As I have been twittering about, last week I went to the Fresh & Easy Headquarters in LA with Bobbi.  (Check out her post about the evening here. )  And I just wanted to say hey to all of the Nhershoes readers that have been visiting in the past few days.  It’s been nice to see you all — leave a comment and say hi!    Anywho, Bobbi was contacted by Sallie (hey Sallie!), who blogs for Fresh & Easy amongst other things, about being a part of a focus group on vegan and vegetarian food options.  Bobbi wanted me to come along, since she knows I’m a SoCal blogger, too.  I said yes, of course, and off we were to traffic-jammed LA.  We arrived just as everyone was sitting down to eat.  They had a great spread of food.

(Thanks Bobbi for this picture, and the next 4…  I got home to realize I only had taken 1!
Bobbi was nice enough to let me steal the ones she posted on her blog.)

This kale salad was actually really good.  I was worried at first (I’m not the most adventurous eater), but ended up delighted with the taste.  I wonder if I can buy that at the store — Bobbi, did you find out yet?

They also had these really good cookies for dessert.  Sallie was nice enough to throw a few extra into my swag bag, so I got to share some with the M@.  They were vegan and delicious.  I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty all of this vegan/vegetarian food was.  What I noticed about the cookies was that they did not contain any oil (used applesauce) or processed junk.  I love how fresh (duh) and healthy the options are at Fresh & Easy.

Some of the bloggers that I met were Kylie (check out her post about the evening) and Sallie and Marsha.   Here is a picture of all of us that attended the focus group, as well as our host.  I am so ready for more blogger  meet-ups.  Bobbi, we should organize a SoCal meetup!

And of course, my lovely date Bobbi:

Once I got home, I took out my camera to get some pictures of my swag bag, but the kittens wanted none of that.  Halvsies was quick to jump onto my ankle and bite me.  Ankle biting is their newest thing.  What the heck? It’s most annoying when I am trying to do yoga!

During the focus group, we each picked out 2 items that we either had purchased or would purchase.  I chose this gluten free pancake mix and goddess salad dressing.  Oh man, the dressing looked so good.  We wrote what attracted us to the items, on the post it note. I liked the salad dressing because it just looked tasty. The ingredient list was small and I could understand everything!  Plus it is low in sugar!  I picked out the pancake mix because it made me think of Matthew.  He loves making pancakes in the morning, and this package was low in sugar and did not have all of the additive crap in it.  They ended up letting us take home the food, so I’m super excited for Matthew to use the pancake mix (hehe) and for salads with that dressing.  Yum-O!  You can also see my extra cookies from Sallie in this picture

And Brookie -poo, I chose the pancake mix because of you, too.  They have tons of gluten-free options at F&E.  You should definitely check them out (closest one is on Yucaipa Blvd., the Loma Linda one isn’t open yet).

This is the rest of the swag bag (sorry for the Trader Joe’s bag in the back.  Is that like horrible anti-advertising or what?!) I am super excited for the 1 lb. chocolate bar and the almond butter.  I ate some of the crackers with the salsa, man was it hot. Chili lime crackers and jalapeno salsa — wow!  The gift card was definitely a nice surprise as well.  Fresh & Easy definitely listens to and takes care of its customers.

One final story.  At one point, someone asked for a vegetable grill pack.  If you don’t know what a grill pack is, you are missing out. Grill packs are actually why I started going to F&E!  It’s about 5 pounds of meat for $10.  My bro started getting these for BBQs with his college buddies — once he told us about it, we had to get some of our own!  Basically you get something like 4 burger patties, 4 sausages, and a bunch of chicken wings for $10.  They have all different types of grill packs.  It was kind of funny when in the middle of the vegan/vegetarian focus group I started talking about my love for those meat-filled grill packs.  (They knew I was a carnivore).  The execs did laugh though, as they had never heard of anyone coming to F&E exclusively for grill packs.

You can also try some of their meatless options. I was going to get some meatless Italian sausage for the Matt and I to try — it was going to be a test to see if he could tell it wasn’t really meat.  But then I realized most of the alternatives are soy filled, and I really don’t feel like poisoning my husband (he’s allergic).

So, dear readers.  Do you shop at Fresh & Easy?  Are you a vegetarian?  Have you ever thought about eliminating meat from your diet?  After this focus group, I can definitely say I will be looking into eliminating some of the meat from my diet!

PS — Fresh & Easy did not pay us to review their store or products featured in this post.