A few years ago, Hungry Bear and I were shopping at the University District Farmers Market in Seattle where we stumbled upon hardy kiwis (a.k.a. baby kiwis) for the first time. These miniature kiwis are the size of a large grape (about 1 inch long) with an edible, fuzzless skin.

According to CFRG, baby kiwis are native to northern China, Korea, Siberia and Japan. When fully dormant, the vines can withstand temperature drops to -25°F, hence the name hardy kiwis. They vary in color from green to purple. In the States, the growing season starts in June and the fruit is harvested between September and November. That's the short version of the agricultural lesson. I'll spare you the rest.

In addition to seeing them in Seattle, we found hardy kiwis in the Columbus Circle Whole Foods (NYC) and more recently at our local Trader Joe's. We were stoked to find them in San Francisco, even though they were imported from New Zealand. I'd prefer them locally grown, but I couldn't pass up the baby kiwis.

There are a few things I don't do in life and one of them is peel fruit. I attribute this phenomena to my mom spoiling me and always cutting fruit for me (even to this day). Hungry Bear hates this fact and she begrudgingly puts up with my no fruit peeling policy.

Needless to say, I love hardy kiwis. They are sweeter and more flavorful than regular kiwis with a slightly sour skin. They are a great pop-in-your-mouth, healthy snack. And it's the perfect kiwi for us no peeling fruit eaters!

We love Trader Joe's. It's our favorite place to pick up staples for the pantry. While the quality of the produce and meat isn't as good as Whole Foods Paycheck or our neighborhood supermarket, the remaining items are just as good or better. And it's definitely the best value among our local grocery stores.

Besides saving us money, we go to TJ's for their unique and interesting products. We loved the Emperor's New Cloves garlic, but sadly they don't carry it anymore because the garlic was grown in China. Anyway, there's always something new to discover at Trader Joe's and I'm constantly on the lookout for them.

My one complaint with TJ's is the overabundance of cookies, chocolate and candies in the aisles. It's so hard not to grab a box of treats with each visit. Damn you TJ, for constantly pushing your sweet crack on me!

Most of the time, I'm strong enough to resist picking up a box of cookies. But there are a few items I never leave without. So, here are a few five of my favorite things...

• Organic Clusters Cereal - a good combination of textures and flavors. Our three favorite cluster cereals are the raisin bran, vanilla almond and maple pecan. The raisin bran is the healthiest one.
• Organic Peanut Butter - by far the best store bought natural peanut butter. You won't go wrong with creamy or crunchy.
• Tempting Trail Mix - it has several types of nuts, dried cherries, peanut butter chips and chocolate chips! Salty, crunchy, chewy and sweet... yum!
• Cinnamon Swirl Bread - a thick wheat bread full of cinnamon. You can make a great open face peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich with it.
• Cheap, Interesting Wine - we can always find inexpensive, but good, wine at TJ's. From the slideshow, the question mark wine is a 2005 red table wine from Oreana Winery. The happy face wine is a 2005 syrah from Project Happiness. We have no idea if the wines are good, but we couldn't pass up the labels.

That's my top 5 list. If you shop at Trader Joe's, what are your favorite things? I would love to know.

We love garlic and use it in just about every savory dish we make. We also cook in mass quantities and I always dread peeling the garlic. I hate it when my fingers get sticky from the garlic juice and the skins stick to my finger. It's not a difficult task. It's just mundane.

We recently discovered Trader Joe's The Emperor's New Cloves — one clove per head garlic. It's super easy to peel and doesn't have a sticky skin. I'm guesstimating one clove of this garlic is about five to six normal cloves of garlic. It's sold in a little wicker basket and contains six heads of garlic for $1.69.

As far as taste, it's a little milder than white-bulb American garlic. And it's perfect for roasting. It's so much easier and better than roasting normal heads of garlic. You don't have to deal with all the skin, squeezing and mess. The roasted one clove per head garlic is just one big lump of sweet, mellow garlic!

I'm a big fan of peanut butter and honey sandwiches (PB&H). Forget about the jelly, it's better with honey. With peanut butter, I prefer the simple sweetness of honey over fruity jams and jellies.

One of my favorite breakfast items is an open-faced peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich, a PBB&H if you will. It's open-faced because I use a thick cinnamon swirl bread from Trader Joe's. It's a hearty wheat bread with a great cinnamon flavor. For breakfast, I usually toast a piece of bread, spread it with creamy peanut butter, slice a banana and drizzle a little bit of honey on top. Two open-face PBB&H sandwiches are very filling and keep me fueled up during long bike rides.

The funny thing is, I refused to eat peanut butter for almost fifteen years. My disdain for peanut butter started during nursery school. My family and I just immigrated to the States and I was literally fresh off the boat. Well, we took a boat from Saigon to Hong Kong, and flew the rest of the way to a small Pennsylvania town, New Cumberland.

Each day after nursery school let out, I would go to a classmate's home, whose mother baby-sat us until my mom finished work. This is were I was first introduced to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I recall it wasn't too bad initially, but I was used to savory banh mi, pho and rice plates.