Trader Joe's Ginger Snowball Cookies

Don't those look scrumptious? I'll tell you, they look just as good when you open the box.

But taste? Not so much. The powdered sugar coating is too thick. I liked the bits of candied ginger, but sugar and ginger was all I tasted, with the rest of the cookie virtually tasteless.

Nina, conversely, disliked them for different reasons. She thought the ginger was so weak as to not be worth having, and didn't like how it sticks to the teeth.

I ate two, Nina ate one, and the rest are going back to the store for a refund.


Will I buy it again? 




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Rosemary tree

It's pretty, it's cute, and it has a lovely fragrance. What more could you possibly need to know?


Will I buy it again? 

Probably not, because I try to buy a different holiday decoration thing every year. Besides, there's, like, a 1% chance I could manage to keep this alive until this time next year.

Trader Joe's Organic Savory Vegan Gravy

What do you get when you combine water, onions, tamari soy sauce, coconut milk, and starch? If you ask Trader Joe's, the answer is "Savory Vegan Gravy." If you ask me, the answer is "Weird glop that looks like gravy but doesn't taste like it."

Of course, there's a lot more in there than those five ingredients, but they head the list. I suspect the it was something in the combination of onions and tamari that threw the whole thing off for me. I found it actually unpleasant to eat. Nina thought it was unexciting, but fine.


Will I buy it again? 


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Trader Joe's Peppermint Pretzel Slims

I've avoided buying these every year because I couldn't imagine liking them. To be sure, I love TJ's Pretzel Slims. And I love peppermint. But together? No. Ew.

I was correct. I had several at Nina's house the other day. They just seemed...off. Put the "creamy coating and peppermint sprinkles" on something else--a big marshmallow, say, or a maraschino cherry--and I'd probably think you a culinary genius. But on a pretzel? No. It's too clashy.

On the other hand, there's Nina: "I love them." "Delicious." "I could eat a hundred of these."

De gustibus, etc.


Will I buy it again? 



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Trader Joe's Chocolate Bar Quintet

I bought this in December, but didn't finish it until last night. And even then, I had only four of the five bars; I knew that I wouldn't like the Dark Chocolate Hazelnut, so Nina took that one home with her.

For each of the other four varieties, the added flavor comes in the form of tiny crunchy bits--e.g., candied orange peel, or honey "pieces" made with honey, corn starch, and sugar.

They were all good. I liked the Milk Chocolate Cinnamon Crisp the best, perhaps just because the combination of chocolate and cinnamon was so unexpected.


Will I buy it again? 

Not for myself. But it would make a nice gift for children, or to take to the hosts of a holiday party, etc.--assuming that Trader Joe's brings it back next year (which is far from certain with any of their copious Christmastime offerings).

Montezuma's Chocolate Truffle Collection

These are excellent-quality chocolates that Trader Joe's has carried during the Christmas season for the last couple of years.

The box contains 16 chocolates, in seven varieties--three each of two of the flavors, and two each of the rest, which is kind of a peculiar packaging strategy.

Most of them were rather difficult to identify, even with the key on the box, because, with a couple of exceptions, the pictures don't match the chocolates at all. One is reduced to a process of elimination, eventually settling on the photo that is the least unlike the chocolate one is trying to identify.

Two of them I didn't try, because I could be pretty sure in advance that I wouldn't like them: coffee and hazelnut. Nina ate those. I tried and liked all of the other five varieties. We both thought they were uniformly superior truffles.


Will I buy it again? 

I might buy it as a gift, but it's just too expensive per piece (and with too much packaging!) to buy it for myself.

Trader Joe's Peppermint Bark Popcorn

This is some weird stuff. Mixing chocolate and peppermint is perfectly standard, of course. But adding caramel to that is unusual. And it takes a mad food scientist to decide to throw all of that on top of popcorn.

It's not bad, but it's strange. I don't think the flavors and textures work well together; I find the whole experience kind of jarring and dissonant. But Nina loves it, even though she's not usually big on chocolate and peppermint. Go figure.


Will I buy it again? 

No. Except maybe as a stocking stuffer for Nina next year.

Trader Joe's Mini Peppermint Meringues

These are little bomblets of sugar, held together by some egg white, flavored with peppermint. There's nothing wrong with that formula--but by the same token, there can't be that much great about it. They're plenty tasty, but your mouth and brain will be left with no doubt that all you're eating is fluffed-up minty sugar.

Can we talk about the serving size here? Take a look at this:

11 cookies? First, they're not "cookies." Call them "pieces," or "meringues." But 11? ELEVEN? Eating 11 of these would be like one of those stupid "challenge" fads that kids these days like to film themselves doing, like eating cinnamon or an ultra-hot pepper. I'm convinced that eating 11 of these would put you in the hospital, needing an IV insulin drip. I had four, and even though I liked them, that was plenty, and probably one more than the optimal serving size. The thought of tripling that makes me ill.


Will I buy it again? 

No. Nice, but solidly in the once-was-enough category.

Trader Joe's Mint Flavored Fudge Brownie Bar

Well, as you can see from the photo and the description on the package, you've got a brownie base, then a layer of minty-creamy stuff, then a layer of chocolate stuff with green sprinkles. It all works surprisingly well for store-bought brownies, which have a long track record of being disappointing. The mint portion brings a nice complementary flavor, without being overpowering or toothpasty.

It's sold frozen, but I assume that's only so they don't have the fast turnaround problem that fresh baked goods necessarily carry; it's not to be served that way.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It was pleasant, but once was enough. I have my favorite brownies, and it ain't these.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels

I think this is the first Trader Joe's-branded product I've seen that doesn't say "Trader Joe's" on the front. That's why I'm including a picture of the side of the box, where one finds the brand name. Odd.

This is obviously meant as a stocking-stuffer kind of gift. That dark brown insert in the front is a removable gift card.

There's only four chocolates inside. They're nice--rich and flavorful. The chocolate, caramel, and salt work together as well as we've come to expect, given that this combination has been used by TJ's many times before.


Will I buy it again? 

Not for myself. But it's possible I could purchase another to be used as intended--as a small gift in an appropriate circumstance.

Trader Joe's Hold The Cone! Mini Ice Cream Cones--Peppermint Flavored

I've previously described two other versions of this same basic product: vanilla and pumpkin-ginger. But these are the best yet. These are what the evolution of the idea was always leading to. They are the Platonic ideal of mini ice cream cones. The combination of chocolate cones plus chocolate coating perfectly balances the peppermint ice cream.

I ate four (half the box) in one sitting, and had to restrain myself from polishing off the rest.

They're so good, I'm adding them to my Top Ten list.

I assume that this is a limited-time seasonal item, so get 'em while you can.


Will I buy it again? 

Heading to the store today for a refill.

Trader Joe's Cheesy Trees

In their favor, these are the cheesiest cheese crackers I've ever had.

But on the demerit side, they're unforgivable brittle. No more than a quarter of the crackers were intact in the box, and even those would break on the first dip into anything denser than water. This property renders them useless for anything other than eating straight, or perhaps crumbling onto the top of soup.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Holiday Frosted Sugar Cookies

These are OK, but not great. They're among the softest sugar cookies I've ever had, which is not a compliment. A little frosting on sugar cookies is acceptable, but it's much too thick here.


Will I buy it again? 

No. Store-bought sugar cookies are never as good as homemade, but even with appropriately lowered expectations, these don't measure up.

Trader Joe's Marbellous Chocolate Bar

As you can see from the packaging, this is intended as a gift. It even opens as a gift card before you get to the pouch that holds the chocolate. (The back of the package steals the strange phrase "strikingly visual bar" from the Marbled Mint Crunch Chocolate Bar. Both are listed as products of Ireland. Dollars to doughnuts, they're made by the same supplier.)

The chocolate bar is really pretty--even more so than the small part you can through the window above. But it's kind of odd-tasting. I think this must be because of the large percentage of white chocolate. The dark chocolate parts remind me strongly of Hershey's chocolate syrup from my childhood.


Will I buy it again? 

No. One was plenty.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Mint Flavored Cupcakes

Oh, these are truly excellent--and an innovative twist on the age-old chocolate/mint flavor combination. At least I've never seen anything like them.

All the description you need is right there under the product name on the label. What you need from me, then, is simply confirmation that it's not misleading or overly hyped. It is, in fact, quite accurate on all points. But they left out that there's a mint-chocolate star cookie on top.


Will I buy it again? 

Well, they're far too rich to have often, even if they were going to be available all year 'round. But if Trader Joe's could suck all the calories out of these cupcakes without ruining them, I'd snarf them down daily.

Trader Joe's Winter Snowflake Pasta

In flavor, this is, predictably, just like any other dried wheat pasta. It takes a little longer to cook than thin strands, but that's a minor inconvenience. Somewhat surprisingly, there wasn't much damage to the shapes from being agitated and stirred in the pot of boiling water. I thought they might fall apart, but no.

It's unusually pretty on the plate, for not being a multi-colored beauty like this one or this one. The snowflakes also make convenient bite sizes.

But its greatest advantage over standard pasta shapes is that all the little holes and ridges are supremely good at holding on to pasta sauce. I like that. In fact, I usually go out of my way to buy "rigate" forms of pasta specifically because I like having more sauce cling to my pasta. This is absolutely the best pasta form I've ever encountered for this quality.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm going to stock up on it while I can, then mourn the day that I use the last of it and have to wait until next winter to get more.

Trader Joe's Chili Chocolate Collection

I think that this is probably a seasonal Christmas item. There's nothing overtly Christmas-y about it, but TJ's tends to bring out a slew of products at Christmas that make good gifts, and they disappear soon after. I bought it shortly before Christmas, but didn't get around to sampling it until last week.

There are four different chocolates here, each repeated four times. In order of what the box says is the order from mildest to spiciest:

Milk chocolate guajillo
Jalapeno ganache
Chili lime
Habanero milk chocolate

But Nina and I found that the actual order of heat intensity bore no resemblance to this claim, and I confirmed that impression again just now with another run through the four. We found the hottest one by far to be the jalapeno ganache (with the green chili design). The burn is a bit too intense for my taste.

The real standout is the chili lime, though it's the mildest of the bunch. I would never have imagined that chili, chocolate, lime, and caramel would work well together, but they do! They ought to sell this one as a separate treat--maybe even make it into an ice cream or something.

The milk chocolate guajillo suffers from being a milk chocolate, which just doesn't work well with the chili. This is the only one of the four that is a solid chocolate, rather than filled.

The habanero is also a milk chocolate, but it's not as noticeably deficient as the guajillo because of the addition of a dark chocolate ganache.


Will I buy it again? 

No--except maybe as a gift to somebody who I thought might enjoy the taste test. This is definitely in the "once is enough" category. But you really should try it that once. They're likely to be chocolates unlike any you've had before.

Trader Joe's Ugly Sweater Cookie Kit

I've never before purchased any of Trader Joe's food-building kits: gingerbread house, haunted house, etc. This one, though, struck me as such a silly idea that it might be fun for Nina and me to tackle after dinner one night.

It wasn't.

The three bags of colored frosting included are damnably difficult to work with. If you cut the nozzle off close enough to the end to get a fine stream (as would be required to pull off any of the intricate designs so tantalizingly depicted on the box), the amount of pressure required to squeeze the stuff out literally blows a hole in the bag. How do we know this? Trust us--we know.

So instead you're forced to cut the nozzle with a much wider hole just to be able to get the frosting to come out, but the result is such a crudely broad tool that it's difficult to work with.

Here were my best--yet still pathetic--efforts:

And Nina's:

Now, I'll admit that since the day that we made these, I've seen maybe ten people post photos of their own creations on Twitter that were clearly superior to ours, though still nothing like the box shows. And, in the "YMMV" category, I'll note that many of these contributors expressed what fun they had making them. Us, not so much.

If the resulting cookies tasted good, all this could be forgiven. But they don't. They're sad, dreary, lifeless cookies. The white ones are below-mediocre sugar cookies. The chocolate ones are like eating Oreos without the cream filling.

And the packaging! Egads! I'm not usually too picky on this subject, but the amount of plastic that you have to throw away is unconscionable.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It's an utter failure.

Trader Joe's Butter Cookie Wreaths

These are OK, but it seems a stretch to call them "butter cookies," as there's not much buttery about them. More like "flour cookies."

When the best part of the cookie is the colored sugar granules sprinkled on top, you've done something wrong.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Orange

Nina bought this. I'm glad she did. I had passed it by several times, thinking it probably wouldn't be very good. I was wrong. It's excellent. They balanced the dark chocolate and orange flavors just right. And the thing really does break apart cleanly, as promised--which I wouldn't have believed without seeing it for myself.


Will I buy it again? 

I'd be happy to get one in my stocking every Christmas.