Kung Fu Girl Riesling

I have been tempted by this wine, Kung Fu Girl Riesling, before, solely because of the totally kick-ass name and label.  I mean, what woman WOULDN’T want to drink some KUNG FU GIRL RIESLING, right??  But at $9.99, it was a bit more expensive than some other tried and tested wines at TJ's, and I had just never thrown a bottle in my cart.

Until they taste tested it one night while I was shopping…

See, this guy was handing out samples!  Thanks Trader Joe's!

Yes, once again, the Trader Joe’s wine taste testing resulted in a sale (DO YOU HEAR ME BAILEY’S CROSSROADS, VIRGINIA TJ’S??  IT WORKS WHEN YOU STAND THERE AND POUR COMMUNION CUPS OF WINE TO HAND OUT.  DO IT MORE OFTEN LIKE YOU USED TO! )  (Actually, they have leased what used to be the music store space right next door and are renovating it to be a wine/beer area, so maaaaaybe they will be awesome like the NYC Trader Joe’s Wine Shop and have tastings every day!!  Oh please, oh please, oh please…)

But I digress…  I mean, I personally do not do kung fu, but this wine has such a kick ass, strong woman name that it was hard to resist!! 

Here it is, sideways in my cart.  I swear I had only drunk a little tiny cup to taste it,
so I am not sure why I took a sideways photo.

Normally Riesling is not my “go to” wine, but this 2015 from Washington State was GOOD!  It was very nice.  It was smooth and not too sweet.  I drank it with a rice, leek, chicken, green pepper, and snow pea stir fry and it was a very tasty compliment to the dinner. 

This sign says "new" but I think that might be a fib.  Sometimes TJ's says writes new
but they should write "new", cuz actually they have carried the product a while...

I recently heard a great story on the NPR show Freakonomics about drinking cheap wine.  They did blind taste tests with “wine snobs” – like, people who really KNEW about wine.  Well lo and behold, they often could not tell the difference between cheap wine and fancy pants wine.  (link to awesome Freakonomics story here - you should listen to it)  Maybe YOU think you can tell the difference, and maybe you CAN, but I think that most people cannot.  So, if you want a GIRL POWER wine for your girl get together (your girlfriend dinner or your book club perhaps!) – HAVE A BOTTLE OF KUNG FU RIESLING out.  It is a “Nevertheless, She Persisted” wine. 

This wine tastes good.  It is not crappy.  So how is that for an endorsement?

Me, doing my best kung fu in our kitchen

I am reviewing this product by myself.  Oh sure, David had some, but I don’t really even care what he thought about it!  Because, you see, this wine is about STRONG WOMEN.  So, all of you strong women out there – BUY IT, DRINK IT, SUPPORT IT!  (And yes, I realize that it may well be made by a bunch of dudes in Washington, but don’t burst my bubble right now, ok?)  Get it!

Kung Fu Girl Riesling would have been the wine they served at the Women’s March in Washington DC (had they served wine).  The bottles could have worn little tiny pink pussy hats, and all of the marchers would have loved it.  Missed opportunity 😊 .  

My hat, our posters, and the capitol in the background!!
Thanks for knitting the hat, Karen Hoyer!

Here is a bonus clip - short video of the crowd at the Women's March in Washington DC on January 21, 2017.  And yes, I realize the pink hats are controversial.  But you can still enjoy the video anyway - there are some great posters!

Price - $9.99
Rating – 4.5

Day 270 - Inner Peas

They are reasonably priced,
but do they TASTE reasonable?

Inner Peas
The product I have been scared of

Truth be told, I have looked at this product a lot and always thought the name was fantastic.  It is just the kind of clever, witty name Trader Joe’s products are famous for.  These names usually get my attention.  Unfortunately, I had a bad experience with another fun-named product whose packaging looks eerily similar to Inner Peas, and that experience has haunted me and kept me away from putting Inner Peas in my shopping cart.  My friend Heidi and I got Embrace Your Inner Bean, these crappy bean things, in TJ’s in Overland Park, KS.  As you will see if you read the review, the product got 1 star.  (Read the Embrace Your Inner Bean review here )  We hated the bean crud (well she liked it better than I did) and only liked it to lift up and deliver tzatzaki from the tub to our mouths…  After that experience I vowed to never buy the seemingly “matching set” product to Embrace Your Inner Bean - these Inner Peas.

However, last Saturday night when we were in our local TJ’s and made friends with another shopper, Wendy, she raaaaved about Inner Peas.  She was buying 2 or 3 bags of them and said they are one of her favorites, that they were AMAZING and ADDICTIVE and that she has turned several friends on to them.  Wellllllll, Wendy seemed super fun, and sweet, so I figured “If Wendy likes ‘em, I have to put aside my bias and at least TRY them”.  So I got a bag.

Can you sense my unease???  Check out my POPE SHIRT!  I made it for going to the Pope Parade in DC the same day that I bought this snack.  Some people at the parade asked where I got it - they wanted to buy one like it.  :)

And I tried them.  Are you happy now Wendy, I TRIED THEM!  J

I opened the bag on a night that David was not home because I KNEW he would not be a fan of these.  And when I took one out of the bag, I was frightened…  Yes, they looked like peas.  But they looked like freeze dried peas.  Hard, soul-less, lifeless peas…  I tried one.

Here is a single solitary Inner Pea(s).

Not very pea-y.  More of like a cross between cardboard and Styrofoam.  I WILL say they are a touch better than Embrace Your Inner Bean, but that ain’t really sayin’ much.  I cannot imagine sitting down and just munching on these suckers right out of the bag.  And I also cannot imagine what I would PAIR them with to improve upon the taste.  (And honestly, should I have to PAIR something to “improve the taste”??  Shouldn’t it just be good when I take it out of the bag?)

I think these are a pretty hot seller at Trader Joe’s, so obviously other people like them.  It may be more of a texture issue than a taste issue with me on this one.   I only ate like five of these things (the bag says the serving size is a whopping 22!) and I have the rest of the bag to go.  I cannot imagine eating those really, so I think I will force David to try one.  Perhaps I will blindfold him and give him one!  YES – a plot has been hatched.  I will write the rest of this review after I do a “blind taste test” with him!

BLIND TASTE TEST ABOUT TO BEGIN!!

David:  (blindfolded, eating one Inner Pea) “It’s like a marriage of… Styrofoam and peas…  Yes.  It tastes a little bit of peas.  (Crunch, crunch, crunch)

Tasting Inner Pea(s) number one...

Susan:  “Do you want another one?”

David:  “Yea, it’s not really all that bad.  (Crunched 2 more)  They have enough salt and enough flavor to be tasty and more-ish, it is just that “peas” is not really a flavor that I tend to crave as much as CHEESE, even though they share a vowel sound.  But it is a nice change of pace in the Cheeto zone.  I would give this a 3.5.”

He wanted MORE!

HEY Mikey he LIKED 'em!!!

WELL THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS, GUESS I KNOW WHAT I AM GONNA DO WITH THE REST OF THIS BAG!  FEED THEM TO DAVID!

Price – $1.49

Rating – (average of my 2 and David’s 3.5) – 2.75

Day 200 - Sour Gummies Ts and Js

I sort of got talked into buying this candy when I was lamenting to a Trader Joe’s employee that I needed to stock up on non-perishable, hopefully non-crushable products to bring for a month long TJ shopping hiatus.  He hooked me up with some great stuff (for example, the Chocolate Covered Almonds I reviewed yesterday!), but then he suggested these.  I wasn’t thrilled – I mean, I am an ADULT.  Do any adults like sour candies???  I mean, candies whose sole function is to be SOUR??  But the bag of shapes did fit the criteria of being easy to travel with, so I threw it in my cart.

  

Here's the bag - Sour Gummies Ts and Js (get it - Trader Joe's...)

Then, once we got to our destination, it sat unopened for the whole month, because I wasn’t eager to try them.  So now that our time here is almost finished and we are on “eat everything out of the fridge and out of the cupboard before we go” mode, I figured “it’s now or never”. 

But I came up with a brilliant idea.  Instead of reviewing with my own bias, I should have a KID review them.  But we do not have kids.  And that is where the neighbor boy Sean came into the picture!

So tonight Sean, David, and I sat at the end of the driveway at dusk and did a blind taste test.  We thought of it like a science experiment.  It was fun!  Here are the backgrounds of the reviewers:

Sean – age 12 (though first he told us he was 11, he forgot he had a birthday two weeks ago).  Resident of Ormond Beach, FL.  Likes sour candies.  Thinks Bertie Botts Beans are sorta cool, there are SOME good flavors but mostly gross ones.  Worst candy ever tried:  Warheads.  Likes rootbeer barrels and Lik-A-Stick.

David – age 62.  Mostly resident of Arlington, VA, sometimes resident of Ormond Beach, FL.  Didn’t expect to like these candies.  Likes rootbeer barrels, frozen Charleston Chew candy bars, anything chocolate, and has never tasted Lik-A-Stick.

Me – age 49.  Same residences as David.  Did NOT expect to like these.  In fact, totally does not get the trend of sour just to be sour candies.  Missed that boat.  Likes Twix, Snickers, and Rollos.  Ate Lik-A-Sticks as a kid and liked them but never once ate the actual candy stick.

Here are the Ts and Js displayed on a tiny plate, ready to be reviewed!

The test – I put candies out on a little plate that David and Sean could not see.  I then had them close their eyes and put one in their hands.  They ate them with eyes closed.  Here is how it went:

Pink candy:

Sean:  CHERRY!!  I like it!

David:  I like it a lot.  It is probably cherry, but has a bit of lemon.  It is like a gum drop.

Susan:  These really stick in your teeth.

Orange candy:

Sean:  DANG, orange is SOUR!!  Like a lemon.  (He added this later, after David mentioned watermelon – “Yeah, the first bit is watermelon, after that, lemon.”)

David:  Lemon, with a hint of watermelon at the beginning.

Susan: SOUR!!

Sean with his orange candy, not peeking, ready to taste

 White candy:

Sean:  Tangerine?

David:  Tangerine?  (I laughed here, telling him he was just copying whatever Sean guessed.)  Maybe orange?

Susan:  Not as sour.

Second White candy – this one I let them SEE before they ate it.  I was confused because, to me, the bag only has 3 COLORS but 4 FLAVORS… 

Sean:  I think the white Js and Ts are different flavors…  The white Ts are grapefruit.  The white Js are lemon.

David:  …

Susan:  …  (Sean was adamant about the letters being different flavors, I am not so sure.)

Tester David with his eyes closed

Once I showed them the flavor choices, we all agreed that the PINK ones are grapefruit.  If you eat a pink one and taste your spit as you chew, the spit is really grapefruity.  Know what I mean??  And we agreed that the orange ones are tangerine.  However, Sean felt he could see a color difference in the white ones – he swore some were “green”.  David and I could not see that for the life of us.  Perhaps you need youthful eyes…

Sean came up with a great experiment – try them with your eyes closed and your NOSE PLUGGED!  When I gave him one using those techniques he could not guess the flavor correctly.  David could not even fathom a guess under those conditions, he said it didn’t taste of a flavor but just tasted sweet, sour, and chewy.

Tester in the double blind - no eyes and no nose test

Let's try if we can't see AND can't smell!

Sean and Susan’s favorite flavor was grapefruit (Sean said “I love it!”).  David’s favorite flavor was tangerine.  Sean laid out a scale of sourness for anyone who is interested:

Most sour – lemon

2^nd most sour – lime

3^rd most sour – grapefruit

Least sour – tangerine

Sean gave each flavor a 1 – 5 rating, and then did the math to get an average overall rating of 3.25.  David was surprised he liked these candies since he didn’t expect to and gave them an overall rating of 4.5.  I thought they were not great, my favorite part was the cute T and J shapes.  I gave them an overall rating of 2.5. 

P.S. – we gave Sean the rest of the bag to take home.  He was happy.

Price – $1.99

Rating (average of 3 reviewers) – 3.5