Today's offering: langostino tail in red curry sauce with petit peas, served on rice. A long line of customers patiently waits for their paper plates as the salesperson keeps up a lively patter, informing us that this is a restaurant-style meal that can be made in 10 minutes for less than $15. The ingredients, of course, are available right there.
Among those tasting are Tony and Nora Nevin, a casually well-dressed older couple who live on Martha's Vineyard but often stop at Trader Joe's on trips to Boston. "We would come anyway, but [the free food] is a lure," she says.
They don't particularly like the curry - "too piquant," she says - but they're astonished to find that the free cup of coffee is his favorite, hard-to-find Ethiopian variety, and they buy a large can of it.
They also recommend stopping at Whole Foods down the road at Derby Street Shoppes. "The Symphony Whole Foods [in Boston] only has olives out, but the one in Hingham, you can get a whole lunch," she says knowingly.
I like the curry. It's spicy, piping hot, and after two plates, I'm full. But duty calls and I head to Whole Foods.
Unfortunately, others had the same idea, and by noon, the pickings are slim. The lemon garlic olives ($10 a pound) are delicious. But the sample table that promises Z crackers, Robusto cheese from Holland, and cranberry, pomegranate pepper jelly has only half a cracker left and no cheese. The jelly has a kick and is great.
I learn that Friday from 4 to 6 p.m. is "family night" and the best time to score free samples at Whole Foods. I return there at 4:30 and immediately locate the woman handing out slices of blood orange and hazelnut and caramel chocolates. Delicious.
An unmanned table nearby has a display of "urban detox juice" and an urn filled with prickly pear. Less than delicious, but OK and supposedly good for you.
The lemon garlic olives are back, and this time there's plenty of Robusto cheese - creamy and rich - as well as Jim's Sweet Love organic coffee, which is dark and rich.
