Day 209 - Girasoli Ricotta and Lemon Zest (Ravioli)

Yum!  We served these ravioli with homemade pesto (we grow basil and try and have a big pesto making event at the end of every summer then freeze it in heat sealed bags.  It takes quite a few hours but it is well worth it – the pesto we unfroze tonight was from 2013 and it was fantastic!).  Our side dish was baby bok choy (reviewed way back on day 38).

Yummy dinner!

First impression – lemon zest!  Not overpowering though, very calm, well behaved lemon taste.  Then ricotta.  For David, there was a bit too much ricotta, so he added more pesto to balance things out.  But for me, good ricotta level. 

These make for a good, simple dinner.  They only take 3 minutes to cook.  I think they would be fine to serve if you have guests over.  You do not want a heavy sauce with them – I would like them with just olive oil but I fear my date would not. 

Even before we brought them home and cooked them, David guessed these would be Italian good

Speaking of my date, here is what David has to say about these ravioli:  Tasty.  Great mouth feel.  Filling filling (that is adjective then noun – see what he did there?).  Serve with a flavorful sauce because ricotta doesn’t have much taste on its own (see!  I TOLD you he wouldn’t want these with just olive oil!).  They cooked just fine following the directions and that is good, none exploded.

Hard to spell name...

 The package says this is 3 servings.  I would say it is 2.5 servings.

I will buy these again.  Good summer dish.

Price – $2.99

Rating – 4.25

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

Day 150 - Lemon Pepper Pappardelle Pasta

I have said it before and I will say it again – the best thing Trader Joe’s does to promote sales in my opinion are their SAMPLES.  They always have a good sample area open and are giving away tastes of REAL food – not just cut up granola bars that other stores sometimes hire women with hairnets to dole out.  At Trader Joe’s, REAL TJ’s employees cook in the store and do the tastings.  And they totally get into it!!  And the OTHER TJ’s employees also get into it and stop by the sample area to see what’s (literally) cooking.  I can’t tell you how many times we have purchased an item after tasting a free sample, and I know loads of other shoppers are the same.  And do you know what?  Trader Joe’s is probably the only store I shop at where I DO buy what I sample!  I mean, think about BJ’s (or maybe your version of that warehouse-like membership only store is Costco or Sam’s Club).  They often have sample people at the ends of aisles.   We have even joked that you could go to BJ’s on a Saturday afternoon and get enough samples to call it LUNCH.  But we NEVER buy the stuff we sample there.  We just eat it, then buy what we came to the store to get.  But at Trader Joe’s, the samples are prepared and served with what feels like CARE, and they actually introduce us to new products that we might like and add to our regular purchases!  TWO THUMBS UP FOR TRADER JOE’S SAMPLE PROGRAM!

So, all that being said, this Lemon Pepper Papparedelle Pasta is an item that we probably would have never thought to put in our cart had I not tasted it when they were sampling it one day.  I was in the store one early evening and they were sampling this pasta.  There was no sauce, but they had added tuna to it and I think I remember it being served cold.  It was good and I bought some!

Here it is on the shelf in the pasta department

 Last night we made it for dinner.  It is not a type of pasta we normally cook – I don’t think we have ever made a flavored pasta at home.  We served it like the package encouraged – with just a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.  Near the end of our servings we also tried some with tuna on it.  Both ways were good.

Here it is on a dinner plate!  See how it is THICK pasta?  It's tasty

I would say this is a SUMMER DISH.  I can imagine eating it out on a patio or deck while sipping chilled white wine.  It is quite lemon tasting, but it doesn’t taste “fake” like most lemon flavored items do, it tastes (and smells) like real lemon.  It might also be a good side dish for chicken or fish.

Overall, nice pasta. 

Price - $2.29 (which seems really cheap for the amount of “fancy” that this pasta brings to the table)

Rating – 4

Day 144 - Lemon Kitchen Hand Soap

First off, why a special soap for the KITCHEN…  Aren’t your hands equally as dirty when you wash them in, oh, I don’t know, the bathroom??   Sure, your hands may be touching things with strong ODORS in the kitchen – onions, shrimp, etc – but does that warrant a specialized SOAP?  It just seems so, so, so…  LIMITING I guess! 

Natural, nice scent, and soapy - what more can you need?

But that philosophical point aside, this Lemon Kitchen Hand Soap is good.  It is lemon without being overly scented, and the lemon smell is FRESH and not FAKEY.  It makes a nice lather, too.  And the PUMP on it is great!  Nice squirt mechanism.

The label is sort of funny – it has a “G” monogram on it, and I wondered if it was made by someone other than Trader Joe’s or what.  But no, the “G” seems to be God’s monogram, as around it, it says “Next to Godliness”.    Classy – this is like GOD’S soap or something!

Lemon Kitchen Hand Soap in action - tough shot to capture!  Had to rinse and dry my other hand to work the camera!  :)

One last point, I also like the COLOR of this soap.  It is a nice pale yellow.  The label tells us it has lots of nice stuff in it – coconut oil, lemon peel oil, and earth salts – so it must be good for us, eh?

Price – $3.49

Rating – 4.5

Day 141 - San Pellegrino Limonata

Wow, was THIS a great surprise treat to find on the Trader Joe’s shelves recently!  Either they just started carrying this drink) (which I think is the case because the sign says "new", or we have missed seeing it there for years.  San Pellegrino Limonata is a drink we buy at Safeway when they have it on sale, because we really like it but it is usually pretty expensive. 

  

Look how excited David is to find Limonata at Trader Joe's!

So as far as the PRODUCT REVIEW goes, yay!  This “sparkling lemon beverage” is delicious!  Yummy!  Amazingly refreshing!  Bubbly without being TOO bubbly.  Lemony without being over-the-top-crazy lemony.  Best served very cold.  Has a sweet little foil “cap” to feel off before drinking, making you feel like the can you are putting your naked lips on is not dirty.  18% fruit actual juice, so feels healthier than drinking a can of soda.  We had some for guests yesterday at a party and they really liked it, too.  It is a really nice summertime drink.

YES!  San Pellegrino Limonata at a very reasonable price at Trader Joe's!

A tasty, refreshing treat

So we know how this reviewer feels about the product (2 thumbs up!), which just leaves the issue of the best place to PURCHASE the product…

Like I said, our normal point of purchase is Safeway, but only when it is on sale.  However, Trader Joe’s had the 6 pack for the low, low price of $4.99 (which comes out to only .83 cents per can).  This seemed like a great bargain so of course we grabbed some.

We brought it to FLORIDA with us, which is where I did my very scientific, rigorous price comparisons.  First, I checked how much the same product sold for at the Publix Grocery Store in Ormond Beach.  Publix is a nice store and typically prices things much higher than other places, so we were really surprised to find San Pellegrino Limonata for the exact same price that Trader Joe’s was selling it for!

Publix, normally expensive but in this case not

I wanted one more price point to compare, so we went to the most Florida store of all, WALMART, and we had the most WALMART-ISH experience a person could ever have.  No lie, this was like, uber Walmart.

Before we could get back to the canned drinks section, we had to pick up a couple of greeting cards.  But when we turned to enter the greeting card lane, you will NEVER GUESS WHAT WE SAW…  (Well, it is Walmart, so I bet you could guess LOTS of things, but I do not think you would ever guess correctly, so I am going to flat out tell you here…) – WE SAW HUMAN EXCREMENT!  Yes – POOP!  Human poop in the greeting card aisle!

And before you ask, no, it was not BABY poop.  And no, it was not DOG POOP.  It was full grown adult human freshly plopped poop.  And there was not just one plop, oh nooooo…  There were 2 large “plops” and a small one.  Not to mention the skid marks where someone had run their Walmart shopping cart THRU said poop, and (close your eyes if you are easily grossed out…), A FOOTPRINT from where some unfortunate soul, probably wrapped up in looking at greeting cards, stepped in it… 

It didn’t take long for a Wal-Mart associate to show up and “stand guard” at the end of the aisle, trying to prevent more poop spread.  But the gawkers kept gawking, including my partner David who for some reason could not take his eyes off the whole fiasco.  “Poop….” We kept repeating…  “Poop!  In the GREETING CARD AISLE!” as if the location made the whole thing even more egregious.  Pretty soon the Wal-Mart janitor showed up, perched atop his Walmart-esque zamboni machine, and sucked or whisked away said poop.  Even he was a bit disgusted by the whole affair, and you KNOW a Walmart janitor has seen it all before. 

Lucky for you, gentle readers, I do not have a photo to place here of the human poop in the greeting card aisle.  That is not for lack of trying – David decided he really needed photo documentation of this experience and tried to get one but couldn’t get his cell phone out and organized fast enough.

But I DO have this proof – the sign from the same San Pellegrino Limonata being sold at Walmart for ONE PENNY less than we paid at Trader Joe’s.



There you have it folks, a whole penny cheaper at Walmart!

So here’s the thing…  How much is a pleasant, clean, friendly, POOP-FREE shopping experience worth to you??  To me, it is worth much more than a penny.  I will gladly pay one cent more for my drinks to have a sanitary shopping floor.  Heck Trader Joe’s, you could even come in at a nickel over Walmart and you would still have my business.

Price - $4.99

Rating – 5

Experience in the greeting card aisle at Walmart in Ormond Beach, FL - priceless

Day 120 - Lavender Hand and Body Lotion

I rarely buy toiletry items at Trader Joe’s, but because of this blog have started trying them.  And I have not always been met with great results…  (See Day 89 – Head to Toe Moisturizing Balm…)  But after that minor fiasco I got back up on the horse and I am glad I did!  This lotion is really nice.

Because it is lavender, and because I have previously been led to believe that lavender is a scent which relaxes you (or is it makes you sleepy??), I have been using this lotion only at bed time.  I have put some on my feet and hands every night the past few weeks. 

The SCENT is the most amazing part.  It smells so good!  The lavender scent is strong but not overpowering.  The description on the bottle says it has sunflower and lemon, too, and the lemon might be what gives it a bit of a “zing” in the scent.  I really like it.

Pretty bottle, terrific scent, and a great feel!

It also feeeeels nice.  It goes on easily and leaves my skin smooth and silky but not at all greasy.  Since I was going to write this review I just put some on my hands (I know!  In the middle of the day!  I hope I don’t fall asleep…) .  But my point is (and I do have one) – my hands are not slimy at all!  I am tapping away on my keyboard without fear of getting grease on my laptop.

Oh – I should also point out that the lotion dispenses very nicely.  I have had other lotions that are hard to get out of the bottle, but this has a very good pump. 

This product is good all around.  I will buy more when this bottle is empty.

Price – $4.99

Rating – 5