Day 309 - Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels

David:  “This is a nice concept.  I’m not sure they quite got the peanut butter right….  The outside of the pretzel is crunchy and salty as it should be.  The plump pretzel is a nice tasting pretzel.  But the peanut butter inside is kind of dry and cakey and so it dries out your mouth and doesn’t have that luscious buttery-peanut-butter mouth feel that makes such a nice contrast to the crunch of the pretzel.”

  

See how EXCITED he was when we bought these???

Here is my take:  David was quite excited when we got these and he expected to reallllly like them. However, he has taken the same little Ziploc baggy full of them in his lunch 3 times, and the baggy keeps coming back with almost the same exact amount of pretzels in it…  (He counters, “I did eat a few of them today on my long drive home, because they were all I had and I had a little bit of Pepsi to wash them down…”.)

Seriously people, if you have read any of the other 300-some-odd days of this blog, you know that there is not a lot of snackin’ that David does not like. 

Are you gonna EXAMINE it or EAT it, dude?

I totally agree with him that that peanut butter is too dry.  I think he was playing it nice when he described it now.  It is not a “wee bit dry” – when he described it to me the first time (before I wrote this review) he used MUCH HARSHER words to describe the peanut butter… 

To me, the pretzels themselves are too hard or too big or something.  Believe me when I tell you that I have never in my life eaten a DOG TREAT, but something about these screams DOG TREAT to me!  (We don’t own a dog, heck I do not even LIKE dogs (don’t shoot me, I am scared of them) but if we ran into a dog while I had David’s never ending Ziploc baggy of these pretzels filled with peanut butter, I would whip one of these things out and feed it to that dog.)  David agrees that they are dog treat sized and shaped.

The bag looks sorta classy, but they taste dry

That's $2.99 we won't be spending again

David says that this is a “Missed opportunity for TJ’s.  However, I WOULD take a little baggy along on any trip!  They are perfect “save your life” and “not so bad trail bites” for eating something that is not sweet.”

Ok, so he is basically saying that if he was on “Survivor” or “Naked and Afraid” and they permitted him to bring a bag of treats, he would bring THESE…  This makes no sense to me, as I would squirrel away something that I actually enjoyed eating before I was sent to a deserted island…  But he justified this weird idea by reminding me that these have PROTEIN in them and FAT.

It is as if all the sudden I was married to a prepper…  (Though he later told me that he would also bring a couple of chocolate bars…  Ah, THAT’S my sweetie!!)

Price – $2.99

Rating – 2.75

Day 251 - Coconut Water

We hit up yet ANTOHER Trader Joe’s!!  This one was in Columbus, Ohio in an area called Easton Town Center.   And man sakes ALIVE is it in a fancy outdoor mall!  There was just about every store there you could imagine – J. Crew, West Elm, PF Chang’s, heck, there was even a VITAMIN WORLD and a WORLD OF BEER!  Talk about a good combination of stores, eh?  J 

Look - our 18th Trader Joe't to visit in the last 251 days!  This time in Columbus, Ohio

The Trader Joe’s was nice.  There was a wine tasting (wheeee!) and little bits of cheese.  One of the wines being sampled was the Grand Reserve Meritage that I reviewed on day 13 of this blog.  It has the distinction of being one of the few (perhaps the only??) product to get only half of a star! 

http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/01/day-13-grand-reserve-meritage-2011-red.html

But I won’t hold the fact that they were sampling what I consider to be a really crappy wine.  The store was nice.  The employees were friendly.  The shelves were stocked.  (Well, they were out of the infamous Emma Pearl Pinot Noir that I reviewed a couple of days ago that we have fallen in love with…  They are the second store we visited that was o-u-t of Emma Pearl…)

Anyway, we were not there for wine.  We were there to find products we had never tried before!  And that we did. 

For a few months I have been curious to try COCONUT WATER.  I have seen it in stores (including Trader Joe’s I think) in strangely shaped cardboard-ish containers…  But the containers have always been LARGE or sold in packs of 4 or 6.  And, being a commitment phobic, I did not want to COMMIT to that much coconut water.  I just wanted to taste it.  So when I noticed a bottle of it in the refrigerated section of the Columbus Trader Joe’s I decided that was my chance.  I would risk it!

Here you have it - 355 mL of 100% pure COCONUT WATER

Though I am a fan of coconut, for some reason I was not a true believer that this product would be delicious.  I like coconut, as you will see if you do a search on the word “coconut” on this blog.  But I was LEERY of coconut water.

See - even before cracking the lid open I was leery...

And now that I have tasted it, I can say without a doubt that I was right to be cautious.

Bleck.

Basically, to me, this is the poopiest part of the coconut squeezed into a bottle and slapped with an expensive price tag.  I know by reading the label that there are one and a half coconuts in this one bottle, so I understand the high cost.  But the water is not “thirst quenching” even though I thought that was one of the claims to fame for coconut water. 

I don't begrudge them the price.  The TASTE, however, is another matter.

I drank it really COLD – right out of the refrigerated section at the store.  I think it would be even worse if it were room temperature.  In fact, I think it would be gaggy if it were room temperature… 

Ok - I am willing to try this...

Taking a sip

Oh yuck...

Ummm, no thank you.

Even though it was David’s birthday, I basically forced him to try the coconut water.  Poor fella.  Here is what he thought:

The birthday boy, willing to give the coconut water a go...

NOT enjoying it.

Ewwww gross.

David wishing I had not forced him to try this one.  Especially on his BIRTHDAY.

David:  “TERRIBLE.  Umm, uhhhh…  Really remarkably UNPLEASANT.  It is like drinking coconut milk but with none of the niceness of that.  I think I can unquestionably give this a ZERO rating.  I would give this a zero rating.  Because I would not take another drink of that even if I were thirsty.”

I disagreed with him on that regard.  If I were super thirsty and say, like on the trashy reality tv show “Naked and Afraid” and someone brought me a bottle of this coconut water from Trader Joe’s, I would drink it.  I give the product a 1.25.

The reason I give it what seems like a “high score” for a product I really disliked is because even though I personally did not like it, I do not really think it is any worse than any OTHER brand of coconut water.   I think it is just coconut water itself that we probably do not like. 

I dumped over half a bottle of this crap, errr, I mean water out when we pulled over on our drive. 

Here is David MUCH happier with a big ice cream sundae for his birthday from a cool place we found in
Zanesville, OH called Tom's Ice Cream Bowl http://www.tomsicecreambowl.com/

Price – $2.99

Rating (average of David’s 0 and my 1.25 rounded up) - .75

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