Day 344 - This Cranberry Walks into a Bar

Trader Joe’s has a series of “This ___ Walks into a Bar” bars.  J  I think they are some of the most cleverly named products that grace the shelves.  I mean really, doesn’t the name just make you smile?  (And doesn’t it make you want to tell a joke??)

One evening we were in a TJ’s and they were sampling this particular variety – This CRANBERRY Walks into a Bar.  We do not normally buy breakfast bars, but we sampled them, liked them, and bought a box.  

Isn't it a great name??

 There it is again – Trader Joe’s amazing sampling program results in SALES, folks.  Other grocery stores should take note.  (And if I might add a bit here:  TJ’s sampling program is different than, say, Sam’s Club or BJ’s.  At other stores, a company is contracted to supply demo people who come in, set up a little stand, and hand out samples.  At Trader Joe’s, it is REAL TJ’S EMPLOYEES doing the demo-ing.  And let me tell you, that makes all the difference!  The people you are talking to actually KNOW the product.  They have eaten it.  they can tell you things it will go well with.  They can offer you alternatives to it.  They care!  And that, my friends, is why I am such a fan of TJ’s sampling and why I think it works to drive up their sales.)  J

See???  They demo-ed this cereal bar, we tried it, we bought it.  Voila!

But I digress…  We sampled these in store, liked them, and bought them.

Then when it came time to review them, I thought, “Who can I ask to be a guest reviewer on this one?  OH YEAH – MY FRIENDS ANDY AND LAURA!!!!”.  They live in Indianapolis and are very, very fun (and funny).  They are cool peeps.  I asked if they would be willing and they were, so I sent them a short list of products I wanted to review for them to choose from, and Laura picked this one.

Oh, one more thing.  Andy is Deaf.  And Laura is an interpreter.  So here you have it – Trader Joe’s 365 first ever ASL (American Sign Language) REVIEW!!!!  Andy is signing the review in ASL and Laura is interpreting (for all of you signing impaired people J ) into English.  Take it away Andy and Laura!!  (Note:  apparently the video will not play on mobile devices.  But check it out on your computer!  Andy is funny in his Army helmet.)

David also reviewed This Cranberry Walks into a Bar, but he did his only in English. :) 

David – “These bars are very good.  I don’t have any complaints.  I like them.  I am not a Fig Newton man, but this cranberry bar has the juiciness and sweetness like a JAM that makes the biscuit on the whole delicious.

It is very portable, so I throw one in the car.  That way, if you are late for work and you need something for breakfast you can eat it.  (Editor’s note:  David is often running late in the mornings.  He enjoys hot showers a little too much and it is hard for him to get moving in the mornings.  I asked him if he was “Often running late for work?” and he replied, “Well if I didn’t have to work I would be on time…”)

If you need a little snack for delightfulness this bar serves that purpose, too, because it is nicely sweet.  There is a lot of cranberry goo.  I give this a 4.5.”

The sign is for "This Blueberry Walks into a Bar", but the series is all the same price :).

 I will consider Andy and Laura’s score (which he forgot to mention in the video, but was a 4.25) with David’s (4.5), and add in my vote (4.25) for the final score.

Price – $1.99

Rating – 4.25

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

Day 248 - Field Fresh Chopped Salad with Chicken

This was a HEALTHY PURCHASE during our Indy Fringe craziness.  We grabbed on one of our trips to the lovely Indy Trader Joe’s, then ended up tossing it in a bag one afternoon as we ran out to see shows.  We ate it while sitting outside between shows – actually, I ate it then…  David was handing out postcards of his show (an act which we call “carding”) to people in line for other shows, trying to convince them that HIS was the show they should not miss.  Not to worry, I saved him some salad to eat after his carding!

David in a shot from the delicate and dangerous TIGHT ROPE scene!  :)

On first bite I was afraid that the dressing was too sweet, but it wasn’t.  The couscous also looked, how shall I say, too plentiful, but I was wrong on that count, too!  The couscous (of the Israeli variety) was lovely!  It was plump and cold and a very nice contrast to the other ingredients.  The lettuce was nice and crunchy and it was good to eat on a hot summer day.  The toasted pecans were also a nice addition.

Here is the salad in our cart - see the Israeli Cousous?  Yum.

David said, “It is lovely.  The crisp, crunchy lettuce is offset by the smooth but meaty body of the chicken and couscous.  And it is all united by the smooth but flavorful salad dressing, which is sweet but not too sweet.”

This is a very fair price for a crisp, fresh, healthy salad that you don't have to make yourself

We both recommend this as one of the grab and go lunch choices at Trader Joe’s.

Price - $4.49

Rating - 4

Day 241 - Blue Stilton

Blue Stilton is a lovely cheese.  A strong cheese.  Ok, it is a cheese most people would call a STINKY or SMELLY cheese, but it is darn good!

And this Trader Joe’s version of Blue Stilton was GOOD.  So good, in fact, that after we shared our first one with other artists at the Indy Fringe over wine and I had to leave town for a couple of days, David went BACK to Trader Joe’s and stocked up on ANOTHER one.  Then, after we finished  that one and came back home to Virginia, last night at Trader Joe’s he bought ANOTHER ONE.  So that is 3 purchases of this lovely cheese in just 2 short weeks.  Ahhhh – stinky cheese rules!

  

Trader Joe's Blue Stilton - a right good stinky cheese

This cheese is good to put on a cracker and eat while sitting under the stars and sipping red wine. 

It is also good to eat in a salad while sitting in front of a television watching trash tv like “Naked and Afraid” and drinking San Pellegrino (which got a great review on day 94 of this blog)

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/04/day-94-san-pellegrino-water.html  

I imagine it would also work well crumbled up and spread over a thin pasta.  Or in an omelet.  The sky is the limit.  J

From England - like lots of other good things

As you can see from the signage in the Indianapolis Trader Joe’s, this cheese is from England.  Lots of good things are from England!  Let’s think of a few:  the Beatles, Hobnob Digestive Biscuits, fish ‘n’ chips, my Aunt Shirley, and Amy Winehouse.  Now we can add this Blue Stilton to the list.

Aunt Shirley!!!  The best Aunt in England.

If you do not like smelly cheeses this is not the cheese for you.  But Greg, a hybrid musician from Boston who was in Indy with us, is a foodie and DOES like smelly cheeses and here is what he thought of this particular one when we shared it with him:  “This Stilton was a fine version of the cheese.  It is a little sharp and a little pungent.  It has a good flavor and balance of salinity.  It is a delightful snack at the end of the day.”

It is not cheap, but it is much cheaper than airfare to England to pick up the cheese there.  

David says:  “This cheese is DELIGHTFUL!  It is flavorful and pungent.  It has some structure to it, yet is nice and creamy as well.”

This cheese is a win for stinky cheese lovers.  

Price – $11.99/lb

Rating – 4.5

Day 238 - Steamed Mussels in White Wine Sauce

I am guessing this was the first time in Indy Fringe history that MUSSELS were served at the BEER TENT… 

We had picked up a box of mussels at the Indy Trader Joe’s on the advice of a really cool employee.  When he heard about the blog he wanted to make sure we got some new products to try, so he steered us to these brand new, reasonably priced MUSSELS.  We bought a box.  Then proceeded to forget we had them in the freezer of the apartment we were staying in for our time in Indy.  Oops!  But the final night of the festival I remembered, so OUT THEY CAME!

Here is the box - find it in the frozen food section

 The box explains that you can leave them in the bag and cook them in the microwave or in hot water.  Since we were trying to get them to the party before everyone left (we didn’t think of them until around 11:00 PM) we chose the faster microwave method.  Lucky for us our apartment was only a couple of blocks from the beer tent, so we poured the mussels and sauce into a bowl, covered THAT bowl with another bowl, and rushed to share them with friends.

We are not huge mussels eaters.  The only time I can remember having them is in Paris, and we have never made them at home, only ordered them while out to eat.  So I was a bit nervous but excited to try them.

Something about MUSSELS made me want to make a FISH FACE

They were pretty good!  They were super easy to cook.  The sauce was good, I really wished we had a baguette to soak it up and eat it.  The garlic was nice.  The mussels themselves were a bit chewy but not too bad.

Laura, the mother of a performer who had come to town to see her son’s shows, tried the mussels.  She said they were very flavorful, in fact, delightful!

Laura likes mussels!

Taylor, a magician, liked the mussels.  As a magician, she made several disappear (into her belly!).  She said the mussels were “not bad”.  She is from the Northeast and claims these were “just a little chewy, but some people like them that way”.

Taylor did some magic on the mussels

David also ate some and he started a discussion at the table of what the HERB was in the sauce…  Tarragon?  Something else?  In the end we learned it was THYME. 

Eating mussels and drinking beer at the end of a long festival - life is good

They are really pretty cheap, considering how much you would pay for this many mussels in a restaurant.

Only $3.99!

Price – $3.99

Rating – 3.75

Day 236 - New Day South Cider

This is a pretty good cider.  We got it at the Indianapolis Trader Joe’s, where the employees are kind and friendly.  We wanted some local products so this one jumped out at us. (Of course it did not literally jump out…  When I say “jumped out” I mean I NOTICED it as being made in Indianapolis…)

See - the sign says FROM INDIANAPOLIS, IN - so it is LOCAL!

We drank this cider served very cold in a glass (not from the bottle).  Perhaps we were trying to be fancy, I do not know.  J

It is dry (ish) and has an apple-y flavor, but not as apple-y as some other ciders, which in my opinion is a good thing.

Sorry, this photo is a bit blurry.  And it was taken BEFORE I had anything to drink!

This cider would be a good drink for an evening where you want something refreshing to drink but are not quite in the mood for beer.  It comes in a good sized bottle- 16.9 ozs (we shared one).  It would be nice served with a sharp cheddar on a fresh baguette.

Me pretending to chug a cider while still in the store.  Note the cap is still on...

If you are in an area where they sell this (I am guessing only Indiana), it is worth a try.

Price - $5.49

Rating – 3.75

Day 234 - Triple Cream Brie with Mushrooms

This cheese is DECADENT!   It is the sort of cheese you would expect to find in a little case in some super fancy schmancy wine shop – only it is AT TRADER JOE’S!  And instead of being a bazillion dollars, it is $9.99 a pound.  That means our chunk which was plenty big (almost half a pound) came in for under $5. 

$9.99 per pound

Brie with MUSHROOMS?  I'm in.

Remember how I recently explained that we are in the middle of the Indianapolis Fringe Festival, and that traditionally Fringe artists eat crap the entire time of the Fringe?  Well we are mixing that up a bit this Fringe, and so we showed up at the beer tent with this cheese, a Stilton (to be reviewed soon), some crackers (also deserving of a review forthcoming), and a bottle of wine.  Trust me, this cheese was a change of pace from your “normal Fringe Festival food”. 

We shared with a few artists and later asked them to tell us what they thought of it.  Two performers from the Fourth Wall, a hybrid music group, replied.  Hilary said, “I’m terrible at describing food!  Greg will be better”.  Gee, thanks Hilary!  

Greg is playing accordian.  Oh - and that is Hilary playing upside-down flute...  You can learn more about their group at 

https://www.facebook.com/TheFourthWallEnsemble?fref=ts

But she was right, Greg was good.  Here is a foodie and here is what he had to say about this cheese, “The mushroom Brie had a nice mushroom flavor.  Good earthiness without being over powering like some truffle cheeses (see – I told you he was a foodie!  He has other truffle cheese in his head  to compare this to!).  The cheese itself was somewhat lacking in character, but its’ luxurious creaminess was an excellent backdrop for the savory mushrooms.”

Damn.  Drop the mic.  He needs to be a food critic, no?

This is a damn fine cheese

I would disagree with him slightly in that I do not think the cheese lacked in character, but hey, everyone has their own opinion.

I left this out on the counter for the evening to warm up.  It was lovely and spreadable.  It would be ah-frickin’-mazing on a fresh baguette.  The mushrooms are sooooo good in this! 

I am glad we discovered this one at the Trader Joe’s in Indianapolis.  We will certainly get it again – both for us to chow down on and to serve to guests. 

This cheese is a winner.

Price - $9.99 per pound

Rating – 4.75

Day 230 - Mango 100% Juice Smoothie

We are still at the Indy Fringe Festival.  David is performing his solo show “A Little Business at the Big Top” (I directed it).  We travel to festivals all around and all of them have one thing in common – the people involved with productions do not eat healthy and are exhausted.

So on our trip to Trader Joe’s, I picked up this Mango 100% Juice Smoothie, thinking it would be a healthy addition to our diet.

Not cheap, but chock full of health

And it was!  As soon as I took the first sip I felt a jolt of HEALTH coursing through my veins!  (Even though, technically, the juice was in my MOUTH and my esophagus, not my veins, but you know what I mean…)  It felt like I was pouring a whole mango into my body!  And mangos are both TASTY and HEALTHY. 

Mango is definitely the strongest flavor in this juice, but the label tells me it also contains banana puree, apple juice, orange juice, and lemon juice.  And it is an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of vitamin C. 

Ahhh - a chug of health

I sort of feel like I should invest in a case of these juices and hand them out to weary performers at the Fringe Beer Tent.  They would do everyone a world of good!  David doesn’t like this smoothie and so wouldn’t drink one, but that would just leave more for other performers. 

This is David in the Indianapolis Trader Joe's PRETENDING he is going to like this Mango Smoothie.  He had already decided he thought it looked yucky, but we liked the CLOUDS they have hanging up so he was being all angelic or something...

I wish the juice was a litttttle less thick, but it IS a smoothie and not a juice, so I guess I cannot rightfully complain.  It comes in a one pint plastic recyclable bottle. 

If I had a Trader Joe’s smoothie competition, I would say this one beats the Very Green Smoothie (reviewed on day 156 of this blog) and the Strawberry Chia Smoothie (reviewed on day 145 of this blog).  This one does the best to balance YUMMY TASTE with GOOD FOR YOU.

Price - $2.99

Rating - 4

Day 229 - Aprium

We are in a new city, which means visiting a NEW TRADER JOE’S!  Yippee!  We went to the TJ’s on West 86^th Street in Indianapolis.  It is a pretty store!

Yah - Indianapolis Trader Joe's!!

The employees were all super nice.  One woman asked us right off the bat if we needed help finding anything.  Other employees were super helpful when we DID need help, especially the guy with the beard who knew a lot about beer (sorry, I wish I remembered his name!).  And Amy was our cashier.  Here is a photo of Amy and me.

Here's Amy and me showing a couple of our purchases!

Amy writes the local news for their Trader Joe’s newsletter!  So Amy and I are like sisters from a different mister – we both write about Trader Joe’s stuff a lot!  She was really knowledgeable and friendly.  It was cool to meet you Amy!

Now, on to the review.  We bought an APRIUM.  “A WHAT??” you say???  Well, I assume it is a cross between an apricot and a plum.  I am surprised the signage didn’t explain more about it.  There MUST be something fun you could do with a Frankenstein fruit like an aprium, no?  I am curious what other stores have on their aprium signs.

Don't they look pretty?  But I think more creative signage is needed.  :)

We liked this fruit.  It was much more PLUM than apricot.  It was firm without being hard – it had a lovely firm fleshy texture.  There was no mush factor, which was good.  It had a tiny bit of sourness (from the skin).  The flesh was sweet.  It was meaty and tasty.  It was not dry, but not so juicy that you got a sticky chin from juice trickling down as you ate it.  The stone was difficult to get out – you need to cut or chew that puppy out.

David chomping on an aprium

Here is an aprium cut open on a plate

All in all, the aprium is a nice fruit when you need something new.  If you are tired of regular plums, and a traditional apricot just won’t do, why not try their love child, an aprium?

Price - .59 cents each

Rating – 4.25

Day 228 - Rail Splitter IPA (Triton Brewing Company)

If you have read other beer reviews on this blog, you know that I in no way profess to be a beer guru.  I am not a beer snob.  I know almost nothing about beer.  But when I travel to a new city and go to a new Trader Joe’s, I always check and see if they have local beer and/or wine.

Well, when I asked about local wine at the Trader Joe’s in Indianapolis, not one but TWO employees basically steered me away from it.  They both were clear to say that the local wine is SWEET, and the particular varieties that TJ’s carries are the really sweet ones, which apparently are the ones the locals like.  But we are not locals…  So I trusted their “unspoken advice” to skip the wine and went over to the beer section.

Local beer!!

Unlike our beer experience in Chicago where they would only sell us a six pack (it was the law – the store people were totally kind about it but couldn’t break the law, of course), the guys in Indy were more than happy to sell us however many beers we wanted!  So we chose 3 different local beers and one local cider. 

Rail Splitter IPA

This review is about Rail Splitter IPA.  Uncharacteristically for me, I am drinking it without food and at 6:30 pm.  We normally don’t bust out the alcohol until there is a plate of food in front of us and that usually happens sometime after 9:30 pm.  But we are at a Fringe Festival (see http://indyfringe.org/fringe15/little-business-big-top and that means schedules are NUTTY and life is turned on it’s head.  So, here I am post-show drinking this IPA!  (I directed a show in the festival, my partner David’s “A Little Business at the Big Top”!  It’s great, if I do say so myself, but of course I am a tad bit biased…).

"A Little Business at the Big Top" - coming soon to a theatre near you!
(That is, if you live near a theatre in Indianapolis or Cincinnati...) 

Back to the beer.

Yes!  This is good!  If you like IPA and you live in the Indiana area you should try this for sure.  We learned from TJ’s employees that on the TV show “Parks and Rec”, which took place in Pawnee, Indiana, a fictitious town, they always drank Rail Splitter beer!  As non-Hoosiers* we never noticed that, but I guess the locals really dig it (as would I if I had a local connection!).  Here is an article I found recapping the awesome (and certainly missed) TV show” Parks and Rec” - http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/arts-culture/parks-recreation-recap-one-last-ride/

David’s take is that this is not a “day drankin’” beer but would be good with stilton cheese!”.  Note – this is the second time lately in reviews that David has said “day drankin’”.  I think this is because a place we drive by often has it on their marquee and it makes us giggle. 

Anyway, try this beer.  It is good.

*I do not know what a Hoosier is…  I do not think I should need to Google this.  If people here call themselves something, I want them to tell me what that something means, ya know?  So far I have asked two people and they didn’t really know, they said something like, “It means a person from Indiana…”.  Yeah, but WHAT IS A HOOSIER?  Like, why is a person from Indiana called that?

Price – $1.67 per bottle

Rating – 3.75