Trader Joe’s Organic Carrot Juice
Posted: July 21, 2012 Filed under: Carrots, Drinks, Juice, Vegetables | Tags: carrot, Juice, Organic 7 Comments
The strawberry flavored milk of a healthier reality.
Carrots have always been something of a mixed bag for me. Raw, a find them delicious – be they shredded, sliced, julienned, or dropped on the table as an unvarnished, knobbly stick still covered in garden dirt. I also love them boiled, roasted, toasted or fried -just don’t steam them. If you steam them I’ll punch you in the face. Don’t steam them anywhere near me, the odor alone is uniquely repulsive. Steamed carrots are bastards and we can all hate them together.
I’ve written on unusual forms of carrots (and their unusual history) before, but as I stood in my local TJ’s, staring a stately array of gleaming orange bottles in the face, I realized I’d never had carrot juice before. Not straight carrot juice, at any rate. Of course, I’ve had it in my fruit juices, yogurts, salad dressings and, of course, smoothies before. People have been squeezing the fluid from these oddly colored roots as a natural food dye for decades. The stuff’s all but ubiquitous in adulterated forms, but as straight-from-a-bottle, only-ingredient-listed-on-the-bottle, honest-to-god, organic carrot juice? That’s something you don’t usually see. I had to imagine there were two possible reasons for that fact, either it tastes dreadful, or it tastes fine but $3.50 for 100 ml is an unseemly price for the privilege of drinking a handful of carrots. Reckless as always, I took this one home.
The taste of organic carrot juice is shockingly complex. Shockingly because, again, we’re talking about a single, pure ingredient. The juice advances through your mouth in three distinct phases, each dominated by an almost alarming sweetness. Pure organic carrot juice is like drinking a box of strawberry milk, if some joker swapped out the artificial strawberry flavoring for artificial carrot flavoring. Shocking, guys, like I said.
Let’s break this down to the blow by blow, shall we.
At the setup, you are ready for anything but sweetness. The nose detects nothing but the odor of the unleashed carrot. As you tip the drink into your mouth, a wave of intense carrot sensation runs before it. This is an amazingly brief sensation, existing in the few milliseconds before the juice itself hits the tongue, but distinctly notable nonetheless. It’s as if the liquid is so supercharged with pure carrot-ness that the air itself becomes infused with these uncontainable motes of carrot essence. Like a reverse aftertaste, in effect. At this moment you are absolutely convinced that this is going to be a healthful, if untasty, experience. However, in the very next moment the juice pulls a trick so unforeseen as to make you fear, momentarily, for your sanity. As the opaque milky juice bathes your tongue you are rooted to the spot by unrelenting sweetness. Yes, you know it’s just carrots, and yes, somewhere deep within the juice the flavor of carrot lingers, but any such vegetative taste is overwhelmed totally by the unyielding, delicious sweetness.
Once you gulp, the sweetness vanishes like a dream and leaves in it’s place a taste exactly as if you’d just gnawed upon three inches of solid carrot root. Only the absence of lingering, carroty fragments in your teeth marks any real difference.
In my experience it’s really totally unprecedented. After every sip I couldn’t help but think “Really? This is pure carrot?”
Kudos, Carrots.
Would I Recommend It: Oh yeah, so long as you don’t mind the aftertaste of raw carrots.
Would I Buy It Again: Only if the price comes down by about 30%.
Final Synopsis: You will never look the same way at a carrot again.
Trader Joe’s Prune Walnut Log
Posted: April 12, 2012 Filed under: Fruit, Log, Nuts, Prunes, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Fruit, Log, Nut, Prune, Snack, Trader Joe's, Walnut 8 Comments
The final slice of log
Trader Joe’s Prune Walnut Log
Prune and walnut log – wow! I dropped the half-hearted purchase I was going ti make myself write about this week and snatched these up as soon as I saw them, standing boldly forth as they were, like a proud, squat dwarf, on the lower-middle rack of the fruit & nut aisle.
These just appeal to me on so many levels. It’s like Trader Joe’s designed them specifically for this blog. I mean, where to begin?
Well, to start, they’re in log form. Nothing comes in log form! Not since the 50’s ended and consumers across America suddenly realized they were decorating cottage cheese with rings of pineapple that had been dyed green by quasi-lethal food additives. There’s really not much lower than the lowly log when it comes to food formats – even loaf has at least a few positive denotations (i.e. “meat-” and “- of bread”). But no, no one as ever said “Mmm, that log is delicious! Hew me off another slab, will ya?”
Take the name itself. It falls squarely into that three letter, central vowel set of monosyllabic utterance that just don’t sound appetizing, words like “gut” and “gob” and “wad”. Etymology aside, there’s just nothing appetizing about extruded food cylinders.
“Ready for some homemade turkey dinner?” hard working Mom asks.
“Go put your head in a vise, you slag,” chirp the youngsters, “We’re playing Gameboy!”
“But boys,” Mom teases, a twinkle in her eye, “it’s been extruded into cylinder form.”
“Log? For dinner? Yipee!”
In a flash the family has gathered around the table, digging with gusto into the uncannily smooth tubular masses that lay heavily upon their plates.
No, I’m sorry, it just doesn’t happen that way. Logs are unnerving and strange, and very few foods are acceptable in log format. Festive holiday cheeses and jellied cranberry sauce and, as far as I’m aware, that’s it.
Now then, what kind of log are we talking about? Why, it’s prunes. I mean, prunes, seriously? Amazing! Is there any food product that can conjure up images of loosened bowels more efficiently than prunes? I submit to you that there is not. And finally, on top of all of this, we have walnut, to which I am fairly indifferent.
So things are looking pretty dire for the ol’ prune and walnut log right from the word go. The packaging, light and cast of translucent, Lunchable-esque plastic, announces that it is “An Ideal Cheese Companion” right smack in the center, in a font larger than the title of the food itself. Serving suggestions are occasionally brazen in their placement, but I’ve never seen one that actually supersedes the contents of the package itself. I pick up a pack of Trader Joe’s Spanish Cheese Tapas Sampler to pair with the log. I may be bringing a roiling cloud of prejudices to the table, but I’m fair dammit. If the log demands a cheese coupling, than cheese it shall have.
Upon peeling back the cling film of the prune and walnut logs I am startled and thrilled. The log has been subdivided among the four quadrants of it’s container, this I knew from before. What I didn’t know was that each section was also pre-sliced into three round discs. I pulled back the cling film on the cheese sampler. To my mounting delight I find that each of its three wedges have been pre-sliced into four triangular planes. All the sudden the game has turned upside down on me, as if a secret geometry of the universe had sudden revealed itself. 4 x 3, 3 x 4. I’m staring at 12 slices of each, perfect pairings for each other, as if preordained by the invisible hand of Providence.
Is this log tasting going to be perfect? I wonder giddily.
To cut to the chase, three quarters of a page in, yes – the prune walnut log is delicious. I have to hand it to the clever boys over there at Trader Joe’s for the slicing gimmick. In one deft swoop they turned the most unappealing aspect of the log into a boon – simple access for easy pairing without having to bother with a knife or the generally gross look of a nut-studded fruit log.
The prune-walnut slices go very nicely with their cheese counterparts – the starchy sweetness of the prune paste benefiting from the clean, nutty crunch of the walnuts, both of which go very nicely with cheese. To my own astonishment I have to recommend this as a ready-to-go party tray or sophisticated snack plate for the sort of get togethers where people look at their food before stuffing it in their gobs (book circles, say, instead of NFL games) . Not too shabby, logs. You’ve turned me around.
Would I Recommend It: To anyone who enjoys fruit and nuts with their cheese, which should be everyone.
Would I Buy It Again: I would gladly trot this out for book club, were I ever to attend one.
Final Synopsis: If you like complex tastes that you can layer on a cracker, this log is right up your alley.
Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter
Posted: March 23, 2012 Filed under: Condiments, COOKIE BUTTER!, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: cookie butter, speculoos 6 CommentsTrader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie Butter
Peanut butter must be so jealous.
I have been remiss, criminally, criminally remiss, to have not mentioned cookie butter on my blog to this point.
What can be said about this marvelous paste. It has been said that, “(Cookie butter) is the best stuff on earth.” I have also heard that “The life is cookie butter, and cookie butter is the life.” Less esoterically perhaps, and certainly more to the point, cookie butter has also been said to “taste like Christmas.” But does cookie butter live up to these claims – this, a product hiterto unknown to all but the most deeply entrenched in the culture of European import food shop?
The answer is yes. This can brook no argument. Behind me in my apartment I have stockpiled a small but significant quantity of weaponry in case I’m called upon to fight for this belief. I know this is a hard sell to those of you out there who have not yet tried this strange-sounding substance. We’re all familiar with peanut butter, a good many of us even with apple butter, but cookie butter? The name resists our minds attempt to parse the taste. Can they even do that?, we wonder. Surely they’re not just smooshing an indiscriminate bunch of cookies together and then voila, into the jars it goes.
My best advice to you is simply don’t ask, just try it. All the questions will wash away in a flood of understanding that may be quasi-religious. For the skeptical, I’d put it this way. You know peanut butter? That amazing substance that goes good with everything – chocolate, apples, bread, raisins, ice cream – everything? Peanut butter that you’d never turn down a nice spoonful of just right out of the jar it tastes so good? Well once you try cookie butter you’ll never go weak in the knees for peanut butter again. Cookie butter not only out performs peanut butter in the taste department in a big way, it actually transcends the foods it goes on. Combining it with things actually detracts from the amazing taste of the cookie butter itself. It has no need to be weakened and debased through novelty alloys. It’s like elemental gold, pure in and of itself with no need to be weakened and debased through alloys. Consider this simple equation: peanut butter plus chocolate = delicious. Cookie butter plus chocolate = not as good as cookie butter alone. As shocked as I am to say it the math speaks for itself – cookie butter is better than chocolate.
We owe our thanks to the Belgians for this wonderful cream. As the label itself boldly states this cookie butter is “Speculoos”. Speculoos itself is the eponymous cookie used in the concotion. It originally hails from the Low Countries where it has been baked for the Feast of St. Nicholas for centuries. Though the word is Dutch, and likely the recipe for the cookie used as well, it was the blessed Belgians who first decided to blend cookie crumbs into a spread. In early 2007 a Belgian chef went on the blockbuster Belgian prime time hit De Bedenkers (The Inventors) with the creation and by November had risen from a crowd of over 2,000 entrants to the position of finalist. It is no wonder. Cookie butter was first marketed by the European company Lotus as Biscoff Butter. And though Biscoff butter is very, very nice, the food wizards at Trader Joes have improved over even it with a creamier texture and more nuanced blend of spices.
Please, if you disregard every other word I write until I shrivel and die in the cold and my soul drifts off to the void of a godless sky, do not disregard these. Try Cookie Butter.
Would I recommend it: Dur, I dunno – maybe.
Would I buy it again: I would fight you for the last jar if I had to. I would gouge your damn eyes out.
Final Synopsis: Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter is proof that man has at last surpassed God himself.
Trader Joe’s Blueberry and Pomegranate Green Tea
Posted: February 5, 2012 Filed under: Blueberry, Drinks, Pomegranate, Tea, Trader Joe's Brand 2 Comments
Oh, pomegrante - you are so abused nowadays...
Flavored vodkas, you guys. You see them up there on the billboard, looking all delicious, sparkling glasses wreathed in sweet, exotic flowers and boughs heavy with succulent berries. It makes you think, Damn, that looks delicious. So you get some and try and sip and you remember, a deep grimace crawling over your face , Oh yeah, it’s still just vodka.
Fruit infused, unsweetened tea is just the same way. You crack open a bottle, take a sip – and you grimace. Why the hell are they putting fruit in it if it isn’t sweet?, you ask, but the bottle is silent. It has no answers for you, only the tea.
Honestly, it’s beyond me as well. Same goes for fruit-infused, unsweetened water. You don’t see it quite as much as you used to in the 90’s, but it’s still out there, lurking on the highest rack of the grocery store shelves, slowly gathering dust.
These drinks fall squarely into the acquired taste category, no one ever picked up one of these drinks and fell in love with it out of the blue. Not in the America I know. Drinks like this blueberry and pomegranate green tea are the fall backs of people who, for one reason or another, simply can’t enjoy a beverage sweetened to all get out by high-fructose corn-syrup but can’t quite make a clean break of additive flavoring. Maybe it’s their health, or maybe it’s their conscience that’s got them, I don’t know.
So it’s a weird category I have to judge this bottled drink against. It’s not sweet, as advertised, but the fruit flavoring gives it a tongue-tingling taste that makes you wish it were. Blueberry is a fine taste, but I have to take umbrage here with pomegranates. I love pomegranates, they are easily in my top 5 favorite fruits of all time (FFOAT), top 3 even. There is nary a more delectable experience than splitting open a pomegranate and the leisurely plucking of it’s juicy seeds. That said, the horse has been beaten to a brutal death, long, long ago. The question I have to ask is, who was the madman who decided to start flavoring everything with it. Did he ever taste the pomegranate? Did he not realize, it’s tart as hell? Tart as shit even? Flavor something with pomegranate juice and the moment it hits your tongue it curls up and then goes dead for ten minutes. It has the same effect here – lending it’s astringent properties to the already slightly astringent green tea. The net effect? A tea that let’s you know when it’s been drunk. This is no guzzling tea, like the awesome Teajava, but a sipping tea. A tea that tells you what to do and how long to do it for. “Just a little bit,” it says, “Stop now.”
Is this a terrible thing? Not necessarily, it certainly makes the tea last, but between the tartness on the tongue and the way it leads you on without actually being sweet makes me relegate this to a highly selective drink I might enjoy once per summer, if parched on a hot day at the beach.
Would I Recommend It: Yes, but only if you’re already a buyer of unsweetened fruit-infused beverages (grandma’s, etc)
Would I But It Again: Once a year, maybe.
Final Synopsis: Good tea, but I just don’t get it.
Trader Joe’s Ridge Cut Sweet Potato Chips
Posted: October 14, 2011 Filed under: Chips, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Chip, Sweet Potato, Trader Joe's Brand 1 Comment
Sweet 'taters? What is sweet taters?
Another sweet and salty chip, but do these rather more sanely presented chips have anything on the milk chocolate potato chips?
I am, in no uncertain terms, a sweet potato lover, the oranger the better I say, but I’m an old school sweet potato lover. Give me ‘em whole and baked or smushed into Thanksgiving casserole and I’ll eat until I’m sick and all dieting resolutions have been obliterated. While I do enjoy sweet potato fries, I have to wonder if we need to sweet potato-ify everything once made from the common Idaho.
I was ready to abandon this idea when I bought Trader Joe’s Ridge Cut Sweet Potato Chips. It was the “ridge-cut” modifier in particular that caught my attention. Ridge-cutting is, and has always been, the domain of Ruffles (and Ruffle’s knock-offs). A ridge-cut (or crinkle-cut, in more proper kitchen nomenclature) potato chip is saying one thing to me – this is some serious snacky junk food. Ridge-cut chips are not bought to be rationally portioned out, they are bought to cram into your gob in handfuls while sitting in a darkened room, illuminated only by the flickering pale light of a TV screen playing a show designed to insult your intelligence. Also for picnics.
To achive this sort of status, however, a junk food needs to be straight forward and unengaging – not to challenge your taste buds, but to allow your body to slip steadily toward a sort of waking coma. What’s so strange about the sweet potato chip is that it doesn’t allow you to do this. The mild sweetness of the potato mingles strangely with the mild saltiness of the chip. Neither one is particularly forceful, and they allow the natural flavors of the sweet potato to come out. To me this was a disadvantage.
The chip had a strangely confused taste- leading my taste buds partly down one path, then partly down another. The overall effect was that it never really took me anywhere, not clashing, but not quite in harmony either. Because of the flavor mixture, I couldn’t find a dip or condiment that would suit them. Too sweet for ranch or salsa, too salty for a desert dip, it felt like these things were just meant to be eaten plain, but without a single strong taste to suck me in I couldn’t imagine snacking on them over a nice salty chip like Ruffles.
I know there is a lot of love for sweet potato products out there, but this product failed to win me over. It seemed to me it would have been a better product if it had been salt-free, letting the natural sweetness of the potato speak for itself.
Would I Recommend Them: No.
Would I Buy Them Again: I can’t think of a reason why.
Final Synopsis: A novel approach, but fails to do anything better than your average potato chip.
Trader Joe’s Unflavored Organic Coconut Milk Beverage
Posted: October 13, 2011 Filed under: Drinks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Coconut, Gluten-Free, Milk, Trader Joe's Brand, Vegan 2 Comments
Can this possible be as good as it sounds?
Nothing ever sounds so good to me as coconut milk. I don’t know why this is, because every time I have some I’m inevitably disappointed. I blame cultural indoctrination for my consistently high hopes – mainly Sesame Street.
As a child I remember watching one of the recurring animated segments that would run from time to time on that saintly old show, the simple story a little boy in Jamaica (or some such Carribean Island) who wants nothing but a nice glass of coconut milk before bed time, receives it, and becomes infinitely content. What was coconut milk, I wondered, watching this little drama unfold, and how good must it be? I supposed it to be something unearthly sweet and creamy and delicious.
Alas, I grew older. And as I grew older it came to be that I would taste coconut milk. And through tasting it I came to know the bitter world of disappointment that comes to claim us all. Coconut milk, I learned, basically tastes like water diluted with milk, nothing so exotic as I had dreamed. And so I turned my attention to other things, and experienced much and forgot coconut milk, forgot it until today.
Trader’s Joe’s Unflavored Organic Coconut Milk Beverage lured me with that same exotic appeal from my youth, and while it does not redeem those lost childhood dreams, for what it is it is quite good. This coconut milk beverage, and note the addition of the word beverage here, is basically just a soy milk substitute. The taste is very close to the taste of ordinary soy milk (essentially undetectable to a regular guy like me), but is noticeably thicker and creamier, and leaves a mellow, lingering taste in the mouth.
This creaminess is due to the ingredients behind the coconut milk beverage, which is not actually coconut milk per se, but coconut cream mixed with water. To me, this would seem to be basically the same thing as coconut milk, seeing as that coconut cream is just coconut milk that has had the water simmered out of it. Evidently that’s not the way the truth in labeling division of the US Gov’t sees it though.
At any rate, the main audience for this product doesn’t seem to be me so much as it does those people whose stomach’s are quite prickly when it comes to milk and/or soy based products. I can’t speak for those fine people, but as someone blithely lactose tolerant I thought this product was a bit nicer than ordinary unflavored soy milk for my cereal, but still no replacement for the good ol’ cow.
Would I Recommend It: Only to those on the look for something other than soy milk.
Would I Buy It Again: Sorry, but it just doesn’t fill any needs in my life.
Final Synopsis: A good go to for the soy-sensitive, it not the childhood dreamers.
Arabian Joe’s Spicy Spinach Pizzas
Posted: October 11, 2011 Filed under: Pizza, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Pizza, Spinach, Trader Joe's Brand 17 Comments
These puppies are all halal and no haram
One of the little touches that so endears me to Trader Joe’s is the way they slightly tweak their brand name on certain products in order to, I don’t know, infuse it with whimsy or something. What ever the reason, I sorta love it a lot. Whether it be Trader Giotto’s bruschetta or Jo Jo’s Animal Crackers, everytime I see one it gives me that little inward thrill of smug pleasure. “If you look closely you’ll see those taco’s say Trader Jose,” I feel like pointing out to everyone, “I’m pretty clever, so I notice those sorts of things.” Yes intellectual self-wankery, one of the many perks of visiting my neighborhood store.
That said Arabian Joe’s Spinach Pizzas might be slightly too erudite for me, for I did not know previously know that tiny spinach and onion pizzas intersected with the Arabian peninsula. The connection is a little easier to spot when you realize these aren’t actually pizza’s in the sense that most American’s conceptualize the food.
Trader Joe’s Spicy Spinach pizzas are more of a pre-made snack bread, than a mini pizza. Rounds of flat bread, rubbed with olive oil, are topped with a minimal (but still delicious) amount of chopped spinach, onion and spices. Instructions call for a very quick jaunt in the oven (about 3 minutes) and result in some delightfully crispy, deliciously snackable food. Delicious en mass as a meal, or excellent one at a time as an appetizer or meal-rounder-outer (if there is a pretentious French word for that term, by the way, please let me know).
The “pizzas” are flavorful by themselves and, as advertised, a little spicy, but not particularly filling. The bread crisps up well, and makes a good base for additional pizza modifications. I topped one with a bit of prosciutto, which was the tits, and I bet garnishes of olives and feta would be about the same. Live it up – or not. Between their small size (6” diameter) and sparse toppings, they are about the healthiest pizza option as you’re likely to find.
Don’t be put off by the unusual packaging. It looks like you’re just buying a bag of blank pitas, but the toppings are packed facing inwards on both sides for some reason. Check ‘em out in the refrigerated food aisle.
Would I Recommend Them: Go at ‘em, they’re good.
Would I Buy Them Again: Yep – cheap, tasty & easy to make.
Final Synopsis: A tasty alternative to the shlumpy pizza bagel, with the potential to be customized.
Trader Joe’s Pear Cinnamon Cider
Posted: October 8, 2011 Filed under: Drinks, Juice, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Cider, Pear, Trader Joe's Brand Leave a comment
Yeah, why not pears?!
For me, nothing says it’s the holiday season like a little spiced apple cider. I live in Los Angeles now, a place as inimical to the change of seasons as you are likely to find, where the only difference between summer and winter is that it rains sometimes, but a single sip of mulled apple cider makes me feel like I can smell the first snow flakes on a lonely north wind.
I know that’s a tall order to ask of a simple juice, but I’ve never had an apple cider that fails to deliver that chilly, first sensation. So it was with great interest that I picked up a jug of cinnamon spiced pear cider from Joe’s today. To be honest, I didn’t even know there were ciders other than the apple kind, but just as ketchup is in no way bound only to tomatoes so too is cider as much a method as it is a product.
So what exactly is the difference between a cider and a juice? The internet abounds with non-answers on the subject. Both are made from the same apples in the same way, with their being some contention over whether or not cider has to be made from young apples, or if it has to be unpasteurized. Effectively, the only difference between the two lies in how it’s marketed to you. For my two cents, I always consider it cider if it’s a bit opaque, comes in a big jug and, most important of all, is spiced. With such easy prerequisites its a surprise that I’ve never seen the juices of other fruit sold as cider.
Now that said, I obviously have high expectations for my cider, and I’m happy to say that pear cider fills apple cider’s ample shoes perfectly. From the very first sip I felt myself transported to a chilly hillside strewn with colorful leaves, an overcast sky just about to bring snow down from the mountains. I could go on about the delicious taste of cinnamon and other spices, etc.., but for me it’s already fulfilled the all important “autumness” criteria. That said, spiced pear cider doesn’t really offer me anything all that different from spiced apple cider. The degree of pearness that comes through is heavily masked by the bouquet of spices. It’s a fun item, and well executed, but not much different than anything you’ve had before.
Would I Recommend It: Yeah, give it a shot.
Would I Buy it Again: Over regular spiced apple cider, probably not.
Final Synopsis: A good spiced cider, but it doesn’t offer anything new.
Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Covered Potato Chips
Posted: October 7, 2011 Filed under: Chips, Chocolate, Snacks, Trader Joe's Brand | Tags: Chocolate, Potato Chips, Trader Joe's Brand 1 Comment
After yesterday’s disastrous beet and purple carrot juice, I thought I finally thought I had had enough of seemingly preposterous food pairings. Why not judge a book by its cover? You might be wrong every now and then, but you’ll be right about 95% of the time. Surely I could live with that, right? I was fooling myself, of course, as I said before the unknown allure of seemingly insane couplings holds an irresitable draw for me. Here it is, the very next day and I’m back at it again with a treat that couldn’t sound worse to me on paper.
Chocolate covered potato chips. Honestly, I’m surprised this combination even crossed anyone’s mind to begin with. The name easily evokes the sloppiest, laziest summer days of youth when, with one hand, I might casually shove a handful of chocolate into my mouth then supplement it with a handful of chips from the other, not bother with all the effort of clearing my esophagus in between. Homer Simpsons’ famous Gum & Nuts comes to mind, along with any number of childhood’s boderline creations (popcorn and ketchup, apple butter and ice cream). In other words, I was ready for mediocrity at best.
Consider my gob smacked when I actually tried these things. The sweet taste of milk chocolate melts seamlessly into the salty kiss of the potato chip, all bound up in a pleasurable crunchy bite. All but overwhelmingly delicious, this crazy confection literally sat my ass down. After crunching the initial test chip my tongue quickly cited that well known edict “This Is Effin’ Good!” and summarily took charge of all cognitive and motor functions, pleasuring itself with chip after chip. It was only through a great exercise of self-control later on that I was able to salvage about half the bag. We’re talking dangerously good folks. Salty, crunchy and sweet altogether, without being too much of one or another – this chip had everything that I didn’t even know I was looking for.
No downsides here, but maybe a couple suggestions. These came packaged in the same way as Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter thingies, which is to say with no consideration for the inherent meltiness of chocolate. No problems yet, but it’s just not a good idea to sell chocolate all jumbled together in a bag. Also, the bag is quite small, but I’m inclined to consider this a good thing at the moment since these things are guaranteed diet-killers. Overall though, these chips are a sweet, secret surprise.
Would I Recommend Them: Yes sir, I would.
Would I Buy Them Again: So long as I’m not worried about sticking to a diet.
Final Synopsis: Chocolate and Potato Chips – the definition of synergy.
Trader Joe’s Beet and Purple Carrot Juice
Posted: October 6, 2011 Filed under: Drinks, Juice, Trader Joe's Brand, Vegetables | Tags: Beets, Carrots, Juice, Trader Joe's Brand 10 Comments
I know – how could this not be as good as it sounds?
Goddamn beets got me again. After enjoying my marinated beet salad so much I thought I’d pull a Jesus and turn the other cheek, try and welcome all beets back into my life. Unfortunately, Jesus has once again out done me, for I simply cannot forgive what these beets have done to me.
I might be being a little unfair toward beets – the purple carrots can’t be totally blameless here. Purple carrots are just carrots that happen to be purple – nothing more exotic than that. In fact, before the reign of William of Orange in the 16th century it was more outlandish to see an orange carrot than a purple, red, yellow or white carrot. Allegedly, as part of a great ploy, the farmers of the Netherlands teamed up to produce nothing but orange carrots as to pay tribute to their king, thereby establishing orange as the standard color for the last 500 plus years. Pretty good tribute guys!
To return to the subject at hand, this ungodly combination was the worst thing I have drank in recent memory. I hope this blog goes somewhat toward testifying my openness to even the strangest foods and my willingness to consume anything food like, because I assure you this is the case. This beet juice simply affirmed all my worst fears and suspicions about Satan’s vegetable – all the horrible taste of drinking the liquid canned beets come in, combined with a cloying, lingering flavor that simply will not leave your tongue alone. I’m afraid I found this one simply undrinkable, and I don’t say that as a knee-jerk reaction. I am proud to say that I managed to give it my level best and fight my way through an entire glass, though it was consumed in small sips with generous periods of walk-it-off time in between. I could do no better, and was relieved when I was finished with it. Wasting food was deeply ingrained in me as a sin, but I will dump this muck into a gutter and laugh at it’s demise.
That said, the juice is good for you. It’s phenomenal for you in fact – so chock full of Vitamin A, C, Iron and Calcium that if you drank it daily you would all but explode in a thunderous shock wave of healthy energy. I’m sure there are beet fans and health fanatics alike who embrace this product as an exciting new way to drink their favorite vegetable. I don’t care, and will do my best to avoid having my eye line accidentally cross sight of another bottle ever again.
Beets – you got me again! Damn you beeeeeeets!
Would I Recommend It: Uh, like no.
Would I Buy It Again: It’s hard to imagine a situation so dire that I would be compelled to.
Final Synopsis: Beets are monsters and they should all be destroyed.
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