Day 284 - Blueberry Kefir

I have a friend who loooooves kefir.  I don’t think she reads this blog, so I doubt she will see this.  J  But she told me about kefir.  Her kids like it a lot, too.  I had never had it, and since this friend also likes KOMBUCHA, to be honest with you I was skeptical to take any sort of food/drink advice from her… 

But then one night we were in Trader Joe’s and met Cecilia, the remarkably knowledgeable, friendly, and professional sample lady I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.  Well Cecilia went down a litany of products that she thought we “just had to try!!” and blueberry kefir was mentioned.  She must’ve seen my nose wrinkle up slightly at the mention of it, so she walked herself right over to the dairy department, grabbed a bottle of it, and cracked it open to share!  Cecilia was going to make a kefir fan out of me if I liked it or not!

Nice container

And she did!  I drank a little paper sample cup of the stuff and liked it!  Which led to BUYING a bottle of it.  Seeeeee how effective the sampling program is???*

Hard decision - strawberry or blueberry???

Anyway, I decided that for THIS product I would do (drum roll….) the FIRST EVER BI-COASTAL SKYPE VIDEO REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Les and I pre-Skype review - getting our Kefirs ready!!!

My friend Les Kurkendahl and I only get to see each other in the summer – he is a touring performer and so is David.  So sometimes Les, David, and I all end up in the same city at the same time, and that is fun!  

Here is a cute photo of Les

Les likes Trader Joe’s, so we worked and worked to find a time when he and I were both home (him in L.A. and me in D.C.) to Skype and review blueberry kefir.  Here is how that went:

I must clarify that in the Skype review I incorrectly stated to find this product in the produce department.  That is wrong – it is with dairy.

And I forgot to mention YOP!  “Yop!” was a drink in Paris that we loved.  It came in little bottles and it tasted like liquid yogurt.  Meeeeaning – maybe I HAD DRUNK KEFIR A LONG TIME AGO AND DIDN’T KNOW IT!  I bet Yop! was kefir!  We could never find anything really like it in America but now we have.  J

Hey - it's NEW!

*If you do not know this already, you can sample ANYTHING in Trader Joe’s – well, any pre-cooked thing.  Just ASK!  They will OPEN it for you and share!!  They WANT you to try stuff.  Cuz look what happens when you do – you might buy it!!!  (Note – they are NOT going to open a raw hunk of beef and cook it up for you, so don’t ask.  But in store personalized tastes are what got me hooked on Partially Popped Popcorn!  read review here    And that is totally what got me to buy this blueberry kefir!

Price – $2.99

Rating – 4.5

Day 283 - Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds

Last night I was sitting in front of the tv (watching “Survivor” if you must know…) and a friend sent me a Facebook message with a link to a reviews of ten dark chocolate covered things from Trader Joe’s.  Guess what I was munching on at the same exact moment she sent met the link??  DARK CHOCOLATE COVERED POMEGRANATE SEEDS!

I will review those today, but first here is the link to the cool review and ranking of the 10 dark chocolate products that she shared: Spoon University Ranking of Top 10 Dark Chocolate Covered Trader Joe's products here

Of the products reviewed at that link, I have reviewed:

-          Chocolate coconut almonds:  review here 

      Their review was MIXED, mine (way back on day 7 of this year long project) was full on in support of these babies.

-          Dark chocolate covered espresso beans: review here 

      Our reviews matched – we both think these are great.

-          Dark chocolate almonds: review here

      This one got a coveted 5 stars on my blog and ranked the highest in the other people’s ranking, too!  Obviously this one is a clear cut WINNER and you need some.

-          And now I will review the product that allllmost made it to the top of their list – Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds.

Pretty packaging for a delicious treat

I like these little things!  They are really a good combination of the little seed and a little bit of chocolate.  The chocolate on them is amazing and the seeds just “balances” so well with it.  It sounds very simple – a pomegranate seed and some dark chocolate.  But somehow the blend of those two tastes winds up being COMPLEX.  They are a very unique treat.

I have found them to be a really good dessert.  The last few nights when I have finished dinner I just popped open this little plastic carton and ate a few of them!  The package says a serving size is ¼ cup but to me that is WAY too many for one sitting.  Maybe I just have super willpower J, but a 10 – 12 of these little treats really satisfies me.  I can’t imagine eating a whole box in one sitting – they are just too rich to do that.

Check out the artwork!!!  This DC location has some signs with PRESIDENTS on them.  Super cool.  The ugly price tag STICKERS covering up the real TJ's sign though, not cool...  More about those below.

I think these pomegranate seeds would be really nice in Greek yogurt, too.  And that, of course, would allow you to eat them for breakfast…  When you have them for dessert may I recommend pairing with a nice red wine.  David doesn’t like pomegranate as much as I do so I have not subjected him to this product.  I am keeping them all for myself.

Artwork inside this Trader Joe's - no matter what age you are, you have to admit that FOGGY BOTTOM is a funny name for a part of town.  :)  It is also a metro stop here in DC.

A note about where I bought this snack:  this store, at on 25 St NW in Washington, DC is sadly on the bottom of my list of favorite Trader Joe’s.  We have been to 20 different locations on this adventure and this one just didn’t make the cut. This is a store close to my home yet this was the first time we visited it.  We went on a busy Saturday afternoon. The store was just, oh, how do I say it and not sound cranky, it was not FRIENDLY.  It didn’t seem VIBRANT.  There were no employees to smile at you or ask if you needed help.  When we DID need help we searched someone out, and he was good at finding us what we needed.  But it just didn’t seem like the regular “Trader Joe’s” experience.  The line was super long, which is to be expected on a Saturday afternoon.  They had almost every single register open and the line moved along very efficiently, but none of the employees seemed happy to be there like they usually do at other stores.  I did think it was cool to listen to two employees talk while they stocked some produce – they were talking in a way you would only hear in DC, about the effectiveness of internships they were doing outside of work – it was all very wonky and cool. 

Before we went in...  See - everything was all happy OUTSIDE...

And the SIGNAGE in the store is the worst I have seen in all of the stores we have visited.  There is some local DC regulation I guess that makes the store have to put official stickers on their signs.  At all of the other TJ’s we have been to the signage has been one of the most fun things to explore, but at this store the signs looked much more like a traditional grocery store, a Safeway or Von’s, than a creative TJ’s.  The writing on most signs was not great and those ugly stickers took up lots of space.  I am sure they HAVE to put the stickers, but I wonder if they could make their own signs bigger somehow to showcase the artwork instead of the industrial looking stickers.  They did have some fun DC themes going on in some departments – candy had politician’s faces on the signs and some departments had DC landmarks.  But overall, the signage was sad.  I did see that they are looking to hire a sign maker, so maybe they know they are lacking in that department and are trying to spruce it up. 

They do have a cool "chill out" area outside the store where people can sit and chill
(and eat dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds and the like...)

On the plus side - I gave a card for my blog to a guy working in Customer Service (after I asked him about the mysterious stickers littering up their signage) and he said he had heard of my blog.  J  That is fun! 

So, though the store is not my favorite, the Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds ARE GREAT and deserve two thumbs up.

Price – $2.99

Rating – 4.5

Day 282 - Dark Chocolate Covered Honey Grahams with Sea Salt

David was excited to get these treats.  He thought they sounded amazing and bought them on a shopping trip when I was not with him.  Therefore, he had opened the package and eaten a great deal of them before I got around to tasting one.  He is way more into snacking than I am.

I packed some of these as “Pope Snacks” and brought them with me to the “Pope Parade” to munch on while waiting for the Pope to whiz by in his Pope Mobile in Washington DC.  (That was a WHOLE LOTTA “Pope”s in one sentence!)  We had to leave home to get to the parade area around 5:45 am and I knew snacks would be required since we would be waiting around a few hours.

Pope card game!!

Pope snacks - gotta have 'em!

So these Dark Chocolate Covered Honey Grahams with Sea Salt were taste tested while sitting on a blanket on a very crowded DC sidewalk.  For me, the chocolate part of these graham crackers was a little bit too hard.  I cannot fully blame that on the product though, since David HAD opened the package a week or two before I ate them, so maybe they were not quite as hard when they were freshly opened.  The sea salt (in my opinion) was the best part.  There was not a ton of sea salt – just a tiny bit – but when you got a hint of it with a bite it was a nice zing of “savory” in with the sweet. 

The chocolate was quite THICK.  In the center of the cracker there is an equal amount of CRACKER and CHOCOLATE – making it thicker than it needs to be.  They taste much more like CHOCOLATE than graham cracker.

Multi-tasking - snacking, reviewing, and waving a teeny tiny Vatican flag.

David says, “These are very good.  Good chocolate.  The sharp sea salt bits that you encounter are delightful as a counterpoint.  I recommend letting the chocolate M-E-L-T, not rushing it in your mouth so that the smooth chocolate can floooow all around your mouth.”

These would be good to pop in your lunch bag before heading to the office.  Or in your kid’s lunch bag for school.  They are hearty so not as melt-y as some other chocolate items might be.  I think they would be a good dessert served with a nice espresso. 

Look!  The Pope went right in front of me in his Pope Mobile!!!!

UPDATE – Before I could post this review, we popped into a Trader Joe’s to get photos.  Remember, David purchased this one when I was not with him, hence NO PHOTOS of the price tag or the packaging.  But when we looked for them last night, we could not find them.  Frightened that they had been discontinued (common at Trader Joe’s), I asked an employee, who went to check then remind me that they had been RECALLED.  I remember seeing a sign about that in the store when it happened.  DRAT!  Apparently there was milk in them and it was not listed on the ingredient list, so they recalled them.  Boo!  (But better THAT than if, say, a salmonella scare…)  I called Trader Joe’s Customer Relations Department to ask when we might expect to see them again and they had no estimated time.  But they ARE getting them back.  I mean, think about it.  A really yummy snack.  A reasonable price.  Loads of people begging for them.  And the supplier just need to delete a line on the ingredients list!  I can’t imagine it’ll take TOO LONG – this is a total guess on my part but I would think they would want htem back on the shelves before the holiday season.  Here is a link to info on the recall:  http://www.traderjoes.com/announcement/recall-undeclared-milk-in-dark-chocolate-covered-honey-grahams

Flag flying in the sunshine - Washington DC, Vatican, and USA

When I see them on shelves again I will comment here to let you know – GO GET ‘EM!

Price - $3.99

Rating – 4.25

Bonus photo for anyone who scrolled down this far - POPE-A-POTTIES.  There were LOTS of them.  :)

Day 281 - Chicken Marsala with Mashed Potatoes

We recently had (and really liked, though I have not finished the review yet) Trader Joe’s Chicken Picatta.  Since that went over so well at our dinner table, we decided to grab this Chicken Marsala.  Both products are pre-cooked and ready to eat – they just need to be quickly heated.  They are found in the refrigerated (not frozen) food section.

The label on this chicken marsala says it contains 2 servings.  However, when you open it up, it is one big chicken breast/cutlet.  While that is 2 servings for US (we are rather small humans), I think for many people they would not consider it big enough for 2 people.  We just cut the chicken in half and plopped it on plates. 

Here is the package - it looks better on here than it did on our plates

I think the mashed potatoes in this dish are better than the chicken.  The breading on the chicken has a lot of what tasted to me like rosemary and the strength of that overpowered the other flavors.  The sauce was good but not what I expected as “marsala”.  To be honest, my favorite thing on my plate was the left-over spinach from going out for dim sum at a Chinese restaurant earlier in the day…

David liked this product better than me.  He thought the chicken was good, the breading nice and soft.  He liked the rosemary.  He said the sauce was, “Lovely with a lot of mushroom taste in it, and the mashed potatoes that go with it are a perfect compliment, particularly with the sauce poured over the top.”

We had a discussion about the marsala sauce.  We both expected it to be more “wine-ish” and less “chicken gravy-ish”.  When I look at photos online of chicken marsala it all looks darker than the sauce that comes with this dish.  Something just didn’t taste right…

See how the sauce is sort of tan/gray and dull looking?  No marsala excitement.
And this is "one serving" - so half a chicken breast (this was before I ate any)

All of that being said, this is a very easy, convenient meal in that you just bung it in the microwave.  But Trader Joe’s sells many other quick to prepare meals that are much tastier than this one.  I would go with a different one if I were you.  

The packaging for this chicken marsala boasts that this dish “replicates a restaurant experience at a fraction of the price”.  I would concur with the “fraction of the price” part but not the “replicates a restaurant experience” part.  This doesn’t taste like something from a restaurant, not a restaurant I would return to anyway.  The box even says, “Who needs a restaurant when dining in tastes this good?”.   Well if all Trader Joe’s food tasted “this good” (which is middle of the road and sort of boring) then I WOULD need a restaurant.

David liked it better than me, so this won’t get a horrible rating.  But it won’t be in our fridge again if I do the shopping.

Price – $6.49

Rating – 3.25

Day 280 - Whole Roasted Cashews

Overall, I do not think I have raved enough on this blog about Trader Joe’s nut and dried fruit aisle.  It is THE BOMB.  If you have a nut need, Trader Joe’s can (likely) solve it.  They have eveeeerything!  Mixes.  Raw.  Roasted.  Sliced.  Whole.  Etc, etc, etc.  You could spend an hour just staring at the dried fruits, trail mixes, and nuts.  They take up a WHOLE AISLE people!  Not a little squished section between cake mixes and bags of sugar like in other grocery stores.  Trader Joe’s does this department right.

That being said, I have never been a cashew fan.  To me, cashews have always tasted OILY.  And mealy.  And, well, just yucky.  I have never met a cashew I really liked.  Which is why I never eat them.  So when we got this bag I figured this would be a DAVID ONLY review.  I didn’t want to bias it with my “cashew hating self”. 

Then I tried one.

And for the first time I can remember in my life I LIKED A CASHEW!  So I tried another.  And I liked it.  Repeat repeat repeat until I had eaten lots of cashews!

Ahhh the NUT AISLE at Trader Joe's...  Heaven for nut and dried fruit lovers

Originally these were David’s treat, so he decided he wanted to ROAST THEM more than they already were.  He said they were "lightly roasted" and he wanted MORE.  I sort of think it is because he likes the act of ROASTING them.  It is sort of “zen” to him I think.  He is a very loving roaster.  I think his gentle care and roasting of these is what made them taste so good to me.  He also roasts slivered almonds (which may get reviewed before the year is out) and enjoys roasting granola, too.  I guess, at heart, he is a roaster.  I am glad he roasted these, because if he hadn’t I doubt I would have enjoyed them.

Here are some of the cashews after being lovingly roasted by David.  Don't they look happy and well cared for?

Here is what David said about these cashews:  “These are very good.  Nice.  I am not sure what the comparative pricing is but this is a big bag so it has a “big price tag”.  (Editor’s note – see pricing info below.)  The cashews are very nice.  I personally prefer them a bit more roasted and a little bit more salty than they have here right from the bag.  So I roasted them a bit myself and they are fabulous and delicious!  I added salt when I roasted them but I do not think it “took”.  I think when they roast them, to make the salt adhere they spray on a salt and water solution so the water gets ABSORBED and the salt crystals stick.”

But after another taste (we HAD to, for the sake of this blog…) we both agreed that David’s salt to nut mixture was near ‘bout perfect.

Look - he was caressing them even before he put them in the cart!  He loves cashews.

The bag claims these are WHOLE CASHEWS and that is absolutely 100% correct.  Other cans/jars/bags of cashews sometime say “whole cashews” but contain broken bits.  These were big, meaty, whole cashews.  High quality.

As far as pricing goes, I think they are really well priced.  I have not done enough comparison shopping in brick and mortar stores to make that claim, but let’s look around a bit online, shall we?

·         A site called Piping Rock.com, whose tag line is, “Always the Best for Less”, is apparently lying,       because they have a 1 lb bag for $9.49 (plus shipping)

·         A site called Nuts.com (I mean, THEY have to have good prices, right?  With a name like that?)         is charging $10.99/lb

·         And on “The Peanut Shop” (which categories cashews as “other nuts”) they price them at $27.99         for an 18 oz tin

HEY!  Beyond pricing, check out what nuts.com had to say about the HEALTH BENEFITS of eating nuts!  “A 2013 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine examined 76,464 women and 42,498 men and found that consumption of nuts such as cashews was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality. The study also found that eating nuts regularly can stave off weight gain. Previous studies have indicated that the high nutrient content of unsaturated fats, dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals in nuts may help reduce the risk for chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.” 

There you have it – eating these puppies will make you skinnier, healthier, and help you live longer.  What more can you ask for, people???

All I can say is:  KEEP EATING NUTS, DAVID!  I want you to be healhy and live a really long time!

Since David is the expert I, of course, asked him for his rating of these cashews first.  He gave them a 4.5 and I am happy to support that.  In fact, now that I see how the price seems to rate compared to other retailers, I am bumping that rating up a bit!!  If you like cashews these are really good. 

Price – $6.99 (16 oz)

Rating – 4.75

Day 279 - Southwest Chicken Poppers

I went to a “new to this blog” Trader Joe’s this week.  It was not new to ME, mind you, I had been there before, but not since I began this blog.  It is the one in Tysons Corner, VA (on Leesburg Pike in Falls Church) – which, to those of you not from the Washington DC, Northern Virginia, Maryland area – is a suburb of DC basically.  J

Anyway, it is right off a busy road, which makes getting out of the parking lot a bit tricky.  One exit has a stop light and that is the best one to use, but the set up makes it tough to get in line to get out.  The shopping complex has, among other things, a Peet’s Coffee, so you can grab a latte to sip while you shop.  I think it is strange that there is a Whole Foods right across the road, too.  I am not sure which one came first but they sure are close to each other.

Artwork in the TJ's lobby - Tyson's Corner THEN and NOW.  :)

This store was fine.  Nothing really special about it – no employees smiled at me or greeted me or asked if I needed help.  It was clean.  Signs were okay.  I saw a stuffed frog wearing a TJ’s nametag hidden amongst some products, so they must have the program for kids to find it.  That always makes me smile.  It seemed like the store might be having an inspection of some sort when I was there because some people with clip boards were standing out on the sidewalk lamenting about the lack of lights. 

What I found to be the worst about this store was what appeared to be a distrust of shoppers.  Either they have some really jerky people who shop there, or someone in management thinks people can’t return carts to the store, because there is no curb cut in front of the store to roll your cart down to bring your groceries to the car and load them.  Not only that; even if you are willing to “off-road it” and barrel your cart down a curb, they went to the trouble of placing BARRIERS all in front of the store that are not wide enough for a cart to fit through.  Look – I am a responsible, trustworthy citizen.  I RETURN MY SHOPPING CARTS after delivering my goods to the car, people!!  And you should, too.  (That is a pet peeve of mine – people who leave shopping carts in parking lots are rude.)  I realize not everyone returns their cart though, and I hate door dings as much as the next guy.  But REALLY, it feels unwelcoming to be blocked in with my cart and forced to carry heavy bags to the car.  Once I lugged my big bag to the car I noticed that if a shopper walks quite far down to the next store, they could bring their cart out into the parking lot THERE, as they have a curb cut and no barriers. 

I took this photo before I walked into the store. I didn't even notice this unfriendly curb/barrier combination as I was taking it!

Enough of my rant.  Onto the review.

Southwest Chicken Poppers.  What is FUNNY is that by the time we sat down to eat these I had somehow convinced myself that TJ’s had named this product CHICKEN BALLS.  Understandably (to me at least) I found that name very funny.  I worried about the chickens…  And as part of this review I was prepared to explain to Trader Joe’s why a name change was in order.  Only now I look at the box and see CHICKEN BALLS was only in my mind!  The real name is Southwest Chicken Poppers (but in our house they will continue to be called Chicken Balls).  J

Chicken Balls - errr - Poppers...

These were good.  I like the breading on the outside and the stuff on the inside is really tasty!  I tasted  black beans, corn, spices - and I didn’t even taste the chicken!  They are a little spicy but not hot at all.  I dipped mine in Hatch Valley Salsa (cuz I love that stuff and could eat it all day) (if you STILL haven't read the Hatch Valley Salsa review click here. )

These took 20 minutes to cook in the oven – not bad at all.  A serving size is 3 which was the right amount for our 10:00 PM dinner.

They don't stay together all that well, but they taste good.  Here they are served with baby bok choy
(dipping choices of Hatch Valley Salsa and TJ's Cowboy Cavier were off to the side)

David said the coating on these was nice.  The inside was moist but “not so gooey” that the stuff ran out.  He agreed that it tasted very nice because of the vegetables.  He also didn’t taste the chicken but wanted to be clear that he didn’t REGRET that.  He decided it must be “chicken paste” that is somehow “infused through the whole thing” because the balls don’t taste like they lack the ”body that proteins give”.  He says it is more like a CROQUETTE.

David, like me, got the giggles over calling these things chicken balls.

They are easy to prepare.  They would make good appetizers for a party.

Price – $3.99

Rating - 4

Day 278 - Pizza Al Pollo Asado

This product is brought to you by “Trader Jose’s” J.  It is, as it states on the box, a “corn masa crust with grilled chicken breast, refried beans, jack cheese, and tomatillo salsa”.  The package says it is one serving, but we are sort of small people and we split it in half, which was plenty.   I didn’t think David would like it, he sort of wrinkled his nose up when I put it in our shopping cart.

Will it be DRY?  Will it be TASTY??  

Surprise - we both liked it!  Looking at the photo on the box, we had a fear that it might taste a bit “cardboard-y”, but we were pleasantly surprised that it didn’t.  The crust, called “corn masa crust”, was a bit moist and yielding.  David says, “It looks like it might be dry, but the masa and the refried beans on it makes it MOIST enough.  And it has a little cheese on it!  So it is sort of like refried beans in a tamale.  There isn’t a lot of chicken taste goin’ on but that’s alright.  It’s a nicely balanced dish.”

The corn meal-y crust is the thickest part.  I like it – it is interesting.  It is a different TEXTURE than most foods.  We do not eat a lot of refried beans so that was a nice change of pace to have those.  I put Hatch Valley Salsa on top of my pizza (that salsa being my latest TJ’s obsession…  I talked a couple into buying a jar last time we were at Trader Joe’s!  I hope they liked it).  The salsa on top made the pizza a bit more moist.

Winner winner pollo dinner!  It was good!  (It tasted better than it looks in this photo)

The photo on the package shows the pizza with cilantro on top – I wish we had done that.  I think cilantro would make another nice flavor to add to this combo.  The box says you could top it with lettuce, guacamole, and sour cream, too, but that sounds like a lot of work to me…  We used this as a “quick, heat it for 14 minutes in the oven and let’s have dinner” kind of meal.  We served it with left over tater tots and chicken picata from the night before.

Cheap, unique, tasty frozen food - a Trader Joe's speciality!

This isn’t something I would want to eat every night, but does add variety to our diet.  I will get it again.

Price – $2.29 (which is really cheap)

Rating - 4

Day 277 - Apple Grape Juice

This juice was first sampled under perfect conditions.  Picture this:

It was a Friday.  We both had the DAY OFF.  We slept in.  The sun was shining.  The kitchen door was open – letting a breeze in.  We lazed around and finally sat down for breakfast at 12:25 PM, a time when “adults” would be eating LUNCH, not breakfast.  We sat down to a delicious spread, which included this Trader Joe’s Apple Grape Juice.  Sounds idyllic… 

David with this juice in the store.  Before we tasted it.

 And yet…

To me – drinking this was like drinking industrial strength airport bathroom cleaning liquid in a cup.  This is not what I want to drink.  It was not good.  It is too perfume-y – it smells fake.  The smell totally put me off.  And of course, you SMELL a juice before you TASTE it.  So to me, it seemed like I had a little juice glass full of public toilet water from O’Hare with my breakfast.  JUST FLUSHED and CLEANED airport toilet water, mind you, but toilet water none-the-less.  And that is NOT what I like to wash my omelets down with.  It was, to say the least, off putting… 

The SMELL then influenced the TASTE, making my taste buds think they were drinking toilet cleaner.  This did not help my appetite.

I did due diligence - I TRIED tasting this juice with my nose plugged.  I STILL didn't like it! 

I would rather drink Trader Joe's plain white grape juice  ( review here ) or much better still, Concord grape juice (that is the bomb!):  (review here).   Heck, if you twisted my arm and said, “Susan you MUST drink a glass of this fake toilet cleaner-scented juice or a glass of actual toilet WATER (without cleaner)!!!” I think I would choose the plain water.  This was that yucky.

David, on the other hand, drank the juice then said, “It’s mild.  Mellow.  Very peasant.  It’s alright by me!”

David, happily drinking toilet water cleaner.

And when I explained the whole “toilet cleaner” thing, David replied, “This is a fiiiiine toilet cleaner!”.

You can keep this toilet cleaner crap.  I bought a bottle of TJ’s Honey Crisp Apple Cider that I adore (to be reviewed soon) and I pushed this gross toilet juice to the back of the fridge (David is still drinking it, ewww.)

"Slightly sweet" my ass!  Slightly GROSS is more like it.  Organic or not, this juice isn't coming home with us again.

Price – $3.99

Rating – 2.25 (this score would be lower, but David likes it...)

Day 276 - Balsamic Vinegar of Modena

We call this “fancy ass balsamic vinegar”.  Basically cuz the jar looks fancy.

Arty farty shot of fancy ass vinegar.

David says, “It is soooo nice….  “  But when prompted for more details, such as WHAT MAKES IT NICE, he says, “It is balsaaamic.  And it is VINEGAR.”

Yeah – it is that sort of discerning palate and descriptive wording that makes a solid review…

In discussing what exactly MAKES vinegar balsamic vinegar, David supposed that it is fermented and that makes it taste richer and a little bit sweet.  Not one to take his word for it, I Googled it.  

click here to learn what in the world balsamic vinegar really is

And after reading that article I think HOLY SMOKES – I now understand why balsamic vinegar is so expensive!  It takes 12 years to make it, people!  And the barrels it is aged in disintegrate and have to be repeatedly reinforced!!  That’s it – I need to go to Italy and see balsamic vinegar being made.

(Note – after reading this article I checked to see where this TJ’s Balsamic comes from, as the article said TRUE balsamic only comes from two places.  Guess what?  This ain’t some cheap NYC street corner knock-off, it comes from Modena, one of the REAL spots.  Bam.)

Says right on the label and the signage - OF MODENA folks.  Fancy.

As for this particular balsamic, I really like the bottle, it is a cool shape.  The lid tricks me every time – I think it is going to be a CORK when I pull it off, but it is a plastic insert.  It makes a good seal when you put it on.  The bottle is also the right size.  Have you ever had a bottle of balsamic that is too big and it is in your fridge forever??  Or too small and it tips over?  This one is a good size and well shaped.  Or, as David says, “It has a nice flat bottom.”  (You can sense it coming, can’t you??)  “I like my balsamic like I like my women, with a nice, flat bottom.” (Groan.)

This balsamic was a tiny bit more expensive than SOME balsamic you see, but not the cheapest.  It was, in the grand scheme of things, middle of the road priced balsamic (but a cheap road, like St. Charles Place, not like Park Place).  I mean, you can pay a LOT of money for some faaaancy balsamic (if you are into that).  But are the super duper expensive ones any better???  I am sure if you are a chi-chi fancy rich person you might be able to taste the difference.  For us, this one will do just fine thank you very much.

This is the St. Charles Place of balsamic

We mostly use balsamic vinegar for salads.  I guess we should get more creative and cook with it, too.  We use very little of it.  If you want to read Trader Joe’s official description of this product, check out their archived article here .

Salad with balsamic - see it is tasty 

Different salad with balsamic

Price – $3.99 (which, if their article above is accurate, has been the same low price for over 8 years!)

Rating – 4.75

Day 275 - Snow Peas

I LOVE FRESH VEGETABLES.  Love ‘em so much I am kind of picky about them.  Like, don’t try and sell me asparagus that is starting to go off, know what I mean??

In the past, that pickiness about veggies meant only buying them at stores where they were not pre-packaged.  I like to touch them.  To SMELL them.  To see the actual produce – not see it through packaging.  But when I started this blog it meant shifting the vast majority of our grocery shopping to you-know-where, and most of TJ’s produce is in packages.

That worried me.  But not for long. 

Cuz one of the coolest (in my opinion) things about Trader Joe’s is that they really seem to care about freshness.  You know how in MOST STORES they put the soonest to expire stuff in the front, and stack the fresher stuff behind it?  It makes perfect business sense – sell the stuff that is going to go off first, then sell the newer things.  But to me, a customer, it makes the least sense – I end up buying an item that has less “shelf life” when I get it home than if I dug to the back of the stack at the store and grabbed one from there.  Know what I mean?

This photo is unrelated to Snow Peas.  It was taken in January in the Raleigh, NC Trader Joe's.  This is me talking
to the QUESTION GUY, who walked around with that sign so he was easily found to ask any questions to!
I SHOULD have asked him if he knew about the whole expiration date thing with bagged produce and dairy...  

But Trader Joe’s doesn’t pull that stunt!  Trader Joe’s (at least most of the locations I have been to) puts the FRESHEST stuff in the FRONT for you to grab and the stuff that is set to expire SOONER goes in the back.  Isn’t that the most awesome thing???  I have noticed it at lots of the TJ’s we have gone into.  Tonight I was explaining the concept to David, who had not noticed it before (he doesn’t pay as much attention to expiration dates as I do, hence his ability to drink milk after the expiration date I guess…).  I showed him the Half and Half we were buying, and sure enough, the one I picked up in the FRONT had an expiration date of October 15^th, and the one behind it was October 14^th!  Isn’t that cool?  In most stores it would be the exact opposite – push the older stuff onto customers.  I don’t know if Trader Joe’s has a policy about this, if they do it on purpose, if they care so much about freshness that they sacrifice a bit of profit, or if the people who stock the shelves just don’t pay attention and shove the new stuff in the front because it is easier, but WHATEVER THE REASON, I love it.  (It’s the little things…)

Which leads me to:  Snow Peas! 

Trader Joe's Snow Peas - all washed for you!

Snow Pea signage from Washington DC
(I will explain about their signage in a later post)

Pre-blog I would have bought these at a grocery store where I could touch them and choose which ones I wanted.  But now that I shop so much at TJ’s and I know I can TRUST them, I have no problem whatsoever grabbing a sealed bag of these puppies! 

Here is what I thought of them:

Color – perfect

Taste – great

Value – good

Cooking instructions – DECEIVING

I cannot single out Trader Joe’s for this, because all brands of bagged “convenience” snow peas seem like they do this now.  Look what the package says, right on the front:

It SHOULD say, "Microwave in this bag if you enjoy pulling pea strings out of your mouth during dinner"

But IF I followed that direction and just nuked and ate these things, LOOK HOW MUCH PEA STRING I WOULD BE EATING!

That pile you see closest to you is the pile of yucky bits.  If we just zapped them in the
microwave IMAGINE eating all the pea string.  Ewwww.

Gross!

You need to rip those stringy bit OUT OF THERE before you eat these things, man.  They are not meant to be eaten.  Snow peas are delicious but not if you have to reach into your mouth after every bite and pull out thick bits of pea string.  Not tasty and definitely unattractive.

See how delicious snow peas can be when you take time to prepare them properly?
We served them with pasta, mushrooms, shrimp, garlic, and parmesan.  

I recommend taking the strings out, then eating some snow peas raw as you are prepping your other ingredients for dinner.  Then cook these up and ENJOY (sans strings, of course)!

Price – $2.29

Rating – 4 (would be higher if the package didn’t tell you to cook them without removing the pea strings)

Day 274 - Peanut Butter and Jelly with Nonfat Greek Yogurt

Look, I thought this product sounded disgusting.  I wasn’t gonna try it.  I like yogurt.  I like peanut butter.  (OK, I dislike jelly…)  But the thought of those flavors TOGETHER sounds inedible to me!

You have to admit this sounds gross...

I don’t want to purposely buy anything to eat and review during this year long blog that I know I will hate.  That’s not fair.  And I only have 365 reviews in total to do, ya know.  So this was one new Trader Joe’s item I was prepared to leave on the shelf.

Until…

Until one of my Facebook friends, Peter Marino said something like THIS WAS HIS NEWEST FAVORITE FOOD EVER.  I had to ask if he was being sarcastic or serious (cuz with him it is hard to tell sometimes).  He said he was being HONEST, that he adores this stuff.

Not a bad price, but is it a BAD TASTE???

Welllllllllllllllllllll……  If LANCE likes it, I wanna try it!  Lance is Peter’s character in his solo show “Late with Lance”.  We saw it this summer at the Orlando Fringe Festival and it was great.  Cracked.  Us.  Up.  You should really check out his site and watch the preview clip here:  Lance Show Preview   So if Lance is in, I am in baby!  Throw some of that crap, errr, yogurt in my cart!

When I opened the container I was really surprised.  It didn’t look at all like I expected.  Because the name is PEANUT BUTTER and JELLY WITH Greek Yogurt I thought it would be actual real live swirls or chunks of peanut butter and jelly in or on top of the yogurt.  Nope.  It is just a mixed up yogurt that smells like peanut butter. 

Does this look appetizing to you?

When I TASTED it I was disgusted.  Bleck-a-rama!  Lance HOW can that be your favorite food???  Yogurt is good, but this stuff….  Ewwwwww.  The flavors do NOT go together.  I disliked it so much that I realized I needed to do the FIRST EVER Trader Joe’s 365 VIDEO REVIEW and record David tasting it the first time.  Honestly, I thought he would despise it and maybe even spit it out all over the table (which I would find hilarious).  So I grabbed the camera and forced him to eat some.  Here is how it went:

WHAT THE HELL?  HE LIKES IT????  David!!!!  You are on LANCE’S side here???

This is one freaky, gross product.  I can only imagine 7 year old boys liking it.  Well, 7 year old boys and Lance and David.

David gave it a 3.75, I give it a 2.5.  It is not for me – so Lance and David have at it! 

Price – .99

Rating – 3 (average of David’s way over the top rating and my very generous rating, If Lance rated it it would probably have a 5….)