Giant Chalkidiki Olives

I saw this jar of Chalkidiki Olives arrive at Trader Joe’s displayed near the holiday items.  

These olives are the pits.  :)  Not really.  Actually, these olives HAVE pits...

The sight of them reminded me of David’s great find last year – the Giant Greek Olives (review here ) which he adored so much that he stocked up on huge ass jars of them as if he were an end of the world prepper.  He still has one jar left!  The jar of Giant Chalkidikis (do you think if I type that word enough times I might actually learn how to spell it?) that I picked up this year is 17.6 oz (as opposed to David’s favorites last year which are 21.16 oz).  The olives DO have pits (which is how we like them, but I feel the need to warn you of this fact cuz I don’t want you to eagerly bite into one and bust your tooth J ). 

David hoarding olives - December 2015

When I saw these Giant Chalkidikis in the store, I thought they they might be the same olives as David’s beloveds and that just the packaging might have changed, but when I got them home and compared them I see that they are a different color.  The size of the olives and pits are about the same, so perhaps they are the same variety of olive, just processed differently?  Being only an olive FAN and not an olive EXPERT I cannot know for sure. 

A tale of two olives

To me, both varieties have the same “meaty” quality, but the Giant Chalkidikis seem to have a bit more FLAVOR.  I also prefer the color of these new ones, as the Giant Greek Olives are always a bit of a scary green hue to me…  Overall, I like these Giant Chalkidikis just as much as I like the Giant Greeks.  They are certainly priced right – the jar is only $2.29, which is really cheap compared to the olives that we often buy at the “olive bars” at other grocery stores.

David:  “These are very good.  I think they are almost as good as the GIANT COLOSSAL GREEK OLIVES.  I mean, I still say those big round jar ones are the “king”, but these guys are great.  They are an excellent green olive.  They are colossal…  I think the flesh comes away from the pit a little bit more easily than the kind of colossal green olives you get at other grocery stores.  They are fleshy.  They are well behaved.  And they are tasty!  What’s not to like??!”

New year, new olives.  Same discerning palate.

 David and I had a big debate over what to SCORE these olives.  For me, I decided I would give them a tying score to last year’s Giant Greek Olives.  David was unsure if he should also make his numbers a tie, or if these olives should get a teeny tiny bit lower number…  Rating things is hard work, folks!!!  It is an awesome responsibility!!  After trying several more olives (which I do believe was a ploy to be able to gorge on olives…) David decide that he would give these Giant Chalkidikis the same score he gave the Giant Greek Olives.

In the end, this olive is a big winner.

Overall, we recommend you get some.  And eat ‘em.

Price:  $2.29

Rating:  5

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