Pour-Over Coffee Brewer Brew In the Bag

Guys, we didn’t go to Trader Joe’s for like, 5 days, cuz the county was telling people repeatedly to STAY OFF THE ROADS with the blizzard, right?  Of course, we had stocked up on pleeeeenty of food before the bad weather hit, so it was no hardship for us to not shop.

The blizzard had been over for days before we ventured out to Trader Joe's, but look how bare the produce section still was!  Every grocery store got slammed during the snow and I reckon no trucks could get in to bring more goods.

But then, the roads get clearer, and we made the trek to TJ’s.  But when we GOT THERE, no lie, THEY HAD CHANGED IT AROUND!!  Talk about a bit of a Twilight Zone moment!  J

That store at Bailey’s Crossroads (Virginia) seems to have had the same set up for a couple of years.  They change little minor things around every once in a while, but no real shake ups.  But in the few days we didn’t come visit, they did a big shift!  The first thing I noticed was the greeting cards (card review here) .  They used to be inconveniently located on a wooden column, but now they moved them to their own little rack.  I fear it might get in the way of carts and shoppers, but all in all a good move to sell more cards.

But the biggest move is the infamous DRIED FRUIT AND NUT AISLE – they moved the whole AISLE!!  They swapped the cereal/breakfast bar aisle for the nut aisle, meaning nuts are now open on one side (they are on the last aisle now, near produce) instead of being in an aisle with two sides.  Does that make sense?  I think this will be a good move – it leaves that very popular nut section more room for people to peruse.  However, it does make it now back up to produce, which is also usually crowded…  I am sure a lot of thought went into the big move before they did it.  I hope it works well! 



TADA!!  Big switcheroo in the store set-up!  Dried fruit/nuts now backs up to produce.

Has YOUR Trader Joe’s done a re-haul lately???  I wonder if this is a trend, or just something this Northern Virginia store did (maybe cuz they had so few shoppers in space with the bad weather they could more easily move stuff around?).

Anyway, there were also a few new products on the shelves!!  One that caught my eye was this Pour Over Coffee Brewer Brew in the Bag Coffee.  It was on an end cap showcasing new products, but it also had a “Best of 2015” marking by it…  That confused me, because I THINK this something new.

On the "New Product" end cap, but marked with a 2015 Favorites sign, too...

Well, we grabbed one of the cute little coffee packages to bring home with us.  It is ground Arabica beans and says it is like a pour over coffee, which are all the rage these days.



We were a bit hesitant about this product...

When we both had a day off yesterday we set out to brew our new coffee.  The bag has a little black plastic pour spout.  The first step in brewing this is to break off the tip of that spout.  Then you pour in hot water, replace the little black tip, and let it steep for four minutes. 

David carefully brewing our morning coffee

Here is how we felt about this product:

Susan:  I was wary about this.  I was worried the coffee would be really weak…  When making it, it didn’t feel like we poured all that much water in.  There are markings on the back of the package that show you where to fill up to if you want stronger or milder coffee, so we tried to follow that, but the envelope doesn’t get “fat” with water to there, it just looks like the coffee grounds are rising to there, so it is sort of hard to guesstimate how much water you have poured in. 

Honestly, I thought this would be a colossal fail…  Here is what the packaging says, “Contains enough coffee and its own filter to make about two cups of coffee, depending on the preferred strength.  The coffee is filtered, but with the rich taste of a French Press.”

Well designed label - eye catching

I need to confess that right off the bat, before we even tasted the coffee, one thing I can’t over with this product is that it feels WASTEFUL to me…  I don’t think you can RECYCLE it, even though it has the look and feel of being made out of recycled material (the matte finish tan color, you know the one).  But the underside of the package is shiny see through plastic, and the inside is filled with coffee grounds, so I don’t think you can just put this in a RECYCLING bin, can you???  It doesn’t mention that it is recyclable anywhere on the Danish made container, and I think if it WERE they would tout that. 

 

Back of the package

Now, onto the taste:  it is a LOT better tasting than I thought it would be.  It is a cute concept.  But I kept thinking of what would be a good USE for it…  At first I thought CAMPING (we are not campers).  Wouldn’t this be good for camping??  But then I thought, people who are real campers probably already have well thought out coffee making plans and they wouldn’t need to keep a chichi little TJ’s coffee making system in their gear… 

 

We are not CAMPERS, but once we tried GLAMPING, which was hilariously fun.  We were right outside Yellowstone.  Here we are relaxing on our glamping deck drinking morning coffee (that we didn't brew, the glamping office did).

Then I thought – HOTEL ROOM!  You could use this in a hotel, where the coffee they give you in the room is always too weak.  But then I thought, nah, that’s sorta stupid, too.  Are you going to PACK this TJ’s thing in your SUITCASE for using in a hotel, even though the hotel is going to supply you with coffee anyway???  Highly doubt it…  (David begged to differ here and thought that maybe it would be worth having these in your suitcase, then I pointed out that if you were that desperate, you could just go to a coffee shop…)



So I wracked my brain some more…  HOW ABOUT THIS!  Your electricity goes out…  Your only coffee maker is electric…  But you do have to have a way to somehow heat water to make this coffee…  Yeah, that is a use for it.  (Or you could just make tea…)

Overall, this was better coffee than I expected.  We made two cups with it even though we didn’t put in enough water to get to the “mild” marking.  So it made more coffee than we expected and it tasted better than we expected.  It is an ingenious little system.  It ends up looking like if you bought a box or bag of brewed coffee at Einstein Brothers or Starbucks and poured it right out of the bag, except you only have enough for one or two people, not a whole conference room full of co-workers.  I think TJ’s is trying to play on the current trend of POUR OVER COFFEE being all the rage.  Work it, Trader Joe’s!!

Ahhh, morning coffee

David:  “I think this is sort of like one of those sippy things for kids where you stick the straw inside it – are they called tetra packs?  Pyramid shaped designs (EDITOR’S NOTE – he means like Capri Sun packs).  It required a lot of finagling to make - you have to hold it open and there is the possibility of pouring boiling hot water over your fingers…  Though I guess if you set it on a flat surface maybe you wouldn’t have to hold it open as you poured. 

The taste is ok.  It is very mild and smooth.  If you like your coffee like you like your women – mild and smooth (and in a bag) – then this is for you! 

I give this a 3.75.  It is very nice, but entirely unnecessary.”

Susan again, I was thinking about giving this a 3.75, too, but then I thought I should bump my score up to a 4.  I mean, it is an INGENIOUS idea…  I was worried that we wouldn’t know how much water to pour in, but when we looked on the back TJ’s had thought about that and marked the package quite clearly.  It seems like they thought of everything when making this.  It is pretty cool.  It is ingenious, but unnecessary.  

I thought of another use!!!!  Say you are an AirBnB host, right??  You put one of these in the guest room to welcome people and let them make fancy coffee!!  Only, that is silly, too, cuz they still have to be able to make the hot water to pour in it, so you might as well just put a little coffee maker in the guest room!!

Wait – BACKPACKING!!!!  What if you are going on a long backpacking trip, and you think, “This is gonna be a looooong hike, I am going to need coffee during it!!”.  It would seem that might be a use for it, but no, cuz you still have to BOIL WATE, meaning you need to make a campfire and bring a pot or something to heat the water, so you could just MAKE THE COFFEE IN THAT! 

I am trying to hard to find a good use for this puppy, but I just can’t… 

Maybe if you live in a TINY HOUSE or an IKEA SIZED APARTMENT??

DAVID HAS AN IDEA!!  “When you go to Ikea and they have those little model apartments that are, like, 250 square feet…  Let’s say you live in one of THOSE!!!  And you do not have room for a coffee maker.  THIS COFFEE MAKING BAG IS FOR THAT SITUATION!”    I hate to burst his bubble, but even in that situation, you still need a teapot to heat the coffee.  And if you don’t have room for a coffee pot, you probably don’t have room for a teapot…  Sigh.

Trader Joe’s corporate, if you are reading this, please tell us:  WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR THIS FUNKY, INNOVATIVE PRODUCT??  Like, where should we be using it?  I want to be a fan, but for now it just seems a bit wasteful.

Price:  $1.49

Rating:  3.75

Bed a Day - a different kind of 365 project!!

I must confess right off the bat - this post is not Trader Joe's related (though we ARE having TJ's food for dinner!).  

But it IS 365 days related!  It is about my very first 365 day project, which I actually DID in 2014, but did not FINISH until January 23, 2016.  Cuz, yeah, that's me...  I do not like things to end, remember??  So this project was the precursor to Trader Joe's 365, but (maybe because all of the TJ's reviews??) it did not get completed until after TJ's was done.  

Anyway, in 2014 I decided to do one thing every single day of the year, and that "thing" was to take a photo of the bed I woke up in.  It seemed insane, and I wasn't sure why I was doing it and what I would do with it all, but it turned out I really liked it.  And now that I have made the video I LOVE it!! 

Here is the project in a nutshell:

You can see the video at:  Bed a Day video

Here are the statistics of “Bed a Day” 2014:

•         Total number of beds I slept in - 22
•          Pets that got on a bed I slept in – 1 (Lyndsey’s cat)
•          How many stranger’s beds I slept in - 4
•          How many hotel beds I slept in - 11
•          Total number of nights I slept in hotel beds - 23
•          Number of states I slept in - 12
•          How many times I woke up and took my photo before David was out of bed – around 164 (some of the photos it is hard to see if he is under the big, fluffy covers or not)
•         Nights I spent in my “main bed” - 246
•          Nights I spent in my “secondary bed” - 55
•          Number of days I forgot to take a photo – 0 (though one time on vacation I forgot in the morning and had to frantically take it in the evening when I remembered)
•          How many beds of family members I slept in – 3
•          How many beds of friends I slept in - 3
•          Number of people that slept in any of the beds with me – 1
•          Estimated total number of photos taken for this project - 1335

And here are the things I learned –

•           As OCD as the project sounds, it was relaxing and rewarding.  I loved having that one moment every day to focus solely on the photo project.  It felt like a “check in” time and also like “checking something off the mental to do list” before I had even walked down the hall to the bathroom to start my day.
•          It reminded me of my hesitancy to COMPLETE things.  I have put off compiling, editing, selecting music, and making my video for over ONE YEAR.  It is now January 23, 2016 and I am just now completing the project that I could have finished January 1, 2015.  I do not like “goodbyes”, even to projects.  And this was my first big “do one thing every single day” project, so it was important to me.  I didn’t want to see it end. 
•          It reinforced a new concept of myself – that of artist.  That was a name bestowed by a person I met this year, and as hesitant as I was to accept it when she gave me the title, I realized throughout the year that it was indeed fitting and how proud I was to have been given it.
•          It made me consider WHO I was doing the project for.  To try and make it “go viral”?  For the people whose beds appear in it?  In the end I settled on the concept that I was making it for MYSELF and am happy/proud of that.  I usually do things for OTHERS (a concept that was ingrained in me as a child) and I am learning to do more for me.
•          It made me appreciate my travels more.  I have always liked travelling, but seeing my morning journey laid out before me like this makes me smile and reminds me how much fun it is to explore the world.  I did not travel as much in 2015.  I hope I get back on the road more again this year. 
•          It made me feel grounded.
•          It gave me a sense of purpose.
•          It reinforced my belief that wherever I am (especially if David is there with me) – that is home.

    You can watch the video here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjNsxAaA__o

Blizzard and MARINATED OLIVE DUO IS BACK!

Quick check-in today with 2 big bits of news:

1.     THE BLIZZARD OF THE CENTURY IS COMING TO DC!!!!  (OK, it is gonna snow…  Like, seriously, it might be a lot of snow this time!  Oh I hope, hope, hope so!!!  Usually when they predict snow here we get, like, 6 flakes of it but everything closes.  This time they are talking double digits folks!  I say BRING IT ON!!!  I keep getting texts alerting me that my community will soon be under a BLIZZARD WARNING.  Doesn’t it just sound so thrilling???  So of course, everyone and all of their cousins are grocery shopping.  You can’t make it through 2 or 3 days stuck at home without bread, right???  And you must have rolls and rolls of TOILET PAPER or you are sure to perish!!  Well, we just got back to Arlington a couple of days ago and hadn’t really grocery shopped yet to get all of the basics.  So we needed veggies, fruit, butter, eggs, milk, etc.  That was one of my “to do”s yesterday.  Apparently around 4.8 million other people also really needed to go to Trader Joe’s!  It was crazy crowded.  Of course, we thought that was fun, but not everyone was in a giggly mood.  They were out of lots of stuff, including bananas and eggs.  HOWEVER will people survive without BANANAS for 2 days???  J

Maybe you can't see exactly HOW LONG the lines were, but you have to trust me here,
they were the longest we have ever seen at our local Trader Joe's!

      Still related to the snow but not to TJ’s, we went to a movie last night at the Japan Information and Cultural Center in DC last night (part of the Japanese Embassy, they show great Japanese films for free!).  JICC is 4.8 miles from our house.  It took us 7 minutes to drive there.  The same drive in reverse to come home took us 2 hours and 35 minutes!!!!!  The roads were icy and then about an inch of snow fell.  Cars were slippin’ and slidin’ and it was a messy mess!  A cool part was when we were stuck in front of the Einstein Statue for a while and got to see him covered in snow. 

A snowy Al as seen from our car stuck in a massive traffic jam.  Go Al!

Anyway, that was not even the REAL STORM yet – imagine what is going to happen if
this blizzard really hits!  Let’s just say, this part of the country is not really prepared to handle
snow…

2.        The other bit of big news – LOOK WHAT IS BACK!!!!!  

WHEEE - REALLY GREAT (and cheap) OLIVES!!

      Yeah baby, the infamous Marinated Olive Duo!!!!!!  I love this product and was sad that it was    

      only sold temporarily!  You can see the review of it here:  marinated olive duo review  Signage

      indicated that these were one of the GREATEST HITS OF 2015!  Oh yeah, I’ll say!  Go get some

      before they foolishly take them off the shelves again!

A "Greatest Hits of 2015" item - I TOLD you they were a winner!!  :)

STAY WARM EVERYBODY!!

Check Your Cashews

Ruh-roh...  Check your cashews!
Possible salmonella scare with TJ's Raw Cashew Pieces.


CNN TJ Cashew Recall Link

Tarte d’Alsace

Hi guys!!!  I AM BACK!  Well, back for this review I mean.

Man, we got this pizza at the Orlando (Winterpark) Trader Joe’s and as soon as we took our first bites we looked at each other and said, “NOW THIS IS A GOOD PIZZA!” (we might have said something similar to that, I was way too busy eating pizza to write down our exact words).  Have you tried this one??  If you have not, please take a moment now to add it to your shopping list for your next visit to TJ’s.

David misunderstanding "tarte" for "tart"...  

The box says that this is a “French style flatbread with ham, caramelized onion, and gruyere cheese”.  Here is how I cooked this puppy:  heat the oven to 450 degrees for ten minutes, then put the pizza on a baking tray and cook it between 8 – 10 minutes (I cooked it 12 minutes).

Here are our rave reviews:

David – “This is great.  Oh my God.  The HAM is really tasty in a way that makes me think, it’s not the kind of ham you think of, it might be, like, pancetta or something like that.  The gruyere, of course, is a delicious cheese that you seldom run into.  The bread itself is crispy, thin and delightful because of the oil, or butter, the cheese or something – SOMETHING is going on there.  The whole thing is delightful!  Because you think you are gonna get a piece of pizza, ok, pizza, more pizza, oh well…  But then it turns out to be this FLATBREAD!  A flatbread that is soooo tasty, without the leaden weight of an American pizza thing.  Great!  High marks Trader Joe’s!!”

Oh man, looking at the photo makes my mouth water...  I wish we had another one to eat for dinner tonight.

I was trying to figure out the taste I was loving.  I thought maybe there was a béchamel sauce under the cheese or something.  But then I looked at the box and discovered the mystery – crème fraiche!  I think, to me, THAT is what gives it the simply amazing taste.  Well, that PLUS the gruyere.  Well, those two things PLUS the flatbread…  It is the combination of those three things that makes this such a winner.

(One theory that I have is that, as long as they started with those 3 ingredients I just raved about above, they could have topped it off with turds and it would still taste amazing.  Not that I want to SAMPLE that if they do it, mind you, but I’m just saying, with a base of those 3 rockin’ ingredients I might just accept whatever came next.)

The HAM has a nice little bit of salty quality but it is not at all overly salty.  Normally when I eat pizza I add hot pepper or hot pepper flakes to it.  David wanted to add extra mozzarella to this before we cooked it and I convinced him not to.  That was right!  Do NOT add to this masterpiece!  It is the perfect pizza without any messing around needed!!

This flatbread is seriously worth every penny of the $4.49

One weird thing about this item is that it is branded as being made by “Maître Pierre”.  Normally any French style stuff at TJ’s is branded “Trader Jacques” so that freaked us out a bit.  What’s up with that, Joe??  Anyone from corporate reading and can comment??

Quick side note here:  so we have been luxuriating in Florida for a month now.  It is almost time for our 14 hour drive back to real life.  Yes, cold winter looms.  But so does quick, easy access to TRADER JOE’S!!  We have missed it.  We brought lots of wine from TJ’s with us when we came to Florida, but not enough to last a whole month.  We had to break down and buy wine at the local Florida supermarket (Publix) this week! 

Look!  We don't ONLY shop at Trader Joe's!  We went to Ikea in Orlando.

I wanted to show you our new exciting stuff from Ikea!  The Florida house is very “beachy” – it is a block and a half from the ocean.  Because it is a vacation home, it is painted in what we think of as VACATION COLORS!  It is bright, bright, bright!  And now there is a kitchen cabinet to match it all!  Check out the new Ikea STUVA!!! 

David, in unmatched jammies, with the flatbread, in front of the Stuva.  What a combination!

It is designed to be a piece of furniture in a kid’s bedroom, but who says it is limited to that!  We have had it in the kitchen here 2 weeks now and it is working great!  We also got the little cutting board/table thing next to it and a butcher block to go on top of it.  Yeah, we went a little Ikea crazy…

The Stuva open - David loves the pull out wire drawer.  The dining room is the same color green as the Stuva.

The new wooden stand.  This is after we put beeswax treatment on the top of it, and before David went a little wacko and covered the whole entire thing with the treatment stuff...  Note the TJ's cider!!  

If you want to see more about the beach house or consider renting it for your vacation, check it out here:  Hibiscus House website

Back to the flatbread:  granted, we were hungry when we ate this item.  But we loved it.  We both give it a rating of 5.  We will for sure be having it again when we get back to Trader Joe’s land. 

It was fun “talking” with you guys again.  Have fun grocery shopping!

P.S. - I somehow messed up the formatting/template of this blog.  Sigh.  It doesn't look the same anymore, does it??  I have tried to get it back to how it used to be but to no avail.  Is it ok like this? Still readable? 

Price – $4.49

Rating - 5

I Miss You!

Hi guys!  I miss you!!  :)

We went to Trader Joe's in Winter Park yesterday, and it was SO ODD to not to "have to" take photos for the blog!!  We did get a few things - I mean, just cuz the blog is "done" (save sporadic reviews) doesn't mean we are not shopping at TJ's anymore!!

We saw something while we were there that I wish I had picked up but didn't - Hatch Valley Peppers FROZEN, not the salsa!!  Has anyone else seen them?  We are totally spoiled by our usual living situation: I bet there are ten Trader Joe's in a 20 mile radius from our home...  But here in Florida it is a 90 minute drive to TJ's, sigh.  So I can't just pop back to the store to grab them!

Friends in the DC metro area that may be reading this - can one of you pick me up one of this frozen Hatch Valley pepper product and hold it for a couple of weeks for me??  I will pay you back and pick it up when we are in town.  Pretty please??  I fear they will be gone by the time we are back in Trader Joe's land!!

And readers far and wide (not only DC) - WHAT DOES ONE DO WITH THIS FROZEN PEPPER PRODUCT??  I do not know what in the world I would DO with it if I am lucky enough to snag one, but I literally lost sleep over missing out on getting one last night.  :)

Here is a quick photo of David, in case you are missing the funny shots of him with Trader Joe's products.  This one was taken yesterday in the Orlando Ikea where we made FOUR, count 'em, FOUR trips around the entiiiire store in our quest to find the perfect items!

Who DOESN'T need a SMARTASSEL, no matter the cost?????