Since I was young, I have always loved Trader Joe’s (let’s please put aside their shady practices with doing business with small business owners for a minute). Their products are generally cleaner and have fewer gross ingredients. The packaging is always fun. The prices are most definitely always low, relatively speaking. I still have fond memories from when I was in high school, and my dad found a delicious kiwi gooseberry jam from TJs. I was completely obsessed, and I was never a big jam person. It had this really great balance of light sweetness with tartness, and it tasted like real fruit, just mashed up. I also liked the occasional chunk of gooseberry I got in my mouth while eating it. I requested he get more of it each time he went to Trader Joe’s, which was maybe once every couple of months. One day, he returned from a Trader Joe’s trip and said that my beloved green-hued jam was no longer there, that they had discontinued it. I was completely crushed: WHY? I asked. It was so, so good. Who could have that unique, delicious jam and not be completely enamored with it?

Then in my college years, Trader Joe’s carried their own version of Nutella, but far higher quality: their hazelnut chocolate spread had 31 percent hazelnut, unlike Nutella, which only had about 10-11 percent hazelnut. Each weekend breakfast at Wellesley in the dining halls, I’d take it down with me and have it be my weekend indulgence. I’d spread it on a piece of whole wheat toast and savor the nutty chocolatey flavor. And then, of course, that item also got discontinued.

As of late, the item I’m sad about, but was warned about from the beginning, is the Trader Joe’s organic tart cherry fruit spread. The Fearless Flyer told me it was available in limited quantities, made with organic Turkish sour cherries. I love, love, love all things sour cherry related. So when I saw it on the jam shelf in the spring, I immediately got the 15 oz jar (for only $4.29 – what a steal!). I made the mistake of never opening it at the time to see how good it was. Chris just opened it this week (over 5 months after I originally got it… AHHHH), and we both agreed this jam was phenomenal. I immediately got sad, though. I knew it was a limited release, and I didn’t act on it. I could have been smart about it and opened it when I got it back in May, declared it delicious, then gone back to Trader Joe’s and gotten four more jars to stock up for the future. But… I didn’t.

I guess this is just another lesson to myself for the future with limited stock items at Trader Joe’s. And maybe, it’s also a lesson to just enjoy what I have now… before it’s all gone.