Trader Joe's Parsnip Chips

This is Day Nine of an extended New Products Week. 


Parsnip Chips are only kinda sorta new. Trader Joe's announced them in March, 2015 (see here), with an anticipated arrival date of June. But then that got pushed to September. And even when they arrived, it wasn't everywhere. As usual, the west coast gets all the things first. They didn't show up in North Carolina until a couple of weeks ago.

So how are they? OK, but not about to replace potato chips for me. They're a lot like the Vegetable Root Chips, but with only the parsnip parts (i.e., leaving out the ones made from sweet potato and taro). They're definitely better dipped in some decent hummus than eaten straight from the bag.

$2.99/bag.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Nina's View

I like these parsnip chips a lot. I am entirely content to eat them straight from the bag. If you don't want yours, I'll have them, no problem.

Trader Joe's Marshmallows (and Trader Joe's Crisp Rice Cereal)

This is Day Eight of an extended New Products Week. 


Of all the new products Trader Joe's releases, maybe one in ten gets a whole lot of people posting on Twitter with excited photographs of their new find. This is one of them. First there's just the fact that Trader Joe's now has marshmallows, so it's one less thing that you have to go to a second store to find in order to complete your shopping. But the added bonus is that they're vegan--no gelatin--which is a rarity in the marshmallow world.

Here's TJ's description of the product: http://www.traderjoes.com/digin/post/marshmallows. They're kind of pricey, at $2.99 a bag.

I would have no difficulty distinguishing these from the more common national brands, like Kraft--but it would be on the basis of texture more than taste. They're a little softer and lighter. But more noticeably, they have an odd granular texture. When Nina tried them, she thought this was just in the outside powdery coating, but after repeated trials, I convinced myself that it's through-and-through. Others have noticed this, too; see here, for example. It's not bad, but it is distinctive.

I did not notice any major difference in taste from the national brands--unlike this astonishingly (and unjustifiably) glowing review.

I don't have any easy way of toasting marshmallows, so I can't comment on how they perform under fire (or, more accurately, over fire). But I did make up a batch of rice crispy treats, using these marshmallows, Trader Joe's Crisp Rice Cereal, and even Trader Joe's Organic Butter, for what was very possibly the nation's first batch of 100% Trader Joe's marshmallow-rice cereal treats. (I hesitate to call them Rice Krispie treats, since I didn't use that brand.)

Incidentally, I found the cereal by itself to be indistinguishable from Kellogg's Rice Krispies, in both taste and texture. Though I didn't try them side by side, I've had enough of the latter in my life to feel confident saying that nobody will ever notice if you make this substitution.

The treats were completely normal--just like every other batch I've made. Nothing about them betrayed the fact that I used TJ's versions instead of name-brand products. They were a complete success. I had started the job with some small worry that the lack of gelatin would adversely affect how the marshmallows melted, or the chewiness of the resulting treats after cooling down, but neither was a problem in the slightest.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes, for both items. My only use for marshmallows and for rice cereal is in the occasional batch of treats, but when I get a hankering to make some, I'll be happy to be able to get the ingredients at my favorite store, instead of at the giant supermarkets. The one catch to this plan is that, for some unfathomable reason, TJ's is making these marshmallows a summer-seasonal product, instead of year-round. So if my urge for crispy-rice treats hits in, say, January, I'll have to go back to Kraft.

Roundup

This is my weekly compilation of news and other links related to Trader Joe's.


The 8 best bottles at Trader Joe's wine shop

11 must-have items from Trader Joe's



Best tweets of the week:

1.

2.

3.

And finally, instead of the usual cute cat in a Trader Joe's grocery bag, here's two cute kids in Trader Joe's grocery bags--posted, ironically, by a woman named "Kat."

Trader Joe's Cold Pressed Juice--Cantaloupe

This is Day Seven of New Products Week. 


Trader Joe's introduction to this product is here. $3.99/bottle.

I'm afraid it's been a dismal week for the new items. As of yesterday, we were 0/6 for things I would buy again. So I'm happy to close out the week with a solid hit.

This is the fifth in TJ's line of "cold-pressed" juices, and it's the best of them by a long way. I've never even heard of cantaloupe juice being a thing before, so I have no base of comparison, except for a lifetime of eating cantaloupe. This juice tastes just like I would imagine from that background, plus a bit of lime added for contrast and tartness.

It's sweet, refreshing, and delicious--pretty much perfect. If you like cantaloupe, I don't think it would be possible for you not to like this cantaloupe juice.


Will I buy it again? 

The price will make it just a rare treat, but yes.

Trader Joe's St. Nectaire Cheese

This is Day Six of New Products Week. 


This was the feature cheese of the month for May, at $9.99/pound. See Trader Joe's introduction to it here.

I knew nothing about this cheese when I brought it home. I tossed it in the fridge and didn't think anything more of it for a couple of weeks.

Then I started noticing that something smelled bad in my refrigerator. Since I'm a lazy old bachelor, this is not a particularly surprising condition. It means that something got shoved to the back of a shelf and forgotten for way too long. I poked around, though not especially carefully, not finding any culprit, so I ignored the problem for a while more.

Around the same time, I started seeing people on Twitter mention how this St. Nectaire cheese was the smelliest cheese they had ever had--and finally it dawned on me that there might be a connection between these two things.

Well, last night it was time to try this cheese as an appetizer for my weekly dinner with Nina. I opened the plastic wrapping and set it free.

Oh. Em. Gee. No kidding, you can smell it from across the room. And it's not a pleasant smell. TJ's says it's "aromatic of straw and mushrooms." No. It's stinky toejam. It's unwashed feet, the inside of old gym shoes.

However, the Twitter people were also saying that the cheese is delicious in spite of the smell, so I did my best not to let the aroma put me off--to no avail. I couldn't like it. The smell was just too much. The cheese itself is bitter--maybe a little less bitter if you're careful to remove the rind, but still too bitter for me to enjoy. It's also too soft to slice nicely (TJ's calls it "semi-soft," which I guess is accurate, since it's not really brie-soft).

I'll confess that the problem here might be me, that my palate just isn't sophisticated enough for a cheese this exotic. But after two chunks of it on Triscuit crackers, I was done. The rest is going back to the store for a refund.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Nina's View

Okay, this definitely falls into the category of "acquired taste." It is strong and distinctive, and will definitely not appeal to everyone.

I'm pretty sure that I could acquire the taste for this cheese. But I won't, for the simple reason that I'm never buying it (because: dairy) and will thus probably not have the opportunity of prolonged and/or repeated exposure to it.

Trader Joe's Island Salsa

This is Day Five of New Products Week. 


Trader Joe's description of the product is here. It's $2.99 per jar.

I passed this by the first two or three times I saw it in the store, for two good reasons. First, with mango as a main ingredient, I was pretty sure Nina wouldn't like it. Second, I haven't liked any of TJ's non-tomato-based salsas so far--and that specifically includes their Tropical Mango-Pineapple Salsa and their Pineapple Salsa. I saw little chance that I would like this version any better.

I was right. It's just too fruity, too nontraditional for my admittedly narrow taste in salsas.

I did try mixing it with my favorite, the Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa, to see if that would make it more palatable. It did, but only by dilution, not by the two products enhancing each other in any way. So I eventually gave up and threw away the last third or so of the jar, so that I could enjoy the Fire-Roasted by itself.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Chile Lime Seasoning Blend

This is Day Four of New Products Week.


Trader Joe's description of this item can be found here.

Before I bought this, I checked the label for usage suggestions, because on my own, standing in the store, I couldn't think of a single thing I would use this for. The label's first suggestion was to tart up pineapple or jicama. That sounded interesting enough, so I put it in my basket, and also picked up some fresh pineapple on which to try it.

It was a complete fail. The overwhelming flavor that comes from this little bottle is salt. Salt, salt, and more salt. Plus a little lime. Chile? Well, maybe if you stare at the label that promises there are chiles in it, and apply some imagination.

Using the sodium content information on the label, plus some basic math and chemistry, I calculate that this is about 48% salt by weight. Which kinda explains why it's so salty.

That fact suggested that maybe we might better use it in situations where one would ordinarily use plain salt, and see if it worked better there than it did on the pineapple. So the next week I made scrambled eggs the main protein for my weekly dinner with Nina.

This was definitely an improvement--but not enough to want to do it again. With the salt no longer seeming so dominant and out of place, what came through next was the lime. I did not think lime and eggs blended well. And the "heat" promised by the label was still basically AWOL.

A score of zero for two earns this seasoning an unequivocally failing grade, and a trip back to the store for a refund.

For an opinion so contrary that one wonders if we were even trying the same product, see the review by the nice people at the "What's Good at Trader Joe's" blog, here.


Will I buy it again? 

No.