Trader Joe's Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flaxseeds

Last summer, I posited the question of what a truly American food might be. Looking back, I wonder how I could have overlooked the obvious answer: peanut butter! Granted, my international travel experience barely challenges Sarah Palin's, but I've never seen peanut butter anywhere else. Going to Peru with about 40 fellow college students back in the day, we literally packed an entire suitcase or two full of big ol' Sam's Club PB jars to last us for the week. You don't get much more American than that. Even in the remote mountain villages of Mexico I can guarantee there'll be at least two or three shops where you can buy glass-bottle sugary Coca-Cola for barely a few pesos (I know because been there, done that), but never saw PB in even a large Mexico City groceria. When Sandy and I were in Portugal for our honeymoon, there'd be a wide assortment of Nutella-esque spreads but no peanut butter anywhere to be seen. And I've been to my fair share of ethnic groceries, and never once seen Polish, Italian or Chinese peanut butter. I kinda wonder why the US has the market cornered on peanut butter, but honestly I don't mind. It's kinda like a good secret we're in on that no one else is, and as long as I can get my fix, I'm good.

So, yeah, like pretty much any good redblooded American, I love me my PB. I've kinda evolved with it over the years, though. As a young ginger kiddo, Jif or Skippy or whatever was just fine. Not so much anymore. I mean, not that those brands are horrible, but peanut butter is capable of so, so much more than those.

Like Trader Joe's Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flaxseeds, for example. It's such a simple product, with literally three ingredients - valencia peanuts, flaxseeds, and sea salt. That's all there is, folks. It's so basic it reminds me somewhat of the grind-your-own PB you can do at some health food stores/co-ops. But man, what a combo it is. Each bite is full of roasted flavor from the nuts, and there's some little bits and pieces here and there for a little crunch action. The flaxseeds and sea salt do their job, too, though they can be a little heavy without a good stir beforehand. Texturally, it's a marvel of sorts: it's crispy, and no, not in that "crispy PB in a candy bar" kinda way. Those flaxseeds in there, aside from helping me hit homeruns like Barry Bonds, are all roasted and toasted and cannot help but be all crispied up, in every bite. Yet the main peanut portion is that deliciously stubborn kinda goop that sticks everywhere it can on the roof of your mouth. I cannot think of a single wrong thing to say, and I would use this in anything I'd put peanut butter in.

This isn't Sandy's kinda thing, though. She still likes the aforementioned basic brands enough to not move on from them. That's okay, we all got our hang-ups and guilty pleasures. For me, I have an unnatural affinity for anything resembling a fastfood breakfast sandwich, which I'd be getting much more often if I didn't smash together a PB sandwich almost every morning for the drive in. Anyways, she's giving it a pass. More for me, so I win. Like I said, I can't think of anything I'd change, but I'm not giving it a perfect score. I don't want to make too much of a habit of unilaterally granting something Pantheon-level status, and the one time I did, the product in question was promptly discontinued, so I'm not gonna tempt the powers-that-be in the deep, dark world of TJ's here. Let's just "say" I'll give it a nine, but, well, interpret as you will.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flaxseeds: 9 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Falafel Chips

I didn't know what to expect from falafel made into a chip. Trader Joe's Heat and Eat Falafel was a big hit here on WG@TJ's back in our heyday, May of '11. Tasty stuff. So we knew TJ's could do falafel right.

And we've encountered multiple kinds of successful chips from Trader Joe's. True, they're not batting 1.000, but they've done more right than wrong. So we had reasons to be hopeful.

And I must say, these are among the better Trader Joe's chips I've had. Unique. The kind of product that makes you question things. Things like: why do Americans only eat potato chips and tortilla chips, with very few exceptions? Well, because those are the only things that are on the shelf. But really, if every shelf in America were stocked to the brim with falafel chips, wouldn't they catch on just as well? Wouldn't brands of falafel chips be airing big-budget commercials during NBA playoffs and Stanley Cup Finals, too? If you eat them, will they not crunch? If you snack on them, will they not produce deliciousness?

I don't mean to wax philosophical on you when you're reading this to find out my opinion of these chips. I'm just trying to point out the fact that the type of chips we eat is really arbitrary—as life itself can be, sometimes. I'm just tryna' say get over your chip-prejudices, erase your preconceptions, and open your minds. The falafel chip is the brother of the tortilla chip, akin, yes—even to the potato.

I actually think these remind me most of the new Tostitos Artisan Recipes Roasted Garlic and Black Bean Chips, which are also very good and worth trying. They're both nutty, crispy, and lightly spicy. One can totally tell these TJ's chips are made of falafel—but only if you're really thinking about falafel right when you're chewing them. If you dressed them up differently and called them "Crunchtastic Critters" and made no mention of ground-up garbanzo beans from the middle east, I highly doubt many people would go, "Oh my goodness, these chips taste just like falafel!"

We ate the chips with TJ's Spicy Hummus, but I think they might be equally snacktastic with salsa, bean dip, or cheese sauce. They're firm enough to plow through a vat of hummus, but delicate enough for a sensitive mouth (like mine). Both taste and texture are very good, high-quality.

Sonia's going to give them a 4.5 star rating. I can't go much lower than that. 4 stars from me.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.