Trader Joe's Oakwood Cold Smoked English Cheddar Cheese

So....how do you smoke a block of cheese so it doesn't melt? I mean, where's there's smoke, there's fire, right? I had no idea until Googling it, so if you're interested, here ya go.

We've had a somewhat spotty history with Trader Joe's Spotlight Cheeses of the Month. See Exhibit A and Exhibit B. But Trader Joe's Oakwood Cold Smoked English Cheddar Cheese is a winner. Unlike other English cheddars from TJ's I've had, this isn't of the cold and clammy variety. No, it's more of the traditional waxy/creamy hybrid of most other cheddars, and it's strong, too. It's not the sharpness itself that really sticks out - I'd say it's midrange at most - but the smoke. And it's definitely oak too...my dad smokes meats quite a bit, experimenting with different wood chips, so I can discern between oak and maple and cherry and whatnot. Very oaky, very smoky. It's almost a little too uniform, though, making me question a little if this cheese were truly smoked or just add smoke flavoring added - I'm giving TJ's the benefit of the doubt and saying the first.

Regardless, this is an excellent cheddar, and a good deal at $7.99 a pound. Pair with a pour of bourbon, some slices of pastrami or roast beef, make a killer mac 'n cheese - lotsa possibilities here. Go at it! Bonus points for the Flanders-esque "Oakely Doakely" on the label as well.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Oakwood Cold Smoked English Cheddar Cheese: 8.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons.

Trader Jacques' Tarte à l'Oignon Alsatian Style Onion Tart

If you like onions, you'll undoubtedly like this onion tart. Why? Because it's nothing but a boatload of caramelized onions on a bed of buttery bread. Is that a good thing? Yes...if you like onions.

From the moment we peeled back the plastic wrapping, that pungent, oniony fragrance filled our entire kitchen. Even standing five or 10 feet away from the product, it was still noticeable—and possibly even overwhelming, particularly for onionophobes. Good thing both Sonia and I like onions.

We've noticed that the scent of onions on one's breath is vaguely offensive only if you have abstained from the consumption of onions. If you've been eating them too, then it's not so bad. Who wants to kiss someone with onion-breath, except perhaps someone else with onion-breath? Garlic possesses similar qualities.

We heated the product per the instructions, but felt that it came out a little underdone. We were both quite hungry at the time, so we bypassed the option of putting it back in the oven and ate it as it was. It was still delicious, if perhaps a little doughy. We both agreed that the more thoroughly cooked parts were superior in taste and texture. The little bit of browning and crisping we had around the edges and corners was very welcome. So, if anything, I'd say err on the side of overcooking this product just a tad.

The crust is very similar to a pizza crust. There aren't many surprises there. As mentioned before, the onions are caramelized and also fairly creamy. I'm not sure if this would make a great stand-alone dinner just by itself, but as a side dish, it adds a nice, classy international element for under $4 (although TJ's official web page says something about zombies and clowns potentially changing the official price tag). This product is actually imported from France. Sonia and I have both been there, although never together. On our next visit, we will most definitely make a stop in Alsace Lorraine. 

Sonia liked it even more than I did. Four and a half stars from her. I think it deserves a four.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Mini Cinnamon Sugar Churros

There's a moment in an upcoming podcast episode where I get called out on the privilege of my youth: namely, there being churros in my school cafeteria! In suburban Philadelphia, of all places! Shout out to you, North Penn, because apparently this is not the standard across the nation. Not even for Sonia...and she grew up in SoCal! I had no idea this was such a foreign concept. Mind : blown. Maybe I shoulda checked with Sandy to see what her school did...

Anyways, yes, on taco days, we could buy churros at the school cafeteria, as long as our cafeteria trays were wide. And come to think of it, I remember them more at elementary school, not middle or high school...okay, now that's a great idea. Give a bunch of kids a large sugary stick of fried dough, then expect them to learn the 3 R's. What foresight.

But those churros: I remember them being amazing, and kinda the standard to which I hold all other churros. I've had them a few times since, I'm sure - must have had at least one or two at Disneyland (the standard, Sonia opines).

These Trader Joe's Mini Cinnamon Sugar Churros are right in line with the cafeteria ones I recall. For once, comparing TJ's to cafeteria food is meant a compliment. You can find a big baggie in the freezer section for just $3.99. And they're designed to bake up in your oven for just a few minutes (six or seven) before pulling out and dusting over with the included package of cinna-sugar.

My goodness. Delicious. Churros are usually meant to be fried, but despite their ovenly preparation, the churros still taste and feel and even smell fairly fried. Think of them as small hexagram logs. The pointy peaks get crispy and oily, with just the right bite to them - in retrospect, I should have rotated them halfway through baking, since the bottom pan side of these guys did get slightly burned. But no matter. The middles were fluffy yet chewy like any good funnel cake-kinda concoction. And all the cinnamon and sugar...there's plenty enough cinnamon in the actual churro dough, and there's plenty more to add from the side package. I'd say that side satchel seems mostly cinnamon and not quite as much sugar, but still, plenty of sweetness to offset the cinnamon bite. Muy delicioso.  Each churro is about a bite and a half big.

But...not a perfect item. Like myself, perhaps the fine folks who drew up the back label were to hopped up on churros to learn some third grade math, because it's kinda fuzzy, at least as it pertained to my bag. Listen: if a serving is 10 churros, and there's four servings per bag, there should be 40 churros per bag. Now, I can read, so I understand it says "about 4" servings, not just "4 servings." Still...when I got 36 churros, and not more in the acceptable 38 - 42 range, well, it seemed off. Nathan brought up on excellent point about this, though....which you'll just have to listen to the podcast to find out what it was.

Also: You really don't need to eat ten of these anyways. I think Sandy and I each had five and felt like we had our share. Each churros is about a bite and a half big, which is actually perfect. Portion control! Kid friendly!

We like them. A lot. And we're dreaming of different ways to eat them. With vanilla ice cream, fleur de sel or dulce de leche, and maybe some pineapple? Yes. Have a churro bar with all sorts of different dips, like chocolate and fruit and whatnot? Ooh yeah. Make a churro cheesecake somehow? Oh goodness. Yesyesyes. I'm sure you have some fun ideas too, so fill us in!

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Mini Cinnamon Sugar Churros: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons

p.s. - Major shout out to Pamela AKA "The Frozen Queen" at the Pittsburgh McCandless Crossing Trader Joe's for tracking down a bag full for Sandy and me - straight off the truck! Folks like you, Shandra in Salt Lake City, and the nice cashier in North Wales who gave my mom some flowers on the house when recovering from surgery are truly what's good at Trader Joe's - the people!

Trader Joe's Lemon Ginger Echinacea 100% Juice

I'm starting to notice a pattern. With a few anomalies, I really like drinks with that raw ginger flavor: those exploding bottles of Triple Ginger Brew, most non-alcoholic ginger beers and ginger ales, and stuff like Crabbie's alcoholic ginger beer. Pancakes, cereals, and other solid foods with raw ginger flavor? Not so much. And although it's distinctly different from other ginger beverages, this drink is no exception to that rule.

It definitely packs a heavy ginger punch, but the lemon and echinacea add an unexpected softness and complexity to the flavor. Just imagine iced echinacea tea sweetened with honey, mixed with lemonade and a potent ginger brew. It's not for everyone. Sonia was turned off by the heavy ginger flavor. It's especially noticeable in the finish. You're left with a sinus-clearing blast of ginger spice—and I don't mean Geri Halliwell. I liked it for that reason, unlike my sweet wife.

I must admit, there is something "medicinal" about the taste, for lack of a better word. It's almost as if they started with Thera-flu as a base, then sweetened it a bit more and threw in some raw ginger. But along those same lines, it felt therapeutic, too—like it might help ward off a winter cold. 

I'm sure this beverage would work well hot, served steaming in a coffee mug. But neither of us tried it that way. I was happy to chug it down on the rocks. Sonia just wanted more lemon flavor, and less of that vibrant ginger. Sonia will go with a 2.5, and I'll go with a solid 4.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Smoked Ghost Chilies

Maybe you want to add a little extra something to your chili or soup or whatever for dinner. Maybe you had those TJ's ghost chili chips a few months back and thought, "Hey, those weren't so bad." Maybe on a recent trek to Trader Joe's you saw the Smoked Ghost Chilies grinder and thought, for $4.99, it'd add a nice little kick but something you could easily handle.

And you'd be wrong.

Listen: Unless you know what you're getting into, leave this pepper alone. It's beyond hot and spicy. The fact it comes inside a little plastic baggies inside the grinder should be a clue - I think it's so the capsaicin won't eat thru the grinder itself while still on store shelves. It's hot. Listen: most times I've used it, I've turned the grinder only the minimum necessary and let the few small flakes fall out...and that's seemed a bit much. A quarter turn would make things downright uncomfortable...a full would be a reason to go the ER.

Such is the way of the bhut jolokia, rough translation: butt igniter. Super fiery hot. Proceed with caution. No kids. No contact with eyes. No nothing. It'll take me years to get through this...and I like to think I'm a spice aficionado. I like the ghouly grinder but in small doses, and it's far from an everyday kinda thing. Maybe I'm just getting old. But be careful, kiddos.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Smoked Ghost Chilies: 7.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons.

Trader Joe's Scandinavian Swimmers

Ah, so many fun things come from Scandinavia: vikings, danishes, Spotify, Ikea...and now this. Just what we need after a month of sweets, cakes, parties, and junk food: more candy! 

And in our house, the holiday season just ended last night. It was Three Kings Day. Some of you might know it as "Epiphany." Latin Americans often celebrate it with a rosca—a big cake full of candied fruits and a plastic baby Jesus baked into it somewhere. Tradition states that whoever gets the piece with baby Jesus has to host the party the following year. Good times. But we did without a rosca this time around. Instead, we celebrated with tres leches cake, miscellaneous libations, and...you guessed it: these soft, seafood-themed candies.

In light of recent events, Trader Joe's seems awfully confident they won't get sued by Swedish Fish over these "Scandinavian Swimmers." We see what you did there, TJ's. Very clever. You just went slightly more vague with the terms used in your product title. Why...you could be referring to Norwegian Lobsters and Danish Dolphins for all we know. And depending on who you ask, Finnish Seahorses and Icelandic Porpoises might be included in the bunch as well. Regardless of all that, I like them. I call them "Scandies." Get it? Scandinavian candies. Scandies. It's a contraction of the tw—oh, nevermind.

There are four different flavors (and colors). I like all of them except the yellow flavor. It just doesn't taste like anything to me. It's vaguely sweet, but there's very little tart lemon essence or luscious pineapple or anything like that. It's just...there. I can't really identify any of the other distinct flavors either, but all the rest seem like they belong there, though none pack the sour, citrusy zing that we found in last year's Sour Gummies T's & J's. It might just be my imagination, but I think the blue (dolphin) flavor is slightly berry-esque and the orange (fish) flavor is sorta orangey. I'm not even going to venture a guess as to the red flavor. Maybe the ladies over at Candyology will eventually offer us some concrete insights into the matter.

Texture-wise, they're wonderfully soft, and I must admit, my inner five-year-old thinks the shapes are kinda fun. The number one ingredient is cane sugar so, as candies go, I'd say these are a higher quality product than most mainstream offerings. Neither Sonia nor I are huge candy folks, but after being wowed by the aforementioned T's & J's, we decided to check these out as well. They're certainly not bad, but both Sonia and I would take the sour gummies over these guys any day. It looks like double 3.5's on this one. I might have gone with a 4 if that yellow flavor weren't so...blah.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Meter Long Beer Bratwurst

Alright, alright, alright. Let's be upfront and get this out of the way already here.Yes, there's a lot of jokes that can be made about a, ahem, sausage of this size. No, I'm not going to repeat any of them here. One of my buddies and I sure made enough of them on New Year's Eve when I brought over Trader Joe's Meter Long Beer Bratwurst, much to the annoyance of our two much more lovely, much more mature, and absolutely more sober wives. We had our meat, we had our drink, we had our fun, now it's time to get down to the business of reviewing this fairly significant feat o' meat...

Hrmm, "Feat o' Meat" - that has a nice ring to it. I like it. How about naming it that, or similarly, "Three Feet of Meat"? If you must stick to that silly, worldly, completely logical metric system. how about "Meat-er Long Brat"? C'mon, it's quite possibly the longest, most readily-commercially available meat product out there - have some fun with it!

Relatedly, I may have just blown any chance of ever landing a gig with the Fearless Flyer. Drats.

This one heckuva monu-meat-al achievement though. As in, it's a seriously good brat. As you can easily tell from my picture, my buddy Nick tossed it on the grill for about a good 20 to 25 mins, flipping halfway through, to get a good, charred, cracked casing. In my opinion, that's really the only way to cook such a thing. The end result was positively mouthwatering: hot, sizzly, juicy, like a sausagey siren bent on leading me and my diet astray. Like any bratwurst worth the name, TJ's beer brat is a good mix of both pork and beef - I can't say exact ratio, but noticeably more pork. It's a good blend, though - not too grainy or rubbery like some I've had, but even and intact inside the pork casing.

And, of course, there's beer! Due to silly Quaker-heritage Pennsylvania laws, I haven't had the pleasure of Trader Joe's Vintage Ale too very often, so had to look up what the experts have to say about it. Hrmm, okay, yeasty, bready, some "banana esters" (whatever those are)...okay, I kinda remember that one I had a couple years back. To be honest, I didn't pick up too much of the actual beer flavor in the brats, but I'm willing to bet that's more my palate's shortcomings, as I rarely can in any beer brat. I mean, there was some beery aspects, but not enough to make it super noticeable or give me pause. I more noticed the paprika and peppery aspects than any beer ones. That's all well and good, since the flavor is mild enough to make it prime for pairing with any of your favorite sauces or mustard or whatever, while still enjoyable enough to consume straight up..

All to say, I really enjoyed shuffling off this meat-al coil. I definitely ate more of it than I intended to, I think - my intake modulator wasn't working that night. Good thing it's a great deal - it's over a pound and a half, and costs only $6.99. I'm pretty sure I've seen it around for a while, so hopefully it'll continue to stick around for a bit. Both Sandy and I are wavering around a 4 to a 4.5, so let's call it one of each.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Meter Long Beer Bratwurst: 8.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons    

Trader Joe's Jicama Sticks

Sonia had purchased this product on one of her solo TJ's runs, so it was a surprise when I found it on the kitchen counter. "What are these Ticama Sticks?" I asked. Just then, I noticed it said "Jicama Sticks," with a "J." I had been thrown off by the peculiar font TJ's chose. 

So I re-phrased my question to: "What are these Jai-camma Sticks?" butchering the product name like a true 'Murican. Sonia's reply came back with the correct pronunciation. "Oh, the Hee-comma Sticks? They're really good! I used to eat these growing up. My mom would give them to me when I was sick."

They're basically just run-of-the-mill root vegetables, similar to radishes or turnips, but sliced into long, narrow sticks. When you Google the phrase "jicama tastes like," the top two auto-fill choices that pop up are "like apple" and "like dirt," a not so subtle clue that there may be two distinct camps when it comes to jicama appreciation. I'll agree the texture is very similar to a fresh, crisp apple, but I must admit, when it comes to taste, I fall squarely in the "tastes like dirt" category.

I can appreciate fresh root vegetables: potatoes and carrots are great, radishes are nice in salads, and even beets have their place, but jicama? Meh. Not for me. Sonia loves it, though—at least most of the time. Must be a Latin/Hispanic thing.

I'm a fan of almost anything with a few drops of lemon juice and a dusting of chili powder, but even that combo couldn't redeem these things in my humble opinion. Sonia describes jicama sticks as "nutty and lightly sweet." She's got a great imagination when it comes to jicama apparently—although she did dock some points in this case because Trader Joe's selection was "not as sweet as the jicama (she) grew up on."

Sonia's going to go with a 3.5. Even though they're not the greatest representation of jicama, she's quite impressed that TJ's carries them at all. I'm tempted to go with one star, but I'll go with a 2 since they're healthy and nutritious, cheap and convenient.

Bottom line: 5.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's A Complete Salad: Kale & Hemp Seeds

Happy New Year!!!!!!

Two lucrative industries come January 1: Gyms and salads. Not a bad idea after all that holiday splurge anyways. For the latter, Trader Joe's has been making it easier with their A Complete Salad line to have a healthy, tasty, delicious salad ready to grab, rip, and gobble down, and the newest entry, Kale & Hemp Seeds, is not an exception.

Abundant kale with a little red cabbage. Almonds. Dried minced dates. A couple big shards of parmesan cheese. All topped with a light lemon vinaigrette that nicely ties everything together. To be honest, I didn't notice the hemp seeds much if at all - they don't taste like much, and any crunch could have easily been an almond instead. But they're in there, and probably good for you, so there you go.

Our only real knock was the lack of mix-ins. So much kale, and plenty enough dressing, but a lot of bites were just those two ingredients. Really, doubling the nuts et al would have been welcome. Still, for $4.49, it made one heckuva good dinner salad that if inspired differently would have great with some grilled chicken or shrimp tossed in. Sandy also would have preferred a couple varieties of greens instead of straight-up kale as well. No matter, pretty darn good as is.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's A Complete Salad: Kale & Hemp Seeds: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons.

Podcast Episode 15: Best of 2015

In this episode, we talk about our favorite (and least favorite) Trader Joe's items from 2015.

Here's a link to the MP3 file!

Here's a link to the show notes!

Here's a link to us on Stitcher!