Trader Joe's Trofie Colore

This is a brand-new item; Trader Joe's web site has nothing about it yet.

The main thing this has going for it is the appearance. It may be the prettiest pasta I've ever seen, both dry and after cooking.

Its taste is fine, but nothing out of the ordinary--just like every other semolina pasta.

It has a fatal flaw, however: It does not cook evenly. Even with frequent stirring of the boiling water, some pieces were more thoroughly done that others. And even within individual pieces of the pasta, when one end was more tightly curled than the rest, that little bit was left insufficiently cooked. This is unacceptable.


Will I buy it again? 

No. If not for that one defect, it would have been a yes.

Roundup

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


What you should buy and pass on at Trader Joe's this month

Trader Joe's pinches Whole Foods on price

Trader Joe's ten best French finds

Trader Joe's wraps often save the day

Trader Joe's riced cauliflower versus homemade

11 underrated Trader Joe's must-haves


Best tweets of the week:

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And finally, here's this week's cute cat in (or at least next to) a Trader Joe's grocery bag--PLUS a bonus Vine video of a cute cat enjoying her Trader Joe's cat treat.

Trader Joe's Beef Barley Soup With Veggies

I liked this. It has little enough beef that I don't feel too guilty about eating it. It's a little on the bland side, but not horribly so.


Will I buy it again? 

Probably once or twice a year.

Trader Joe's Organic Kosher Sandwich Pickles

Excellent. Good flavor. Good crunch. In order to use them on a burger, you have to cut them in half, making their use slightly more inconvenient than the "hamburger chip" style of pickles, which Trader Joe's doesn't seem to carry. But that's a pretty trivial gripe.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's Arugula Pizza

For frozen pizza, this is pretty good. The crust is crispy, flavorful sauce, nice balance of toppings. I have no complaints. Nina and I tried it with half of it sprinkled with a non-TJ's spicy fake ground beef, which made it even better.


Will I buy it again? 

TJ's has lots of frozen pizzas that I would like to try, but yes, I think that sooner or later I'll get back to this one.

Trader Joe's Chicken Breast Parmigiana With Marinara Sauce

I love a good chicken Parmigiana. This is not good chicken Parmigiana. The taste is as lifeless as can be.

Worse, the proportions are all wrong. The slabs of chicken breast are enormous. Some might see this as an advantage. I do not. Even on the fairly rare occasions that I eat some sort of meat these days, it doesn't take much to satisfy me. These cuts are both big across and way too thick. That means that inevitably the sauce and cheese is going to be demoted to second fiddle, rather than playing harmoniously together.

The photo shows nice, thin cuts of chicken generously coated in breading, sauce, and cheese. That's how it should be. The reality inside the package is nothing like that. The chicken is over an inch thick, the breading essentially AWOL, and the parsimonious amounts of sauce and cheese slide off the sides as soon as you heat the thing up.

Big fail, Trader Joe's.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Cous Cous

The first time I ever had couscous was at Nina's house. I'm not sure exactly how I had missed it all my life, but I had. I didn't even know what it was. Now I do: it's just the same semolina wheat that is used for most pasta, but formulated into granules. Its large ratio of surface area to volume means that it absorbs water fast and therefore takes less time to prepare than pasta. It also seems to be more foolproof--nearly impossible to overcook. 

I like it. I've already devised my own recipe: couscous topped with Soy Chorizo. Brilliant, eh? Super easy and delicious. I'm a culinary genius. 

Trader Joe's is the only couscous I've had, so I can't compare it with any others. My hunch is that I wouldn't notice much difference between this and what's sold in other grocery stores. 

However, I might notice a difference in packaging. The TJ's box is a shambles and a disgrace. It doesn't open so much as fall apart: 

That was the box at Nina's. When I bought my own, the result was pretty much the same. The side of the box has one of those perforated holes that you're supposed to punch out to pour, but like all such devices, it utterly fails to work as promised. It resists being punched out, then yields with jagged, almost random results--and can't be re-sealed. Useless. C'mon, Trader Joe's. You can do packaging better than this.


Will I buy it again? 

I've become a couscous fan, so yes I will--in spite of the crappy box.