so much to me.
Complete honesty, I was probably a little bit of a snob about it at first, because I have always thought it was a bit cheap and cheerful, though I have since realised the error of my ways. I do love the place, but I have to be careful when I go into the store because it being busy makes me panic and if I go into a store I'm not used to and can't find things where I think they should be, I get really upset. There is a reason that my first conversation with the doctor about the ADHD assessment was me saying I think I'm autistic.
In not too dissimilar a vein, I struggle with Aldi for a different reason and that's because they make really awesome stuff, but only do it periodically or they make something brilliant and then they discontinue it and I get really frustrated. I know they're not the only ones but it seems to be happening a lot at the moment and it really upsets me! Nespresso did it once - they made Rosabaya coffee which was featured in my favourite BBC drama, and then they stopped making it. I had tried it a couple of times and loved it so I was gutted.
Last year, Aldi didn't do their potted Cheddars at Christmas. It's basically a posh cheese spread with a TINY bit of jam over the top in a bit of a mason jar looking thing, but they are brilliant, and they were always selling out in previous years, but last year, just didn't do them. With the recent changes in stores, they also seemed to drop the three cheese pasta salad that has absolutely no business being called a salad, because it is cheese, mayonnaise, pasta and a tiny bit of onion - though that one had now made a come back. They've dropped the original flavour of their mock chicken from the fridge (can't actually remember what that was) and they've changed the teriyaki beef, and apparently the macarons were for summer only, even though they were the best thing ever. I think they were a bit of a fashion for this year, but I love them and it makes me sad I now need to drive to the big Tesco for macarons, because even I know that's excessive, but if I have cravings, I will do it. They took away, though have thankfully brought back the tomato and mascarpone sauce jars (though the price has gone up by about 50%), have seemed to stop doing hollandaise sauce in a jar, are really hit and miss of when they have their brand of the Thatchers Lemonade Cider and Blood Orange Cider, and I could take all of that (no I couldn't, I loved all of them and when I find something I like, I stick to it for reasons) if they hadn't stopped making my absolute favourite thing of all time.
Over the summer, Aldi made a vegan prawn sandwich. I've had 'vegan shrimp' before, but I never actually ate shrimp so I have no idea whether it was anything like the real thing or not, but I actually liked prawns before I decided that fish were friends and not food, so only a reasonable faximile would ever do and nothing has ever been close until that sandwich. It was on brown bread, which I hate, because I have a tense relationship with bread in general but brown bread makes me want to cry, but this sandwich was incredible. I would honestly, believe it was proper prawns, but I knew it wasn't. The taste was great, the texture was perfect, all was right with the world and then it disappeared with no warning. At least McDonald's tells you when they're going to start cancelling things off of the menu, instead of just it going bye-bye and potentially never being seen again. To say I am heartbroken isn't an understatement, because good vegetarian foods are still pretty rare and SO MANY OF THEM come around and you think, yes, this is great, and then it disappears because ranges are reduced or companies go bump or I don't really know what happens. My mum said she read that a lot of people aren't buying Beyond Meat burgers because they're so expensive (and they are) but they're SO GOOD. They're some of the best on the market, if you can stand the fact that you will have to remind yourself a few times it really isn't meat. I have days where I can't cope with that, but I still love their burgers.
Though not the intended topic of this blog, it's one of the reasons why I try and stick to big brands now like Quorn or brands like Richmond that are expanding into meat free whilst still making slaughter sausages (oh, come on, I don't say V* stuff like that very often, I'm allowed to be a little bit militant about it on very rare occasions). These products do tend to be at a slightly lower price, but I also figure they have a bit more staying power, so if I am having really bad day, or week, or month, or longer, I know I can get the sort of thing I have developed a craving for, rather than wanting a vegan smoked salmon style thing I don't think you can even get anymore (No, it's not made of carrot, and that recipe can get in the bin where it belongs.) or my beloved prawn sandwich. Hopefully Richmond keep making their original meat free sausages (because the sage and onion ones suck!) because I could just eat those for weeks.
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