Trader Joe's Dried White Peaches

As you must know by now, I'm a big fan of dried fruit as a late-night snack. Trader Joe's has a bigger selection of dried fruit than I've ever seen in any other store. This has led me to try things that I didn't even know existed. This is one of them. I assume that one can buy dried peaches other places, but if I've ever been in a store that sold them, I didn't notice.

Of course, one of the best parts of eating a peach is the juiciness. And, of course, that is precisely what gets taken out to make dried peaches. (Somehow this reminds me of one definition of poetry: it's what gets lost in translation.) For some fruits, this is an advantage: I prefer dried apricots to fresh ones, because the flavor and sweetness seem to get concentrated. For others, it's disastrous: see freeze-dried raspberries.

My impression of dried peaches is about the same as dried apples: they're not as good as the fresh version, but still plenty good enough to enjoy. They have the tremendous advantage of being available whenever you want them, without having to run to the store on an impulse, and without having to eat as many as you bought before they go bad in a few days. And even without the juice, they retain the nice flavor of real peaches. Obviously the full sensory experience is kind of lacking, but that's the price you pay for longer shelf life.

These are very filling. Three or four of them, and I'm done, which means that there's lots of nights of snacking in one bag.

All in all, a welcome addition to the world of dried fruits.

Will I buy it again? 

I'm not nearly as hooked on these as I am dried apricots, but yes, I'll definitely add them to the rotation.

Trader Joe's McIntosh Apple Juice

I don't understand why TJ's has both this and its regular apple juice for sale, side by side, at the same price for the same quantity. Maybe if I could sample them at the same time some difference would become apparent. But I can't tell that this is any different from any other apple juice, whether TJ's or any other brand. It's another commodity item for which I'm at a loss to come up with anything useful to say.

Will I buy it again? 

If I'm at Trader Joe's next time I decide to get some apple juice, then it's a coin flip between this and their non-McIntosh variety. Maybe I'll buy both next time and see if I can detect a difference.

Trader Joe's Organic Roasted Tomatillo Gazpacho Soup

This appears to be a brand-new product at Trader Joe's, the latest in their line-up of refrigerated soups.

I've never had gazpacho before, so I was kind of looking forward to this, even realizing that it had onions in it.

It sure didn't turn me into a fan of the genre--and it wasn't just because of the onions. Nina came up with the perfect description of it, but I don't want to steal her thunder. I'll just say that it wasn't so awful that I couldn't finish one bowl of it, but it was bad enough that I think the leftover is going to go down the garbage disposal--or maybe back to the store. I offered to let Nina take it home, and she politely declined.

Will I buy it again? 

Nope.

Nina's View

Well. 

First if all, I would like to commend Bob for bravely trying this product, despite the evidence that it contains The Vegetable Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken. 

Second: I like a good gazpacho. Nothing says "summer" quite like a cool bowl of chopped and puréed fresh flavorful produce. So refreshing! So bright! A palate-tingling delight!

Third: This was not that. This was essentially a sad, watered-down, overly oniony (yes, there is such a thing) salsa with a stale, sour undernote. This did not deserve the proud name of Gazpacho.

Fourth: When my CSA starts providing me with fabulous produce, I shall make a gazpacho worthy of the name and deliver it unto my beloved, and he shall like it. Or not. In either case it will wash the taste of this offender from my mouth, hallelujah and amen.

Fifth: Don't buy it. It is a recipe for disappointment (if you are already familiar with gazpacho) or a bad place to start (if you are not). 

Trader Joe's Soft & Juicy Mandarins

I ought to like these. I ought to love them. The package lists but three ingredients: Mandarin orange segments, sugar, and sulfur dioxide.

Can you guess which ingredient is the problem here?

It's the sugar.

You have every justification at this point to ask, "Who are you, and what have you done with the real Bob?" But Trader Joe's has somehow managed to exceed even my higher-than-normal threshold for sweetness. These things are way, way too sweet to enjoy.

You can see a fine coating of white powder on the orange pieces. I assume that's a mix of sugar and sulfur dioxide. I wondered whether to blame the excessive sweetness on the orange segments themselves--perhaps due to concentration of the naturally occurring sugars from drying--or the added sugar. So I thoroughly rinsed a few pieces in tap water, then dried them off in paper towels. I then alternated between eating one straight from the bag, and one from my rinsed samples.

The results of this little experiment were, in my mind, definitive: the problem is the added sugar. Rinsed free of the sugar coating, the segments tasted delicious, just like regular Mandarin oranges, except, of course, chewier.

I don't object to the sulfur dioxide. I assume that it is needed to preserve the color and perhaps keep the pieces from sticking together too badly. Fine. But the sugar? No, thanks. Not only is it completely unnecessary for such a naturally sweet fruit, but it turns what would be a delicious treat into one that I find unpleasant.

I sometimes check the #traderjoes hashtag on Twitter to see what people are saying about the store and its products. By coincidence, I did so last night about an hour after first trying these orange segments, and found somebody saying, "Best. Snack. Ever." It had a link to this Instagram picture:

I beg to differ.

This item could be a fine addition to the impressively broad Trader Joe's line-up of packaged dried fruit--but only if they reformulate it without the added sugar. As it is, it's almost inedible.

Will I buy it again? 

No. I suppose I could apply my solution whenever I wanted to have some, but rinsing and drying dried fruit is never going to be something I feel like doing when I head for the snack cupboard.

Nina's View

The mandarin-orangey flavor is excellent, the sweetness is excessive. Just dehydrate them, TJ's, sprinkle a little sulfur on them to keep them pretty, and let us nom them up. (I knew that eventually my clever disguise would be exposed; my alien power to alter the taste palettes of others is clearly more than human.)

Dinner

Nina was over for dinner tonight. I made one of my occasional 100% Trader Joe's meals. (Well, very nearly. That's plain tap water in the glass, not TJ's bottled water.)

We started with (not pictured) TJ's French Comte cheese on TJ's Pita Bites crackers. Then, as you see here, we had tostadas, consisting of TJ's Handmade Flour Tortillas, TJ's Refried Black Beans with Jalapenos, TJ's Soy Chorizo, TJ's sun-dried tomatoes, and TJ's shredded Swiss & Gruyere cheese blend. The soup is a brand-new TJ's product, Organic Roasted Tomatillo Gazpacho Soup, which I garnished with a few kernels of TJ's Giant Peruvian Inca Corn. The salad is a blend of TJ's baby spinach and TJ's butter lettuce and radicchio, with some TJ's pomegranate seeds tossed in, and TJ's balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Finally, there's a small glass of TJ's tangerine juice.

Dessert was TJ's fresh blueberries and TJ's Meyer Lemon Cookie Thins.

If I'm counting right, that's 16 Trader Joe's products in one meal. I'm not sure if that's a personal record for me, but if not, it must be pretty darn close.

Now I have very many reviews to write.

Trader Joe's Organic Vegetable Soup With Quinoa & Kale

Did not like. Too peppery, and way, way too full of onions, which, as all sensible people know, are poison to humans.

Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Handcrafted Black Bean & Cheese Taquitos

These are pretty good, not great. I fault them for (1) being on the bland side, and (2) having no discernible cheese taste. If you were fed these blindfolded, you'd think they were just bean taquitos, not bean and cheese.

Will I buy it again? 

Once in a while.


Addendum, July 8, 2017: 

I had these again--kind of accidentally. Nina had a potluck dinner at her house. I saw some taquitos on the table and helped myself to some. I had no idea they were Trader Joe's, nor that they were an item I had had before, until after I had powered through a couple of them. I liked them a lot more than my description above, and I found them to be nicely seasoned, not bland at all.

This is another incident that goes to show how subjective taste-testing is. I doubt the product has changed, but it was a different day, I was probably in a different mood and/or had different expectations, and my history with food has evolved since I first tried this product.

I want more, and I think it will more than the "once in a while" I grudgingly conceded originally.