Trader Joe's Chicken Caesar Wrap

In the great state of Pennsylvania, there's a big convenience store turf war going on. From the west comes Sheetz. They've pretty well dominated the state in terms of 24-hour gas, food, and coffee operations. The unmistakable glowing red trim of Sheetz stores shines all through the night in a plethora of towns in PA and several surrounding states. Every time Sonia and I visit my parents in central PA, we stop by a Sheetz and order up some custom nachos or a made-to-order sandwich using their novel touch-screen system.

In addition to some national chains, the eastern part of the state has Turkey Hill minit-marts. But the Philadelphia area, where Sonia and I live now, is dominated by Wawa convenience stores. Sheetz has not yet been able to breach Wawa's line of defense. There are a staggering 200 Wawa stores within 20 miles of our apartment. It would be nice if we had access to both Sheetz and Wawa, but for now we'll have to settle for only having Sheetz on special occasions and westward-bound day trips.

Wawa offers a variety of pre-made sandwiches and snacks, and Sonia has completely fallen in love with their chicken caesar wraps. I agree that they're tasty, but I think there are plenty of other good chicken caesar wraps out there, including this one from Trader Joe's.

Upon tasting the TJ's brand, Sonia was crestfallen. True, it didn't taste identical to Wawa's chicken caesar, but I was impressed with its fresh, homemade qualities. Trader Joe's wrap had tomatoes, something that should have impressed Sonia more than me...she's a much bigger fan of fresh tomato than I am. The lettuce and spinach in TJ's variety were a dark, rich green and the chicken was all good, tender white meat. The one thing I will give her is that the dressing on the Trader Joe's wrap tasted a lot more like peppercorn ranch than caesar. Luckily, I like peppercorn ranch, but in Sonia's case...not so much.

Sonia's affinity for Wawa's chicken caesar and her dislike of peppercorn-esque dressings yielded one of our most lopsided scores ever, since I was quite pleased with Trader Joe's product, as usual. I give it a 4. Sonia was only half as impressed. She gives it a 2.

Bottom line: 6 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Dixie Peach

Fun fact: California produces 65% of the peaches in the US. But there are peach orchards all over the place. Even my hometown of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania has a reputation for excellent peaches. See here. But I guess there's something romantic about those Southern peaches. Georgia is "The Peach State" after all. They even have a peach on their license plate. South Carolina is one of the biggest peach producers in the country, too. At any rate, TJ's decided that their peach nectar beverage would be called Dixie Peach. Away, away, away down south in Dixie.

It's actually a mixture of juices with peach and apple purees. Once, on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, I had a peach nectar drink (Nectar de Melocotón) that was very similar. I've been looking for a peach beverage like it in the US ever since. There's a brand called Kern's that sells cans of peach juice, but they're definitely not as good. So my search continued...Thanks to TJ's, my search has now come to an end. Now, if only someone would sell pear nectar or something like it here, I'd be a happy camper.

The Dixie Peach is very smooth and thick. If you only like really watery, thin juices, you might get freaked out a little. It's plenty sweet, and although there's a mixture of fruit juices and purees, the overall flavor is decidedly peachy. Sonia wasn't a huge fan at first, but she says it really grew on her after drinking some more of it. She likes it best with tons of ice. It does seem like the colder it's served, the better it tastes for some reason. And a little bit of melted ice helps to thin it out a bit.

The sweet beverage fiend (that's me) gives it a 4 out of 5. Sonia gives it a 3.5. Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Rice Pudding

Rice pudding is apparently a very popular dish worldwide. According to this Wikipedia article, different versions of the dessert evolved independently of one another in virtually every region on Earth. I guess you've gotta figure that any civilization that has rice, milk, and sugar is eventually gonna throw those three ingredients in a bowl together and see what happens.

Somehow, I managed to grow up in a rice pudding vacuum. I don't think I had even heard of it until I was in my teens. At first, it sounded revolting to me; rice is simply not a dessert food. But then, I grew older and more adventurous, and after eating raw fish, sauteed grasshoppers, and Chinese food that only cost a dollar, rice pudding suddenly seemed tame to me.

When I first tried it, it was presented to me by Latino-folk as "Arroz con Leche," leading me to believe that the dish was, in fact, Mexican. And, it is...but it's also Indian, Thai, German, Danish, and/or a whole host of other nationalities. The Pennsylvania Dutch did a pretty good job of bringing all good German foods to central PA, but if they did bring some kind of rice pudding, it certainly didn't end up at the local markets in my hometown.

Anyway, for all you gringos out there: Arroz con Leche = rice with milk. What an inventive name. That's why "horchata" never caught on in this country: poor marketing. You ask somebody what horchata is and they'll tell you it's "Mexican rice water." Mexican rice water? People drink that? Yuck! I picture a nasty soapy-gray liquid that comes as a byproduct of rinsing a strainer of rice with tap water in the sink.

But have you had horchata? It's delicious! People should answer the question "what is horchata?" with "It's the sexy Latin Cinnamon-Sugar Beverage, mi amigo!" Then you'd see horchata flowing from every restaurant soda fountain in the U.S.

Anyway, my point is that "rice pudding," though not totally appetizing to white bread Americans, is much better than "rice with milk." Now, let's move on to more important matters, such as the weird old-timey photo on the container...

It's a vintage pic of two young ladies sharing a secret of some kind. Judging by the expression on the first girl's face, it's a very scandalous secret. I'm not sure why something like that should make us hungry or make the food more appetizing, but apparently it gets the buyer's attention. Interesting choice of packaging. Maybe the one girl is telling the other the true origin of the product within the container.

Oh yeah, all that and I haven't really mentioned anything about the taste of the food yet...It's really good! My only complaint is that it could use a dash of cinnamon. There's just the right amount of rice and just the right amount of sweet milky stuff...it's very yummy.

I give it a 4.5. Sonia's score is slightly lower, probably because she grew up on the good homemade stuff, but she still gives it a 4. Not too shabby. Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.