Day 258 - Popcorn in a Pickle

This is a product I DID NOT want to get.  PICKLE POPCORN?  Doesn’t it sound disgusting???  I mean really – I like PICKLES and I like POPCORN – but I thought, “Let’s just keep it at that…  Pickles and/or popcorn.  Not pickle flavored popcorn!  Ewwwww.”  To me it sounded like something a pregnant woman might crave.

Look - David was not too sure about this one either....  We got it at the Indianapolis Trader Joe's\

BUT (that is a big BUT) a friend of ours, Tony, told us Pickle Popcorn was fabbbbbulous.  It was great, according to TONY…  He even had a clever name for it, “5 minute popcorn”.  He said it should be called that cuz once you open a bag it is gone in 5 minutes.  Tony was a student of David’s many years ago.  Tony and his wife Beth sang in our wedding!  Tony and his family recently came to visit us and even helped us rate some products after we all shared a dinner on the front porch (see the whole gang in a funny photo and read one of the reviews they helped with here - http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/07/193-triple-ginger-snap-cookies.html  )

So what I am saying is, TONY IS A GREAT GUY.  We needed to at least T-R-Y this disgusting sounding popcorn if he was raving about it.  I also talked with a stranger in the Indianapolis Trader Joe’s who had this popcorn in his cart and said his family looooved it. 

So we got a bag to take with us on a road trip.

Multiple warning lights on our dashboard...  Not looking good...

Only, the road trip got off to a really rocky start.  Before we could even get out of town nearly every warning light on the dashboard of our Prius was lit up!  We had a 9 hour drive ahead of us but obviously couldn’t keep going without getting the car looked at.  We pulled into the nearest Toyota dealership, sat in the sparse, cold “customer lounge” waiting to hear how much we were going to have to pay to fix our 2005 car with over 160k miles on it, and OPENED THE PICKLE POPCORN…

We had it, might as well TRY it...

The first bite of popcorn was YUCK-O-RAMA.  Yet, it was intriguing… 

So it led to a 2^nd bite…

Which led to a 3^rd bite…

(Which led to a 4^th and 5^th bite – you get the picture here…)

It didn’t take me long to realize that Tony was correct – this popcorn could easily become addictive.  It tastes exactly like dill pickles, yet it is POPCORN.  It is the texture of popcorn with the taste of pickles.  It has just enough salt.  The pickle flavor is not overpowering.  Overall it is quite nice!

David says, “My first bite was, ‘What the HUH?  Are you KIDDING me??’.  But then later it was kinda goooood.  Not bad!  Quirky!  I am not sure it would ever replace my love of white cheddar cheese popcorn, but a nice refreshing change.  And a good example of ‘high marks for thinking outside the box and making it work’.”

David then invented an even FURTHER outside the box flavor combination by pairing PICKLE POPCORN with an OVER RIPE BANANA (washed down by Pepsi).  Ewwwwwwwwwwww.  If pickle flavor popcorn sounds disgusting, the combo of pickle popcorn and mushy banana sounds downright barfable!  But he liked the combo! 

We continued munching on this treat after we got back on the road

Updates: 

1.        We lost quite a bit of time by hanging out at the Toyota place, but it didn’t cost us a penny!  Turns out a different Toyota place who had recently serviced our car did not tighten something correctly and that loose nut or whatever had almost caused the hybrid system to overheat!!  Thank goodness this mechanic just tightened it and sent us on our way.

2.       Tony reports that his Trader Joe’s in Michigan is OUT of Pickle Popcorn for the season.  Sigh.  I feel bad for his family.  Here is how he feels about it:

Poor Tony - no more Popcorn in a Pickle for you.

Price - $1.99

Rating - 4