Trader Joe's Pineapple Juice

As David Letterman likes to say, "Phone the neighbors, wake the kids." We've found the real stuff here, and everybody ought to know about it.

Hidden among the many, many mediocre and just plain bad "juice" concoctions at Trader Joe's are a few true gems, and this is one of them. It's remarkable for its simplicity and purity: it's just pineapple juice, not from concentrate. It has not been mucked with in any manner. No tweaking or adulterating or sweetening or "improving" with added flavorings.

The result? Absolutely delicious. Every drop conveys the richness that it should, and nearly the freshness that you'd get by running a pineapple through your own juicer--though that would be enough of a challenge and a mess that it's probably worth a trip down to your local Trader Joe's to avoid the bother. Is it worth the $3.99 asking price? I sure think so.

When a TJ's juice product has only one entry in the list of ingredients, it's usually a winner. This pineapple juice and the equally excellent Grapefruit Sunset are the epitome of that general truth. Like the grapefruit juice, it deserves recognition of its excellence by placement in my Top Ten list.

Will I buy it again? 

Yes indeed. In fact, I'm already on my third carton.

Nina's View

I don't drink orange juice regularly with my breakfast any more. But if I did, I'd be sorely tempted to substitute this absolutely fantastic pineapple juice instead. So refreshing! So delicious!

This is very good.

Roundup

A weekly compilation of news and other links related to Trader Joe's.



People try Trader Joe's cookie butter for the first time 

15 Trader Joe's grocery staples for busy people 

GoPro attached to toddler's shopping cart at Trader Joe's 

5 products always in my cart at Trader Joe's 

Trader Joe's best gluten-free snacks 

They really want a Trader Joe's in Provo, Utah (cute YouTube video)

Episode 7 of the "Let's Talk TJ's" podcast 

The 8 treats you should buy at Trader Joe's 



Here's this week's YouTube video from "Trader Joe":





Best tweets of the week:

1.

And finally, here's this week's cute cat in a Trader Joe's grocery bag:

Trader Joe's Perline Pasta & Prosciutto

I saw somebody praise this on Twitter and thought it sounded interesting. I had never noticed it on the Trader Joe's shelves, and, in fact, I had some difficulty finding it even when I was specifically looking for it.

It's the most unusually shaped pasta I've ever seen: like little bombs, or sacs not quite tied together. The pasta is partially cooked, so it requires just a couple of minutes in boiling water.

I ate it without looking at the ingredients to see the details of what I was eating; I took the label's drawing of a ham, wheat, and some nice veggies as sufficient information.

I liked it--a lot.

I was surprised not to find discrete bits of prosciutto. Instead, the pasta sacs are filled with an dark-colored paste, which I liked, but could not identify by either appearance or taste. Prosciutto paste? How does that make any sense? That's what prompted me finally to look at the list of ingredients. Then I figured it out: the prosciutto is ground up with bread crumbs, eggs, flour, salt, spices, sugar, butter, some vegetables, and beef broth.

But that reading also led me to discover the component that guarantees I won't buy this product again: veal. I'm feeling highly ambivalent about pork products like prosciutto these days, and using very little of them. But veal? I swore off that many years ago, long before meats more generally were beginning to makes blips on my ethical radar. Notice that on the front of the package, next to the appealing drawings of ham, wheat, and vegetables, there is no depiction of a calf wondering why he's being taken away from his mother and loaded into a big truck. Nothing alerts the consumer to that particular ingredient except the fine print on the back of the box.

In a way, maybe it's easier for me to know that now. Without it, I would have to contemplate buying this pasta again, placing on one side of the scales the memory of how delicious it was, and on the other my large and growing unease of using pigs as food. But when the adorable baby cow wobbles in, sits down on the scale, and looks at me with its big dopey eyes, well, suddenly there is really no difficulty to the decision at all.

Will I buy it again? 

No. And for once I'll add this: I hope you don't, either.

Trader Joe's Toffee Chips

I can tell you the first time I had toffee. I was a child--probably somewhere between 6 and 8 years old. I had been out trick-or-treating for Halloween, and I got a Heath bar in my bag. I bit into it. I did not like it. And I decided that toffee was an icky thing that I did not ever want again. Any future Heath bars collected in this manner were either thrown away or traded to siblings and friends for better candy.

I stuck to my guns for decades, refusing toffee on the rare occasions that it came my way. Because I knew that I didn't like it. Because I had tried it. One bite, one time. When I was 6 (or whatever).

But do you know how much I care about my readers? When I saw "Toffee Chips" pop up on the Trader Joe's "new products" web site the other day, I knew that my journalistic (blogaristic?) duties required me to set aside 40-odd years of prejudice and give it a fair trial for the sake of all of you. Accordingly, on my weekly TJ's run yesterday, I put it in my basket and brought it home. Nina would be over for dinner, and we could try it together.

Before opening the box, I told her how I already knew that I was not going to like it. She surprised me by saying that it was inconceivable to her that I would not like toffee--that, in fact, if I didn't like it, then everything she knew about my food preferences (which is a lot) was wrong.

So who would be right: Nina, or 6-year-old Bob?

Nina, of course. I did like these chocolate-covered toffee pieces. Half the box is covered (Trader Joe's likes to say "enrobed"; watch for that word on their packaging and in the Fearless Flyer, and it starts to become funny how they overuse it) in milk chocolate, the other half in dark chocolate. I had just one of each last night. My initial preference ran slightly to the milk chocolate side, but that may change with further tasting.

But man oh man, are these things ever rich! The butter quotient is off the charts. That, combined with the sugar rush they inflict, was so high that I, though usually quite tolerant of large quantities of fats and sweets, had to stop after two.

I'll come back for more, however. Because in the space of just a few minutes, I went from being a person who does not like toffee to one who does--thanks to Trader Joe's.

Will I buy it again? 

Probably not. They're tasty, but just too rich for my blood, as they say in the poker world.

By the way, Nina didn't feel that she had anything she wanted to contribute to this post, but I think it's OK to tell you that she loved them--so much that they fall into the category of things she'll never buy because she would devour them all and then regret it.

Trader Joe's Golden Rounds Crackers

Here is another example of a product that nobody will ever refer to by its given name. The only sensible thing to call these crackers are "Trader Joe's Ritz." They are obviously designed to be a copy of the Nabisco product--and they succeed. It's been a couple of years since I last had the real thing, but I used to eat a ton of them, so I feel that I have a good memory of their taste, texture, and appearance. The TJ's product matches that memory so closely that I don't think I could tell the difference.

Which means: They're excellent.

Will I buy it again? 

Absolutely. They have reminded me why I used to love Ritz crackers so much. If I can get them cheaper through TJ's, it's an extra bonus.

Trader Joe's Popcorn With Herbs & Spices

Let's cut to the chase: This is the best popcorn I've had from Trader Joe's (excepting the caramel popcorn, which I think of more in the candy category than the popcorn category). In fact, it's the best bagged popcorn I've ever had from any source. I looked briefly at the list of the "herbs & spices" they sprinkle on, but I can't remember at this point what they were, and I don't care. I just know that they make for a lovely mix. Besides salt and butter, I think there are precious few things you can put on popcorn that make it better, but TJ's has somehow nailed a magic blend that really does. It also completely masks that inevitable background note of staleness that all bagged popcorn carries.

Let me confess something. Nina and I together ate maybe one-third of this bag instead of the more traditional appetizers I usually serve for our weekly dinner together. Then we had a full meal of pizza, salad, applesauce, juice, and some pastries for dessert. The confession part is this: After Nina went home, I immediately retrieved the bag and ate all of the rest of it, even though I had not one speck of hunger left. That's how strongly it was calling to me.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have another member of my Top Ten list (which, of course, is not limited to ten items).

For what it's worth, here is what the good folks at the "What's Good at Trader Joe's" blog had to say about this product, and here is TJ's own description, from the Fearless Flyer.

Will I buy it again? 

Just try to stop me.

Trader Joe's Organic Woodfired Sicilian Style Pizza

Someday I would like to have a chat with the people at Trader Joe's who decide on the final versions of product names. Here, for instance, I would have gone with "wood-fired" instead of "woodfired," and I also would have used a hyphen for "Sicilian-style." But they didn't ask me.

That aside, this might be the best frozen pizza I've yet tried from TJ's. The crust is the first thing I noticed that set it apart. Its taste and texture is such that I can actually believe it was wood-fired. There is even a bit of wood char on the bottom.

The toppings were not particularly evenly distributed, but I liked them anyway. The sauce is unusually spicy, which was a pleasant surprise, and different from other TJ's pizzas.

As an added bonus, the cooking instructions seemed to make it come out just right, a matter which is a frequent problem in other TJ's frozen products.

I suppose my biggest complaint is that it's smaller than most frozen pizzas. It was enough for two of us, given a couple of side dishes, but just barely. I wish they would add two inches to its diameter.

Will I buy it again? 

Yes. It's a solid contender for being one of the best frozen pizzas I've had from any manufacturer.