Sonia has a few quirky allergies that come and go mysteriously. One is to mushrooms. Although, that particular sensitivity didn't apply when it came to the Portobello Mushroom Fries. Another one of her fun "come and go" allergies involves certain kinds of shellfish. Maybe. We've figured out she's okay with crab and lobster. But she usually plays it safe with things like clams, oysters, and scallops...except when my dad orders the fried oysters and she takes a couple bites. Maybe she's grown out of the allergy and maybe she's not as sensitive when the food is prepared a certain way. Who knows? But it took some convincing to get her to try this paella. She finally agreed, but only on the condition that I take all the mussels out of her portion.
That was just fine by me, because I really liked these mussels. They came out nice and soft, but not too chewy. The "calamares" were by far the chewiest ingredient in our bag. I've had squid before that was not this chewy, but really, it wasn't horrendous—just a tad more rubbery than I would have preferred. The rest of the textures were wonderful and blended together seamlessly.
South Jersey is full of fresh seafood, but I haven't seen many places around here that offer any kind of paella. In fact, the only other time in my life that I've had proper paella was in Spain. There was a quaint sidewalk cafe in Madrid where I tried this "national dish" of España. It was a while back, but honestly, I remember not being impressed. It was much soupier than Trader Joe's offering, the vegetables were stringy, and I felt it lacked flavor. They might have given me a bad batch on purpose, though. They didn't seem fond of non-Spanish speakers there. <Sigh.> Six and a half years into a marriage to someone whose first language is Spanish, and I'm still trying to learn it.
But back to the paella. It's good. It's complex, flavorful, and not-at-all-fishy. Seafoody? Yes. Fishy? No. I'm not sure how authentic it is, but I certainly prefer it to the only other paella I've ever had. Ironically, this selection is a "product of France," not Spain, according to the bag. Eh, close enough, I guess. Four stars from me. Three and a half from my better half.
Pizza night! It's definitely a thing at our house. Probably yours too. Used to order takeout/delivery...but after a while, paying a premium for waiting 45 minutes for someone to deliver a mediocre lukewarm pie when your stomach is growling and kiddos are howling gets old. Time to make your own.
Well, you could go the old TJ's doughball route (not a bad one, we've done it plenty)...or make it even easier and a lot less messy with Trader Giotto's Brand Pizza Crust. This is our new go-to. They're prebaked and ready to top with whatever you fancy, and just a few minutes in the oven - BOOM. Pizza.
Now, there's other premade pizza crusts out there - but these are the best I've had yet. The outer edges and corners get all crispy and crackery-crunchy while the middles maintain a lot of chewy breadiness. There's that light, pleasant carby flavor that carries through as well, although it doesn't shine through as much with red sauce. Sandy and I have made a white pizza with a little extra olive oil and garlic, with chicken and veggies on it on a few occasions, and the outcome is legitimate restaurant quality for a fraction of the price.
The two pack runs maybe $3 at the most and is definitely worth trying out for your next pizza night. Thumbs up all around our family.
Bottom line: Trader Giotto's Brand Pizza Crust: 9 out of 10 Golden Spoons
Well, readers, gotta admit: all of us at WGaTJ's are a little disappointed. You see, in years past right around this time, we've been privileged to be part of the taste test process for new, interesting, exotic products before they hit store shelves. It's sorta like the once a year bone that Big Joe throws us for hosting one of the Internet's biggest rolling Trader Joe's lovefests.
But not this year. No particular reason why. Just...nothing. Maybe there's still some fallout from last year's sampling which just didn't quite meet final quality standards for some reason - what a crappy excuse. Eh well.
So, instead, we're going to branch out and give something a try that first came back to Trader Joe's shelves a few months back: Trader Joe's Cotton Kitchen Towels. They're sold in a three-pack for like $5.99, which seems to be a pretty decent value. But, really, we're confused here. Literally, there's no instructions or descriptions or anything, so it's like TJ's is selling these 100% cotton towels with the assumption that we're supposed to know exactly what to do with them.
I mean, how in the the heck are you supposed to eat them?
No preparation instructions at all, so we're just winging it here, trying to take some clues. Seeing that the towels are apparently shelf-stable and not frozen, refrigerated, canned, or packaged, we first tried them as is, just what I presume would be "raw." Bleh. Literally, no taste - with the red coloring I was hoping for at least a hint of strawberry or sriracha or bacon or something. Instead, it's just this bland, fibrous, tough cloth-type sheet that is impossible to bite through.
Giving TJ's the benefit of the doubt, we began thinking just maybe we're doing wrong here. So, with the lack of guidance, here began the experiments. We tried microwaving - just warmed it up, slightly, but otherwise identical to our first taste. We thought maybe boiling them would do the trick and soften them up - it certainly made the towels hot, wet and steamy, but the only thing that got any softer out of it was my beard. The smoke alarms made it unbearable to bake them for more than a couple minutes, and we had a nice little chat with the fire chief after trying to grill them...really, at a loss here.
I thought maybe we got a bad batch (it can happen) so on our next TJ's trip, I asked one of the crew members for a sample and some advice of how to properly prepare a kitchen towel. Much like the blank stare and head shake from the fire chief, the look we got was kinda discouraging and not entirely helpful.
Fortunately, these towels do seem to have a decent absorptive property to them. It's been a struggle over the years to scrape off every last bit of some tasty sauce or whatever from a bowl or plate - well, fortunately, these flat fiber sheets are flexible enough that I can wipe off most any dish and it'll pick up all those flavors. And apparently this is a process that can repeated over and over again, because these towels do so seem pretty durable, and there's just not any process we can find that make these towels digestible seem possible. So, there's that.
But, fortunately, I'm not alone. The Rodgers picked up this product about the same time we did. They went about the preparations a little differently, but found the towels similarly perplexing and disappointing. Here's a short video review chronicling their experience:
As you can see, we gotta go thumbs down across the board. From all of us here at What's Good At Trader Joe's: Zeroes.
Bottom line: Trader Joe's Cotton Kitchen Towels: 0 out of 10 Golden Spoons
