My new shopping destinations

In my exploration of the L.A. area, I’ve discovered some great stores that I’ve never seen anywhere else. While they may not be unique to L.A., they are new to me. It’s just too bad they’re not all in the same place.

First, there’s Trader Joe’s, where “affordable, wholesome food” is not an oxymoron. The selection is sparse and the aisles are usually clogged with shoppers, but it’s one of the few places where you can find tasty foods made from natural ingredients — not hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup.

I also discovered Ikea. Yes, somehow I’d missed this chain of enormous Scandinavian furniture emporiums. I’d even slept on an Ikea bed for three months in Holland, but I hadn’t seen the inside of an Ikea store until a couple weeks ago. Now I have a desk, a dresser and a few other knick-knacks from Ikea. I even sampled the Swedish meatballs at the in-store restaurant. Scary, huh?

And I finally got to visit Fry’s Electronics, a west-coast chain I’d heard great things about for years. What sets Fry’s apart from Best Buy, et al., is how it caters to the geek niche with hardcore stuff like transformers, circuit boards and oscilloscopes. The long check-out corridor is lined with the kinds of goodies that weak-willed impulse buyers like me are apt to pick up — including plenty of snack foods made with corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and all the other dirty chemistry that Trader Joe’s saved me from. But I guess one little bag of gummy apple rings won’t kill me.

• Category: L.A. Stories