Naso Rosso (Laurello Vineyards) - red wine

If you have read any of the other wine reviews in this Trader Joe’s blog, you KNOW I am not a wine snob.  Heck, I am a cheap date as far as wine is concerned!!!  I have given a 4.25 star review to a CHARLES SHAW Sauvignon Blanc that costs $3.29, folks (see that review here:  C.S. Sauvignon Blanc .  I don’t think anyone could call me elitist in the wine department…

And I am a big fan of CLOWNS.  A clown is featured on this wine label, which was the major selling point for me.  In fact, when it all boils down to it, I am MARRIED to a clown.  David is also known as Dr. Beano in the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit and performs in Children's National Medical Center in DC.  We also go to loads of circuses, like, way more circuses than the average person attends…  We were at one just last week (Barnum and Bailey), and one of my most memorable birthdays was when I was treated to not ONE but TWO circuses on the same day!!

Dr. Beano waiting for kids to arrive for the Big Apple Circus of the Senses 

Dr. Beano juggling

And yet...  And yet, as you will soon see, I cannot in good faith give this wine a good review.  Hell, I cannot even give it a mediocre review.  Because as much as I love to support the “little guy”, as much as I root for the “underdog”, and as much as I like to “buy local”, I feel the need to warn anyone who might happen on this bottle of crap in an Ohio Trader Joe’s…  My love of circus clowns and my desire to drink cheap wine cannot save this dreck.

When we go to a new town I always check to see if they have a Trader Joe’s.  And when we go to a new TJ’s, I always hunt for something unique to that state/city/store.  Almost every item in TJ’s stores is uniform – if you find it in California you will find it in Florida.  But they usually have something unique, one or two LOCAL items.  And that is what I hunt for and buy!  Sometimes it is a HONEY (like Mike’s Hot Honey, see review here: Mike's Hot Honey ).  Often it is a BEER (like Rail Splitter IPA, see review here:  Rail Splitter IPA ).  And sometimes it is a bottle of local wine, like this crappy bottle of Laurello Vineyards Naso Rosso from Geneva, Ohio… 

I was lured in by the artwork on the label.  As PT Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute".

The store employee in Ohio actually subtly warned me that this was not a great wine…  In fact, if I remember right, he quietly told me this was a BAD WINE…  We bought this bottle last fall and kept it in our wine rack.  I referred to it as THE SCARY CLOWN WINE because seriously, this is one scary ass clown on the label!!  (And no, I do not have coulrophobia, fear of clowns.  But if YOU ran into this clown in a dark alley you would do well to be frightened!!)  I was so distracted by the scary clown drawing that I never even NOTICED the name of the wine is “Naso Rosso” – or RED NOSE.  David just pointed out to me now that the name “Red Nose” also references a drunk’s perpetually red nose.  Clever, Laurello Vineyards, clever!  (If only you put as much work into the making of a tasty wine as you did into naming it…) 

We recently traveled across country to California and it took us 17 hours to get home to DC.  So as a treat when we got back, I opened the SCARY CLOWN WINE!  Just OPENING it, before I had even poured or tasted it, I got a whiff of “not good”.  It smelled like a super strong GRAPE KOOL-AID.  It was, how shall I say, ODD…

Then I tasted it, and it tasted like C-R-A-P.  It tastes like a mixture of grape Kool-Aid, sugar, and cough syrup.  Those tastes are NOT really what I am looking for in a bottle of wine…  The label says, “Wine should be as spontaneous as a circus clown, and as appreciated as a piece of fine art.  Nasso Roso is a fun, fruity red wine perfect for any occasion.  The clown “Tete de Clown” is a famous piece from French artist Bernard Buffet.  To enjoy all of Bernard’s work visit his website http://bernardbuffet.com/  .” 

Promo image from "A Little Business at the Big Top" - David's circus show.  We will be on the road with it this summer!

David is a clown.  David studied clown in France.  David has an original one man show that is a circus piece, and we have hunted for wine with circus labels to give to technicians as thank you gifts.  Lord, I am glad that we did not give this crappy bottle of wine to a technician!!  I would be mortified now that I know what it tastes like if we had given it as a gift.

Here is what David thought of Scary Clown Wine (aka Naso Rosso): “You are right.  This is a terrible bottle of wine.  You nailed the essential problem areas; cough syrup, sugar, and grape Kool-Aid/grape juice elements. This is a wine that exists in the spectrum of the Jewish religious table wines – the Manishewitz that I tasted in my youth comes to mind.  But this is probably even worse than that.  This is definitely BAD.  I am sure someone out there will enjoy it…  But it is not us.  It would probably get you drunk if it is a cold night and you are on the streets”.

But then we considered all of the other places (other than on the streets) you could be where you might be wanting a bottle of wine – in a house, an apartment, a hotel room, a teepee, a tiny house, a balcony, a TENT…  If you are in any of those places, do not get this wine.  Trust us.

It is rare that we even think of dumping out a bottle of wine.  We drank about four drinks of Scary Clown and then agreed that we had to do something we had never done before – THROW OUT A JUST OPENED BOTTLE OF WINE.  Yes, it was that crappy.

Yes, it was THAT BAD.

If you live in Ohio and you go to Trader Joe’s buy ANY OTHER WINE instead of this.  And if you live in a state other than TJ’s and cannot find this wine in your store, you can thank your lucky stars.

David and I agreed that this wine deserves .25 stars.  And trust me, the stars are not for the actual WINE.  They are for the scary clown artwork. 

Rating - .25

Price – $9.99

(Shopper alert:  GET EMMA PEARL WINE instead!  It is only $3.99 and got a 5 star review here:  Emma Pearl

Bonus photo!  Us at the circus, Dulles, VA

Note:  Laurello Vineyards, I am sorry to diss your wine so badly.  I wanted to like it, honestly I did!!  I looked at your website (Laurello Vineyards ) and you look like a lovely vineyard!!  I imagine that the other wines you produce taste much better than Scary Clown.  (It DOES worry me a bit, though, that you classify Naso Rosso as “semi sweet”…  I told David that and he said, “God help us when they get to the sweet ones if that is semi sweet!”.)  Anyway, I am willing to let bygones be bygones.  If we ever end up in your neck of the woods, I will pop in for a tasting.  Let’s be clear, NOT a tasting of Scary Clown, but of your other wines!  J )

2nd bonus photo - us at Circus Vargas in San Diego, CA.  See - I TOLD you we go to lots of circuses!

Day 342 - Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite

Here’s the thing:  “internet life” is sort of like “pretend life”, isn’t it?  I mean, online, the people “aren’t real”, which is why some folks can sometimes say such mean, hateful things that they would not say in a face to face conversation; or post insane photos of themselves that they would never take out and pass around at a family gathering.  The internet can seem like a make-believe world. 

Granted, my view of life online is decidedly different than that:  I try to live a genuine “online life” just as I do in “real life”.  I don’t make things up, I don’t only post flattering photos (oh heavens, I think this blog is proof that there are some unflattering photos of David and I out in cyberspace…), and I don’t post things online that I would not want to say to someone in a real life conversation.

Even so, “internet life” and “real life” ARE different. 

But sometimes “internet life” and “real life” somehow magically intersect, and when that happens, you find yourself in a Trader Joe’s on a Sunday morning in Chelsea (NYC) saying, “Are you Ttrockwood???”.

YES!!!  I GO TO MEET TTROCKWOOD, A READER OF THIS BLOG!!!!!  (If the ALL CAPS didn’t indicate it clearly enough, I will spell it out for you:  I was very excited!)

LOOK!!!  I met Ttrockwood in REAL LIFE!  In the Trader Joe's Chelsea store.

Ttrockwood is a reader and frequent commenter here.  I always like when Ttrockwood comments.  And I already had a super cool and fun experience with Ttrockwood earlier this fall when we did a HONEY EXCHANGE – they didn’t have Tuscan honey at their Trader Joe’s, so I offered to send some (review here), and in return, Ttrockwood sent ME Mike’s Hot Honey that is only available in THEIR TJ’s (review here).  I mean, that honey exchange already sort of blew my mind – that a person I had never met in real life was interacting with me not only ONLINE but via the US POSTAL SERVICE was bizarre!!!

So when we planned a quick trip to NYC recently, I contacted Ttrockwood to ask if we could meet up.  I was a little nervous.  It was not because I was AFRAID to meet, but because I was afraid Ttrockwood might think I was a weirdo or a stalker or something!  I mean, I just emailed out of the blue and was like, “Hey, do you want to meet us at a Trader Joe’s??”.  Sorta strange…

So when a positive reply came back and a date/time were set, I was so excited!!! 

Ttrockwood teaching David some of the finer points of inner city TJ's shopping

I have to let you in on a secret – for all the months that Ttrockwood has been commenting here and I have been smiling and reading the comments out loud to David, I have been unable to identify Ttrockwood with a pronoun.  That is because I have never known if Ttrockwood was a male or female.  And that mystery was lovely!!!  I so enjoyed the verbal challenge of not applying a pronoun!  (Oh sure, I could have tried the gender neutral “Ze”* but that is quite cumbersome for some reason…)   So I would say things like, “David!!  Ttrockwood is down to meet us at the Trader Joe’s in Chelsea!  They will be there at 10:30 am!”.  J  I LIKED not knowing a gender, but I was also curious to see him/her face to face and figure out which pronoun was more appropriate!   (Side note:  in my work as a sign language interpreter I often face the challenge of unknown gender, as ASL is not as definite as English in pronouns.  So maybe it is because of this experience in my professional life that I found this challenge to be so fun in my personal life.)

Of course, Ttrockwood has seen a bazillion photos of us here, so knew who to look for when we met up.  But all I knew was that the person would be blonde and have a camo backpack.

But it turns out that info was more than enough to quickly see Ttrockwood at the TJ’s entrance and blurt out, “Hey, are you TTROCKWOOD???” and give her a big hug!! 

Introductions (and pronouns) done, we set about shopping at one of her local Trader Joe’s.  It was so fun to have a personal concierge showing us around!  She knew all of the ins and outs of the Chelsea store and was happy to teach us.  And let’s just say, there is sort of a lot to learn about shopping that urban TJ’s! 

Two long ass lines - very organized and cool

First off, the line basically goes through the whole store.  It is really well managed and moves quickly.  There is an employee at the end of the line with a cute “End of Line” banner, and an employee at the middle of the line with a “Middle of Line” banner.  The middle is important because, pay close attention here, the middle is where the line SPLITS INTO TWO lines.  “HUH???” you think.  I KNOW, crazy, eh??  And that is where having a tour guide like Ttrockwood with you makes all the difference!  She explained that if you want to grab BAKED GOODS or REFRIGREATED MEATS while waiting in line, you take the OUTSIDE/RIGHTHAND of the 2 lines, but if you want to continue shopping for FROZEN GOODS or TREATS while in line, you migrate to the INSIDE/LEFTHAND line.  Man, shopping in Chelsea is COMPLEX!!  (But cool.)

Here's the MIDDLE OF THE LINE guy, see his banner??

The store was much, much bigger than anticipated.  The footprint would be big even for a suburban location where they paid much less rent.  Ttrockwood explained that we were there at a “slow time” and amateurs like us would get eaten alive if we showed up during peak hours.  J 

Of course, many things are the same as they are in other Trader Joe’s – friendly staff, double bagged groceries, tasting station.  Actually the tasting station was funny, because it was completely obstructed by the outside line.  Oh sure, I guess you could pick the outside line to wait in if you wanted to grab a sample, but what if you were still SHOPPING and wanted a sample?  I wormed my way between the people in line to nab a tiny plop of oatmeal.  I doubt my technique was “correct” but hey, I was a tourist!!

Ttrockwood taught us her patented “drop it and grab it technique” that she uses at her crowded Trader Joe’s!  It goes like this:

1.        Take your place in the long ass line.

2.       Drop your shopping basket (the little handheld one) in your spot to save your place. 

3.       Quickly grab the desired item from the nearest aisle.

4.       Return to your basket and drop in the item before the line moves!

See, it is lessons like that that you cannot learn from a YouTube video!

Our lunch!

We decided to grab a Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite to eat later in the day, and Ttrockwood got the same salad.  That way we could review them “together” (though eating them apart).  Ttrockwood sent me her review:

Salad close up

 Ttrockwood - “I had my Mega Crunchy salad today and my deep thoughts are......

I loved the texture and fork sized bites of crunchy veggies.  The beans and quinoa were great additions, so it's a legit salad meal vs salad that leaves you starving an hour later. The cilantro dressing packet had waaaay too much for one salad.  I liked it, but didn't pay enough attention to the label so the spicy kick surprised me (be warned if you're sensitive to spicy stuff). 

I'll totally buy it again. Solid 4.5 here. “

David and I did the totalllllly tourist thing of sitting in Times Square and eating our salad.  It was a strangely warm December afternoon so a great day to dine al fresco!  We thought we sat on the “sunny side” of the steps, but shortly after we dug into the salad the skyscrapers soon blocked the sunshine L.

Panorama of our lunchtime view.  I am not sure you can see it in this photo, but on the left side there is
an ad for KINKY BOOTS very near an ad that says, "A Savior is Born".  Ahhh NYC.

I must point out:  this is the first review I have ever done where, in the middle of the review, a complete stranger walked by us with his hand DOWN HIS PANTS feeling himself.  I kid you not.  In the middle of Times Square.  He made no attempt to hide it.  He didn’t seem to be doing it to “impress” anyone.  He was simply walking up all of the steps to get to the top and take a group selfie with his friends, but along the way he decided he needed to unzip his pants and play with himself.  Only in New York…

Now, here is what we thought of Trader Joe’s Mega Crunchy Salad with a Bite (with quinoa, carrots, adzuki beans, jicama, sunflower seeds, and cranberries with a cilantro dressing) (ironically the list of ingredients on the front do not mention LETTUCE, but I can confirm there is, indeed, actual lettuce in there, too):

Tasty salad in a fun environment!

Me – I really, really liked this!  It is delicious.  Many pre-packaged salads suffer from the dreaded “not enough dressing” problem, making them dry.   THIS salad does not have that issue, in fact my lunch date put the whooooole packet of dressing on and for my taste there is a bit TOO much dressing.  I really like the dressing though!  It has something hot and spicy in it, giving it a real ZIP. 

The veggie bits in the salad are chopped very small and are, as the name promised, crunchy.  I like them a lot.  I did not notice the taste of sunflower seeds until my last bite of salad. 

When reading the list of ingredients one might fear that this salad would be “too crunchy-granola-tree-hugger-y” and that people who were not ardent vegetarians might think it was yucky, but that would be wrong.  It is good.

This is a healthy lunch and it is yummy.  It is easy to grab and go.  Don’t forget to pick up a fork at Trader Joe’s before you leave if you want to eat this on the go (we forgot and had to sneak into a Starbucks and get one).  I give this a 4.75.

We sorta look like giants here!  This was our lunch spot.

David – “THANK YOU FOR PICKING THIS SALAD OUT TTROCKWOOD!  This is a great salad, mostly because of the plethora of sauce (dressing) that you can put on it that kind of blends/melds everything together.  All of the elements are delicious and it has such great “taste-ness” because of that cilantro dressing.  I give this a 4.75.”

Post Trader Joe's selfie :)

Now on to the rating.  Of course, I give the whole experience of actually meeting one of my blog readers and shopping with her a big ol’ shiny FIVE!!!!  It was most excellent.

For the salad, I will average our scores together.  Thanks for coming to Chelsea to shop with us, Ttrockwood.  It rocked.  And guess what guys?  Later this month I get to meet another reader, Marilyn, in Winter Park, Florida!  Wheeeeeee!!!

*Here is a link to an MIT page containing “Ze”, the gender neutral pronoun I referred to earlier:  Ze link here

Chelsea TJ's signage

Price – $3.99

Rating – 4.75

Day 301 - Honeynut Squash (miniature)

This is easily the most adorable vegetable you could ever have on your plate.  They are teeny tiny itty bitty butternut-looking squash!!!!  They are so cute!!  We had never seen them before and Trader Joe’s had a couple of pretty displays of them so we grabbed one.

Opportunity Buys - LIMITED QUANTITY - go get some!

I cut the squash in half and took all the seeds out.  I put the halves in a glass baking dish and prepared each half differently.  For  David’s I put olive oil over the whole thing, salt, pepper, Kerrygold butter (review here) and brown sugar.  In my half I put olive oil all over, salt, pepper, and a special little treat – Mike’s Hot Honey (review here).  I cooked them in the oven on 350 degrees for 50 – 55 minutes.  Both halves turned out really well.

The World's Most Petite Squash

We both thought this vegetable was GREAT!  David said, “It is sweet, luscious, creamy…  It’s soft inside.  I have no complaints!  With honey or butter inside it is fabulous! What can I say??”

The hot honey half was fun – the heat of the honey had a delayed reaction so you didn’t really notice it until you were almost finished with the bite.  I liked David’s brown sugar half, too (thanks for sharing, friend).

You can't see how adorable and tiny it is here...  I served it with a side of pasta and homemade pesto
and eggplant parmesan David made the night before.  Nice combination.

These honeynut squash would be really great to serve at a Thanksgiving meal or dinner party this autumn.  Each person gets half and it makes a perfect serving!  They are pretty and look very seasonal.  I liked it so much I kept the seeds and am drying them to plant in our garden next spring. 

David is trying to be a hipster right now because his final review of these squash is “adorbs” J.  I agree – they are ADORBS.

This is a trick photo.  Doesn't the squash look freakishly HUGE? In reality, it is standing by
the world's smallest jar of  Tabasco.

I am glad that we found this little squash!  We actually have a tradition in our house of buying a regular sized squash and then leaving it on the counter forever.  We never think to cook it.  We usually have a squash on display in some stage of the decay process.  But I think these tiny ones are so cute we would remember to cook ‘em!  A regular sized squash it is just too much for two people.  One HALF of a regular sized squash is enough for two people.  So with these Honeynut Mini Cutie Patooties, cut one in half, cook, and in a two person household everyone gets a perfect sized serving in its own little nature made serving dish!

These are seasonal so get them NOW at Trader Joe’s because they will not have them very long.   Two thumbs up!

Price – .99 (so only .50 cents per serving!!)

Rating - 5

Day 271 - Mike's Hot Honey

You can’t imagine how thrilled I am. 

First off, this whole blog...  I started this as a “project” – one of many that I do.  Most of my projects are local – stuff around my neighborhood.  For example, I turned the “do not cross” red hand on the crosswalk sign next to our house into an “I Love You” ASL sign (black tape, shhhh!). 

Our crosswalk.  Shhh, it has been this way for 2 years. Sharing some love in our hood.

For another project I hung digital cameras (in Ziploc baggies to protect them from the weather) on our front and side gates for a couple of months and put up signs asking people to use them to photograph what to them was “Inspiration, Beauty, and Joy” (if you want to read about that project and see more photos from it, I wrote it up here: Inspiration, Beauty, and Joy )  Here are some of the photos that random strangers who walked by our house took, aren't they great??

Dogwood tree in bloom - mystery photographer at side gate

Mystery shoes

Selfie?  Mystery kid at front gate

Who isn't inspired by iced coffee on a hot day?  Side gate

Peace and roses - beautiful (side gate)

Night time image captured by someone who left a note for the project, too - guy from Brazil.  Cool eh?

So this Trader Joe's blog was one of THOSE types of projects.  Something to let me express my creativity and explore.  But it has turned into so much more!  Today (or tomorrow) I will hit 30,000 views!  30,000 views on my Trader Joe’s reviews!  That seems remarkable to me (maybe in this day and age of stuff “going viral” 30,000 doesn’t sound like a lot to you, but to me, the person whose projects normally only reach people who walk by my home, 30,000 is a lot J ).

This blog has given me a sense of a wider community.  Visiting Trader Joe’s in 10 states (and one District…) so far has been a blast!  We have met cool people in all of those locations.  And so many people are reading this blog - people from all over the world, which is insane to me!  There is someone reading in Bangladesh, in the Ukraine, places that certainly do not have a Trader Joe’s (blog analytics show me the countries which is how I know).   Maybe those readers just end up on the blog through a Google search, maybe they have a friend shipping them TJ’s stuff from the USA, who knows.

And some people take the time to COMMENT on my blog posts.  I LOVE THAT!  Whether they agree with my review or have a different opinion, I love when people comment!! 

One person comments frequently.  I do not know them.  I did not know where they lived.  Just knew that they were reading, enjoying the blog, and sometimes commented.  And every time they DID comment, it made me smile so big.  Well, when I published the review of Turkish Honey (Turkish Honey Review ), they commented:  “  I don’t have this at my Trader Joe’s!  L  Honey on Greek yogurt with fruit is like the perfect breakfast.  I’m sure you’ll use it in hot tea and oatmeal this winter.”  

This stuff is delicious!

Well, I replied to that comment and told them I would be happy to SEND THEM some Turkish Honey!  Heck, I felt like we had commented back and forth so much on the blog that we were friends of a sort!  Cyber friends. 

So we switched the comments over to email and guess what?  THEY OFFERED TO DO A HONEY SWAP!!  If I sent them Turkish Honey, they would send me a special honey that only their Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn carries – Mike’s Hot Honey!  Well you didn’t have to ask me twice!  They could have offered to send me a lump of dirt in exchange for the Turkish Honey and I probably would have accepted cuz I was so excited!!

Mike's Hot Honey, infused with Chilies...  Intriguing, no??

Fast forward – the Turkish Honey arrived in NY, they love it!  J  And the Mike’s Hot Honey arrived at my house this weekend.  I was SO EXCITED!   I opened it last night.  Guess what?  Not only did they send HONEY, they sent a TRADER JOE’S NYC BAG!  You may not know this if you do not shop often at TJ’s, but most states have their own reusable BAGS. They feature something special about that state/city.  This NYC one is great!!!  I love it and will feel very fancy carrying it this afternoon to my local TJ’s.  (Note – the Ohio stores do not have special bags, and their staff was sad about that when we were there.  Corporate, I said it before and I say it again, OHIO NEEDS BAGS.  Please get on that.  J )

Awww, there is a TJ's CARD in the package!

What the what???  A cool NYC TJ's bag, too????

Honey that is HOT??  I am a little worried...

So I opened the Mike’s Hot Honey (honey infused with chilies).  Let me just say that from the get go, before even tasting it, I loved this product.  I loved that it is LOCAL – most Trader Joe’s have one or two local items (often local beer, sometimes wine) but the rest are standard across the stores.  I love finding the local stuff.  I think it is SO COOL when local companies get their products into Trader Joe’s.  I think it must be a great move for them.  I like the PACKAGING of this product – the artwork on the label is really good and the sort of old fashioned plaid pattern on the bottle is so in conflict with the concept of mixing HONEY with CHILIES – definitely NOT an old fashioned thing to do…  I love the COLOR of this honey – it is a golden amber.  And last (but probably most importantly) I loved that it was given as a gift from a reader of this blog!  A cyber friend!!!

So all that was left to do was TASTE it!

Isn't is a gorgeous color??

I made (not from scratch) pumpkin cookies this morning.  David and I both have the day off and we are in slow motion, so breakfast wasn’t until 11 am.  Grapefruit, kefir (to be reviewed soon), espresso, and pumpkin cookies.  But wait – how about PUMPKIN COOKIES DIPPED IN MIKE’S HOT HONEY??  I thought the spice (like nutmeg spice, not hot spice) of the cookie might be a perfect combination with the SPICY spice of the honey.

Please let this mystery Honey Swap Honey be good...  (This is me in the morning, got my hair pulled back and robe on...)

And I was right!

IT IS GOOD!!!  What a combo!

Oh man! 

This is a 12 oz bottle of awesomeness.  The first taste you get when eating this is HONEY.  Followed shortly by spice…  After that you get a huge kick in the ass of CHILI.  It is; HONEY, WARM, ON FIIIIRE all within a millisecond.

The label says you can enjoy it on “pizza, chicken, ribs, salads, cheese, yogurt, fruits, ice cream, roasted veggies, in cocktails and many other foods”.   I can imagine if you had chicken for dinner and had hot biscuits – put a glop of butter and some of this hot honey on the biscuit.  Oh and dipping fried chicken in it would be amazing.  Or drizzling it on CHEESE – maybe a hard cheese.  But I cannot imagine putting it on yogurt, that doesn’t sound yummy to me.  But PIZZA crust dipped in it I think would be good!  The person who sent it to me told me that a local pizza place has this honey for just that use. 

David, a careful dipper

Here was David’s take on it:  “Nah.  This is an example of cramming two things together that don’t belong together in a desperate effort to create a new product to sell.  You need this as badly as you need a formal ball gown that comes complete with a parachute harness.  I will take my honey sweet, thanks.  I like my honey like I like my women – nice and sweet.  I give this honey a 1.”

Not a fan.

Susan:  THIS IS FUNKY AND COOL.  I, as the author of the blog, completely override David’s lame review and give this a 5. 

David:  “Now you are just being spiteful…”

So this entry was a bit long, but I wanted to share with you the joy I get from writing here, from meeting people in the stores, and “meeting” some of you virtually.  Thanks for being so supportive of this blog.  And if you want to get this Mike’s Hot Honey (you should try it!) and do not live in Brooklyn, you can order it online at:  http://mikeshothoney.com/

Price - $6.99 (which is crazy, cuz ordering the same size bottle from the company that makes it is more expensive…  I guess this is a deal TJ’s cut with them to sell it at a discount and do a high volume)

Rating - 5