Trader Joe’s Lightly Sweetened Coconut Strips
Posted: February 21, 2013 Filed under: Coconut, Fruit, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Coconut, lightly sweetened, strips 15 Comments
Gaze upon the coconut tree landscape of the label and be soothed
Ever since the first time I saw a coconut, that summer evening when my father came through the door with this large, brown, sloshing nut, gathered us kids around and proceeded to dismantle it with a power drill, I’ve been drawn to the enigmatic drupe of the tropics. As the power drill story illustrates, however, it’s not very easy to incorporate coconut into one’s diet. As such, I’m a sucker for new approaches to the fruit, and was eager to taste test this brand new item.
Unfortunately, Trader Joe’s Lightly Sweetened Coconut Strips is a close miss at best. Coconut is one of those polarizing foods that cab lead people to violent dispute. I myself have mixed feelings on coconut. I want to love it, I want it to be everything I hope it to be – exotic, refreshing, tasty – but sometimes I’m forced to face facts and admit that it falls short. Which, in this case, it does.
The coconut strips falter in two big departments – taste and texture, texture being the more grievous error. The taste is not bat exactly but the sweetness comes on too stridently. Though only “lightly” sweetened, the added sugar overpowers and clashes with the mild, subtly salty, tropical taste of the coconut flesh. The texture, not to mince words, is a little bit like a firm eraser. There’s such a thing as a pleasant chewiness and a firm tooth feel, but this offers neither. The texture is much too tough and rubbery to make chewing on the thick strips enjoyable.
Overall, the coconut strips feel like a rough draft of a better product. The potential for a delicious snack is in there somewhere, but as it stands this is the sort of party food that everyone tastes once and doesn’t come back to.
Would I Recommend It: Not really.
Would I Buy It Again: Perhaps, if someday my craving for coconut manages to overpower my good sense.
Final Synopsis: Too tough, too sweet.
Trader Joe’s Freeze Dried Red Seedless Grapes
Posted: February 19, 2013 Filed under: Fruit, Grapes, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: freeze dried 1 Comment
Have you ever eaten a dried grape that’s not a raisin?
Before I bought these, I stood in the aisle for a few moments staring at the bag and trying to contemplate exactly what freeze dried grapes would be like. Not raisins, I was sure of that. Raisins are, of course, not freeze dried but slowly dehydrated over a period time by heat –generally laid out in the sun by red-bonneted Andalusian girls, if the iconography of Sun-Maid is to be believed. So I knew they wouldn’t look like raisins – but what would they be? For the life of me, I couldn’t image how you could both dry out a grape, and have it not look like a raisin. This irresolvable thought it my head became compulsion enough to pick up the bag and take it to the check out.
Probably a lot of you won’t be surprised to hear that a freeze-dried grape looks almost exactly like an ordinary grape in size, shape and color. The freeze drying process, a process by which the temperature of the grape is dropped to -100 degrees Fahrenheit, then a near total vacuum is created around it causing the frozen water inside to vaporize directly into a gas (all done in a hefty piece of machinery unimaginatively called “freeze dryers”), simply removes the water from the grape, while leaving its form and structure intact. The big difference is that instead of being plump and juicy, the grape is now hard and crunchy. Overall, the texture is very similar to that of a malted milk ball. It’s beyond my knowledge to tell you how a juicy grape, which is more than 81% water, manages to stay the same size after all the water has been whisked out of it, but I can tell you that it makes for a tasty, if very odd snack.
Why freeze-dry grapes? Beyond the novelty of doing so, I’m not sure there’s a good answer. They do taste sweet – but, not particularly sweeter than grapes or raisins. On the other hand, as a result of the freeze drying process they are considerably harder to eat. The freeze dried grapes are sticky and tacky to the touch, due to extruded sugars crystallizing on the skin, making them hard to eat by hand. The actual eating is difficult as well – crunching down on a freeze dried grape pulverizes it into a sweet, crunchy dust (again, similar to malted milk balls) but unlike malted milkballs the sugar fuses quickly with your natural saliva to cement itself to your teeth. Despite the sweetness, and the novelty of the format, after three or four of the grapes I found myself entirely able to put them away and move on to something else.
It’s not these freeze-dried grapes are bad or unpleasant in any way – both the tackiness and binding nature of the fruit are forgivable sins, they just seem to be unnecessary. Grapes are easy to store, transport and eat, as are raisins. Both also lack the tendency of freeze-dried grapes to grow soft and soggy if left out of an airtight container for more than a few hours. This same quality makes it hard to imagine using the grapes in cooking or baking, apart from perhaps, grinding them up and using them as a replacement for sweetener or a topping of some sort. The obvious route might be to try adding them to a bowl of cereal, but in such a circumstance I can’t help that feel that I’d rather just add some raisins, or have some regular grapes on the side.
A final quibble is that for three bucks, you’d hope to get more than 1.2 ounces of product. If they were priced to compete with their cousin the raisin these would be a reasonable alternative, but as they stand Trader Joe’s would be better off positioning freeze-dried grapes as novelty products instead of simply sticking them on the dried fruit shelf.
Would I Recommend It: Only to the shopper who craves novelty.
Would I Buy It Again: If I can think of a reason to, sure.
Final Synopsis: An interesting, but not compelling, crunchy grape snack.
Trader Joe’s Freeze Dried Red Seedless Grapes – Nutritional Information
Trader Joe’s Minestrone Soup
Posted: February 15, 2013 Filed under: Soup, Trader Joe's Brand 2 Comments
Minestrone in a 28 oz can? Is Trader Joe’s plunging into madness – or simply ahead of the curve?
A pint of paint, probably pale blue, is the first thing I think of when I see this can. But did you know it’s actually a soup?
This entry may not seem as daring as some of the stuff I’ve reviewed, and that’s true, but on the other hand, is this not the quintessential Trader Joe’s review item? I’ve glanced in the direction of Trade Joe’s Minestrone soup hundreds of times since I first started coming to this off-beat grocery store, and every time I’ve had the same reaction – “Is that soup?”
Can I be blamed really? An utterly ordinary soup, the kind done by every soup brand does some lackluster take on, packaged in an overly large can that flagrantly disregards the only rule of soup can packaging – show me what the soup looks like – in favor of a single, enormous letter “M”.
To my thinking, if you’re selling a product that’s totally concealed inside its packaging, and you’ve not putting a picture of it on the front, it must be ungodly disgusting. Even bottom of the bottom shelf brand Armour put a picture of their “Potted Meat Food Product” on the front. So does Epicure Cured Ox Tongue with Gelatin – and it looks as bad as it sounds. How much worse must TJ’s minestrone soup look then? The answer, to my surprise, is that this minestrone looks and tastes delicious.
The field of canned minestrone soups is not exactly an illustrious one, but this minestrone is king of it. The soup is hearty and well-balanced, chock-a-block with the expected vegetables (green beans, peas, peppers, potatoes), and supple pasta all suspended in a thick tomato broth. And the amazing thing is that they managed to do it all right. The veggies are not too hard or soft. The pasta is pleasant to nibble on. The broth is well-balanced in proportion to the other ingredients, and while substantial doesn’t dominate the flavor. Simply put, it’s clearly the result of someone thinking about what makes a good soup. Even more to the point, this canned soup, heated in my microwave, was better than any minestrone I’ve had served to me in the last decade.
The only criticism I have, and it is a very mild one, is that the soup lacks meat. I know that the recipe for minestrone is nebulous at best, but the addition of some tasty beef cubes would have made this soup irreproachable. Interestingly, even though the broth is tomato based, the soup doesn’t receive the vegetarian stamp of approval.
Would I Recommend: Yes, to soup lovers everywhere.
Would I Buy It Again: I plan on stocking my larder with it throughout winter.
Final Synopsis: Weird can – great soup.
Trader Joe’s Minestrone Soup – Nutritional Information
Trader Joe’s Organic Stone Ground Salt and Pepper Dark Chocolate
Posted: February 13, 2013 Filed under: Chocolate, Trader Joe's Brand 4 Comments
The tasty little devil in all it’s disc-shaped glory.
Another automatic buy for me, this ludicrously long-named treat is – brace yourselves – the best bit of chocolate I’ve ever eaten at Trader Joe’s. I’ll get into the details a little bit later, but suffice to say this quirky round of chocolate is akin to the sweet, strange girl you had a crush on in high school – the one who wore high yellow stockings and the choker and the long tresses of coppery-red hair.
I can only hope you are so lucky to have a local Trader Joe’s that stocks this fine treat. That said, if you do, and if you take my recommendation and try some yourself, you’ll be putting your poor little heart out on the line – much the way you did when you finally worked up the courage to ask that cute, quirky girl out on a date. The cold hard fact of the matter is that Trader Joe’s has already decided to discontinue this delicious chocolate.
Damn. Isn’t that always the way? Just the same as when she shook those red tresses and told you her family was moving out of town tomorrow. But that’s another story.
Before I get too mired in regret here, let’s explore the unique delights of this organic, stone-ground salt and pepper dark chocolate.
Now, my reservations about dark chocolate are well documented, and never in my life have I heard of such a combination with two common table seasonings, but if Trader Joe’s can keep dishing it out, I can keep taking it.
This is one of those miraculous cases where utterly incompatible sounding ingredients couldn’t compliment each other better.
Let’s start with the chocolate itself. First off, this is the first instance of Mexican dark chocolate I’ve ever encountered – and I have to say I liked it. It has the graininess you associate with Mexican chocolate (thanks to the stone-grinding process which minimally refines the cacao beans), and the heavy, complex notes of casual bitterness and subtle fruitiness you associate with dark chocolate. A good start – and intriguingly packaged in flat rounds wrapped simply in paper.
The addition to salt to dark chocolate is far from a new innovation, but adding black pepper to the mix is a bit of a revelation. The combo is so obvious it’s shocking I’ve never seen it before – given the craze for mixing everything and anything with chocolate nowadays. The mixture is far too delicious – a host of different tastes, bitter, sweet, salty and peppery, working in conjunction to drive you to taste a little more.
I buy dark chocolate bars primarily for one reason: I tend to gobble down chocolate and it’s almost impossible to gobble down something as bitter and textured as dark chocolate. TJ’s has created one overpowering exception to that rule with this concoction – as soon as I snap into a pleasantly gritty round of this stuff, I know I’ll be finishing it in one sitting.
Did I mention it’s all organic to boot? Well-played TJ’s, well-played.
Would I recommend it: Yes, but get it fast!
Would I buy it again: Alas, if only…
Final Synopsis: For the dark chocolate aficionado, this bar’s a must try.
Trader Joe’s Organic Stone Ground Salt and Pepper Dark Chocolate Nutritional Information
Trader Joe’s Speculoos Crunchy Cookie Butter
Posted: February 7, 2013 Filed under: Condiments, COOKIE BUTTER!, Trader Joe's Brand Leave a comment
Oh my god… seriously? Seriously? Ohmygod.
Folks, it may seem easier than ever to focus upon the dark spots in our lives nowadays, but not all is blight and sorrow. I, for one, am sitting here buoyed up with the elation of having spotted the first, incontrovertible signpost that the year of 2013 will be humanity’s greatest to date. I speak, of course, of the new variety of cookie butter our good pal Trader Joe has put on the market.
Crunchy cookie butter. Crunchy. Crunchy Cookie Butter. In retrospect, I suppose it’s obvious that they’d come out with something like this. Nevertheless, I was utterly gobsmacked when I rounded the corner and found it sitting there, gussied up in burgundy and yellow, proclaiming itself to the world.
There’s not much new to say about crunch cookie butter that I didn’t say about it’s older brother before. It’s still incredibly tasty, still better than anything on the market, still ten times tastier than the tastiest peanut butter and still a must-buy for every household interested in treating taste buds right. There are only two changes the game – one, the aforementioned new packaging, and two, the alteration in texture.
As for the much showier packaging, I can’t help but speculate that this might be Trader Joe’s way of taking squarer aim at it’s rivals in the condiment market. After all, the jar now matches, almost exactly, the look of the classic Peter Pan peanut butter jar, giving it much more of an “everyday essential” sort of feel. Have the shadowy marketing managers in the TJ’s corporate offices decided to play off our preexisting preconceptions in a bid to insinuate cookie butter into cupboards? I have no idea and, what’s more, I can’t possible prove it either way. Let’s move on.
Texture. Without mincing words, what does crunchy cookie butter taste like? Well, if you’ve left cookie crumbs in your regular cookie butter before, you actually have a pretty good idea. Crunchy cookie butter has the same creamy feel of regular cookie butter, but with the extra grit of sprinkled speculoos crumbs mixed in. It is very much a different sort of “crunchy” from crunch peanut butter, which tends to be more lumpy, with large chunks of peanut, than crunchy. The crunch in crunch cookie butter is a much smaller crunch, but quite satisfying.
Is it a superior texture? The Crunch v. Smooth debate is one that has raged for many years before I was born and where you fall on it depends, ultimately, on personal taste. I will say this however, I found it a welcome change to the silky uniformity of the smooth cookie butter. The granularity of the tiny crumbs lends the butter a sort of heft and substance that makes a spoonful feel like a bit more than a spoonful.
Would I recommend it: If it’s down to the cable bill or this, choose this.
Would I buy it again: Yes, in regular intervals, alternating with smooth cookie butter.
Final Synopsis: Cookie butter with a little more cookie.
Trader Joe’s Speculoos Crunchy Cookie Butter – Nutritional Information
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Coconut Mango Bites
Posted: February 1, 2013 Filed under: Chocolate, Coconut, Desserts, MANGO!, Trader Joe's Brand 1 Comment
The guitar is on the bag to represent the musical lilt of the melodic product name. As memorable as it is concise!
Mango, goddammit, they had to bring me back in with the mango.
The mango in question is the mango in Dark Chocolate Covered Coconut Mango Bites. For those of you who just joined us, mango drives me crazy. The Strong Anthropic Principal postulates that the purpose of the universe is to give rise to man so that it may experience itself. In my mind, the universe gave rise to man so that he may assist in the propagation of mangoes. Mangoes. Mangoes mangoes mangoes. I’m also fond of coconut.
This particular item was an automatic purchase for me – I don’t even remember the conscious impulse to pick them up. They were just suddenly there, in my hand, waiting to be purchased. Not, mind you, just because of the mango in it. If I were to give into my desire for mango at every turn I would find myself physically unable to push my cart out of the supermarket doors. I must maintain an unshakable iron will on that front. No, in this case it was the decision to enrobe the combination of these delectable exotic fruits in dark chocolate.
As I’ve pointed out before, dark chocolate is rather in vogue at the moment and undeservedly so. Dark chocolate simply cannot be applied to any given desert with same cavalier attitude of milk chocolate. More than one customer, I’m sure, has bitten into a piece of dark chocolate covered whatever and only then recalled, all to late, that dark chocolate is a fundamentally bitter and highly nuanced treat that plays well with very few others.
The existence of Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Coconut Mango Bites was then either a further effrontery or a well-considered entrant into the world of taste. Given the sometimes uneven track record of Trader Joe,I was compelled to find out which.
The short answer is more the latter than the former.
Imagine your standard drugstore box of Valentine’s Day chocolates – the soft, rounded bricks of nougat covered in a chocolate shell. In terms of form, that’s what you’re getting here – just without the satin and lace. The texture matches this more common cousin exactly, smooth paste with a touch of coconut grit, and the taste isn’t far off either. Don’t come expecting a mango-flavor blast – they knew what they were doing when the gave it final billing in the product title. I’d describe the taste as only somewhat fruity and if the name had been left out of the title all together, you’d be hard pressed to identify it as such.
Obviously that’s a let down for me, but this blog isn’t about my personal feelings – it’s about whether something is worth eating or not, dammit. And this is worth eating. The dark chocolate’s bitterness is nicely matched with the sweeter candy center. It’s nowhere near as decadent as a Russell-Stover confection log, and that’s to its credit. This is a treat that slides over the tongue easily without the baggage of overbearing sweetness, a delicious morsel you can enjoy after lunch as easily as dinner. It’s a moderately sweet sweet, a sweet for people who find most sweets too sweet.
Would I recommend it: Yup.
Would I buy it again: Yes, mango or no.
Final Synopsis: This is one case where going for dark chocolate was the right move.
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocoloate Covered Coconut Mango Bites Nutritional Facts
Wonder Natural Foods – Better’n Peanut Butter, Low Sodium
Posted: December 8, 2012 Filed under: Condiments, Peanut Butter | Tags: Peanut Butter 2 Comments
Peanut butter that’s better than peanut butter? How can this be true? Oh no, paradox! PARADOOOOOOOOOX!
The effrontery of an outrageous title has rarely stung so. Better’n peanut butter? I would double italicize that if modern technology allowed it. Let’s ask ourselves, what could possibly be better than peanut butter? Aside, of course, from Cookie Butter, Mango, really good, small-batch organic peanut butters, the love of a good woman, etc.
Okay, so a lot of things are better. But those aren’t fair comparisons. They are the kings of their own circle. Better’n Peanut Butter is putting itself up against the heavy weights of the mass produced big brands – the “PB” in PBn’J. That’s some beloved stuff right there. I mean, seriously, people belove the hell out of their Skippy and Jif. This is what we’re all grew up with for Christ’s sake, talk about locked-in phenomenon, talk about nostalgia value. If you’re going up against that, and you’re coming out the gate with the cocky strut of a name “Better’n Peanut Butter”, you’d better be able to back up that claim.
And guess what, they can. Better’n Peanut Butter is incredibly delicious, delicious in that eye opening sort of way that makes you regret all those years wasted. I can’t say how they’ve done it. My best guess is that an Arthur C. Clarkian Monolith descended among the peanut butter and evolved it to a higher level, or perhaps the lazy bastards at Jif never bothered to try adding tapioca syrup to the crap they’ve been peddling.
Other strange and intriguing ingredients that set this wondrous emollient apart are dehydrated cane juice, rice syrup, and annatto. Do these ingredients put you off of this product? Do you think you will never leave a brand like Skippy that is basically nothing but peanuts, sugar and oil? Than there is no hope for you in this big crazy world. Did I mention that Better’n Peanut Butter has 85% less fat, 40% less calories than leading brands, is all natural and preservative free? Because it does.
There’s nothing else I can really say at this point and, in fact, the will to do so is fading. I believe I will help myself to some more of that luscious creamy spread.
Would I Recommend It: Dear god, yes.
Would I But It Again: I’ll never stop buying it.
Final Synopsis: Peanut butter that’s better than peanut butter. ’nuff said.
Trader Joe’s Wild Salmon Jerky
Posted: November 16, 2012 Filed under: Fish & Seafood, Jerky, Salmon | Tags: jerky, sweet, Trader Joe's Brand, wild salmon Leave a comment
For when you crave that molasses on dried fish taste.
The statement “I love jerky” is pointless and trivial. Of course you love jerky, we all do. In addition to jerky, many people also love smoked salmon. But these are two very different foods, and in my life thus far, as wild and adventurous as it has been, I have never been tempted to combine the two. Someone was however, and of course that person was an employee of Trader Joe’s. God bless those crazy mad men.
I’m sure that you, like myself, have encountered jerky in many forms beyond the simple “beef” of yore. Turkey jerky, elk jerky, emu jerky, gator jerky, even alien jerky (if the market shills in Barstow, CA are to be trusted at any rate) – all seem to taste, in the end, basically the same. That’s the miracle of jerky, you get some meat, jerk the hell out of it, dehydrate (or smoke) ‘til dried, slap it in some burgundy-colored bag and mark it up 500%. Bam, jerky. The tang of the spices is what you’re paying for, the meat itself never seems to make that much of a difference. But terrestrial animals are one thing – what about fish? They are, for one, famously fishy tasting. There is something of the river or ocean inherent in the meat of the fish that is not easy to simply jerk and dry away. Or is it?
There are a couple things that immediately stand out about Trader Joe’s Wild Salmon Jerky. One is the texting cowboy riding the giant fish (miniature cowboy riding regular sized fish?) which is fine, whatever. Considerably more interesting are the ingredients that are going into our wild salmon snack – a brine of brown sugar, caramelized sugar, molasses, maple syrup and a touch of salt. Sounds a little sweet, doesn’t it? “But” you might be thinking, “Using salmon for jerky is novel enough – surely they aren’t making sweet salmon jerky.”
Hold onto your pants, because they damn well are.
Trader Joe’s Wild Salmon Jerky is, hands down, the sweetest, most sugary jerky I’ve ever had. Your fingers come away tacky with molasses from each bite, that’s what we’re talking about here. And why not? If you can have BBQ jerky and Teriyaki jerky and “X-box presents: Call of Duty 4: X-trm Habenero” Jerky, why not a fish jerky reminiscent of pancakes?
Honestly, I like this stuff. I like its moxy. I like that TJ’s doesn’t give a flying fig about what everyone else is doing, they’re going to put sugar on salmon and call it jerky. Now, the flavor is not my favorite, but I’ve also never been a fan of teriyaki jerky and plenty of people love that. There’s nothing wrong with the taste – it’s intriguing and new – it’s just not my taste.
That said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out a couple of points.
One, there is a strong odor at play here, and not an entirely pleasant one. Open the bag and you’re hit with the combined smell of dried fish and maple syrup – try not to think about cat treats, it does taste better than that.
Two, the pieces are thick and hard. The texture is very different from what you get with long, thin pieces of beef jerky. The salmon jerky is much chunkier, and the toughness of the pieces don’t have the pleasing give to the bite that other jerky does, it’s much more work to chew one of these guys up.
Would I Recommend It: Certainly, if you’re a sweet jerky lover – not that I’ve ever met any of those.
Would I Buy it Again: I’ll stick to my beef, turkey, deer, bison and ostrich jerkies, thanks.
Final Synopsis: An experience that’s more novel than pleasant, but just might tickle the pallet of a sweet jerky lover.
Trader Joe’s Wild Salmon Jerky
Trader Joe’s Kale Chips
Posted: November 10, 2012 Filed under: Chips, Kale, Snacks, Uncategorized, Vegetables 3 Comments
Can you believe how exciting these kale chips are!!!
Kale – who really knows anything meaningful about this stuff. I, like most of humanity I suspect, don’t pay much attention to the seemingly countless varieties of leafy green veggies that basically just go on salads. I do know someone who does care though, who cares deeply – Trader Joe’s. These guys push the kale hard – they really believe in kale. Where most retailers in the world might go “Maybe let’s hold back on the kale, I’m not sure this is something the public is really hungry for,” Trader’s Joe’s says, “Screw it – we’re doing kale chips.”
Now, I know kale chips are no new thing, and yes, you can find on the shelves of your Fresh and Easy and other idiosyncratic supermarkets, but the bold audacity of the TJ’s Kale Chips packaging, the outright assertiveness of the stuff, is what sets Trader Joe’s apart. How could I say no?
I could spend all day on the packaging honestly, a perplexing take on what it would be like if Superman was an air-crisped bowl of greens surmounted with the words “Meanwhile, zesty nacho…” This is, without a doubt, the least sensible thing I’ve ever read in a supermarket. TJ’s mad ad wizards were up late fabricating this head-scratcher, I’m sure. Presumably the kale-comic book mashup was the brain child of the same guy who thought up combining tropical islands and supermarkets.
The problem is that with all the set up, the overly free use of the adjective “super-duper”, the literal word “POW!” emblazoned on the front, etc, you can’t help but be disappointed by the drab, flaky, crusted up leaves you find inside. If it were up to me, I’d have stuck these in a nondescript, brown paper bag with the word “Kale chips” stenciled bleakly on the side and maybe a dreary man’s face staring listlessly out at you. Then at least the contents would look fun and exciting by comparison. As it stands, the kale chips resemble the packaging, and in particular the actual image of the chips on the front, as little as possible. They are dark olive drab instead of the depicted perky, spring green and rather than getting the crisp, individually differentiated chips I was promised I found leaves caked together in patties, or flaked across the bottom of the bag, more or less like fish food.
As for taste, well, there are two school of thought here. Let’s suppose you are on a serious diet, not an I-feel-chubby-I’m-cutting-back-on-the-chocolate diet, but real, I-don’t-fit-into-my-wedding-dress-and-the-ceremony-is-in-a-month diet. A serious diet. If you’re eating nothing but blocks of tofu and steamed broccoli I can see these “alternatives to traditional chips” being a delightful indulgence, and the hint of cheese-free crud crusted on them probably tastes like real nacho cheese. Such is the madness of a serious diet.
If, however, you live in the ordinary, lack-a-day world where Doritos and their ilk are cheap, plentiful and an occasionally justifiable snack, these bland, plant-y tasting flakes aren’t really worth the brittle, crumbly hassle – or the price tag.
A final tone – although billed as a chip alternative, compare these guys to a serving of Santitas Tortilla Chips (the ones in the ubiquitous yellow bag).
Trader Joe’s Kale Chips Santitas Tortilla Chips
Regular chips have less calories, less fat, and a carb difference which, though notable, is far from enough to make up for resorting to the much less satisfying, harder to eat kale chips.
Would I Recommend Them: Only to dieters who are starting to lose it.
Would I Buy Them Again: Never.
Final Synopsis: An ineffectual, not-quite tasty alternative to chips.
Trader Joe’s Tangerine Juice
Posted: July 28, 2012 Filed under: Drinks, Fruit, Juice, Tangerine | Tags: 100% juice, tangerine 1 Comment
100% pure, organic orange juice to plebeian for you? Check this out.
What else is the tangerine but the perfect example of the forgotten also-ran. At some point in the unknown past man stood over the Ur-carafe, his hand wavering for a moment between two nearly identical citrus fruits, and for reasons lost to us now, it was the orange he chose to squeeze for his morning juice forever more. There is an alternate universes where all coin flips came up opposite, all substance is made from anti-matter, cash is based upon the silver standard, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit towers over Mickey Mouse and people wouldn’t dream of having breakfast without a glass of fresh-squeezed TJ.
It’s beyond me to imagine what the Trader Joe’s bigwigs were thinking when they decided to stock their shelves with a juice that 95% of the population will automatically pass up in favor of good ol’ orange juice, but whatever the reason is I decided to honor it with a purchase this week. Practically, the tangerine is almost as near to the orange as it is possible to come.
I will say, first and foremost, that I prefer the color of tangerine juice to your ordinary store boat orange juice. It’s hue is just slightly more rich, almost imperceptibly closer to red, than a glass of Florida’s best. I expected much the same from the taste. The tangerine is, after all, close cousin to the orange, there is even debate in scientific communities over whether the tangerine is it’s own species or just a variety of orange. If scientists can’t tell the difference, how different could 100% TJ be from OJ? Markedly different, is the answer.The same citrus bite is there, particularly on the top note as it graces the tongue, but the heart note and follow through are both startlingly bitter. If I had to make a tangerine juice stand-in, I would go for a 70/30 OJ, grapefruit juice split – it’s that bitter. But, if I may say so, bitter in a good way.
As is so often the case with pure juices tangerine juice is a complex and engrossing taste. It is not chiefly bitter, so much as it is interestingly bitter. Orange juice, like apple juice, can be at times too sweet. Tangerine juice is a sipping drink, and drinks that insist on being sipped are perfect for people who love juice, but fear the massive caloric load inherent in a big glass of juice. I tend to guzzle purely sweet drinks, and so I never tempt myself with large cartons of orange juice in the fridge. This drink packs just enough of a punch to make me sit up, pay attention, and set the cup back down. The perfect replacement for a breakfast juice or, in a pinch, the perfect way to mask a particularly strong mixed drink.
Would I Recommend It: Yes, particularly to iconoclasts.
Would I Buy It Again: Absolutely, seasonal if nothing else.
Final Synopsis: Orange juice’s older, more refined brother.
Eating At Joes 
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