Trader Joe's Sliced Smoked Gouda and Artisan Reserve Vermont Cheddar

So there's this shirt that I wear pretty often on casual Fridays at work that's absolutely ridiculous and a constant conversation starter. It's black, with a big white printed logo on it that says "Wisconsin Cheese Cupid." "Cheese Cupid?," people ask all the time. "What the heck does that mean?" It's the name of some cheese pairing app that was giving away free shirts on Facebook yonder back that I just happened to stumble across and against better judgment click on only to completely forget about until the package arrived on my doorstep about three months later. The shirt's been a showstopper since. As for the app...well...it seems to indicate that every type of Wisconsin-originated cheese goes with just about everything, so, to me at least, it doesn't appear all that helpful.

In part because of this shirt, and in part because of my unabashed love of Trader Joe's (which does have a pretty great cheese selection), a lot of folks around me seem to think that I'm some sort of residential cheese expert. Far from it, I say. I know what I like and I know what I don't. I like the fresh mozzarella balls from places like PennMac right down the street from me in Pittsburgh's Strip District. I don't like Kraft singles and their various generic knockoffs. As far as TJ's stuff, though, to be honest, I haven't branched out much from the pretty typical sliced and shredded options. Admittedly, most of the few times I have, whether it's been this incredulous mad scientist concoction, or some waxy hole-y colby-esque grossness, I haven't been too impressed.

Until recently, at least. Let's start with the Trader Joe's Sliced Smoked Gouda. Oh man. This, friends, puts the good in gouda. Let me count the ways. Melted on top a freshly grilled burger? Yes. How about over a bowl of homemade potato soup? Absolutely. Straight as is? No doubt. But the very best way I found to enjoy this has to be as a grilled cheese sandwich with a little raspberry mango jam spread over top. Absolutely heavenly. I love the deep, smokey, rich flavor, I love the thick-cut slices, I love how the wax holds all the melty goodness in place so none goes to waste. Heck, I even love the price. $2.99 for a half pound? That's about the going rate for the cheapie yellow American at the local chain's deli counter, and this is much, much, much better. If you like gouda, this is a surefire winner. I don't really have the right vocab to really explain how good it is, or what exactly makes it so good, but I know good gouda when I taste it, and I'm tasting it with each bite of this.  There is not a single complaint that can be made here that I can think of. 

As for Trader Joe's Artisan Reserve Vermont Cheddar, I go a little back and forth. It's far from being bad cheese, no doubt, but as one of my coworkers stated today, "it sounds an awful lot of fancy marketing for just a hunk of cheese." I think she may be right. I've been to the Cabot factory and outlet stores in Vermont and eaten enough of their free samples to know what to expect from a chunk of Green Mountain state Cheddar, and this just isn't quite it. It's seems to me it should be a lot sharper for purportedly being aged for three years, and it also strikes me as being kinda creamy-tasting. Don't get me wrong, it's plenty sharp, but I've had a lot sharper in my day. I know there's a bazillion decent uses for a block of cheese like this, but so far Sandy and I have just sliced ourselves little bits to chomp them on down. If not for opting for the gouda in the aforementioned potato soup, some of this all shredded up would have been a fairly delectable option. It's the same price as the gouda, which makes it almost an equally good value in my book.    

Sandy's about an equal fan of both, giving them a three each. "I don't have a lot else I can compare them with, so I think they're both pretty good, I just don't know how good," she said. Fair enough, I suppose, although I occasionally hear her randomly utter about the gouda. Me? I gotta go with a full-handed five for the gouda, and I'll play nice and say a four for the cheddar.

Bottom lines:
Trader Joe's Sliced Smoked Gouda: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons
Trader Joe's Artisan Reserve Vermont Cheddar: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons 

Trader Joe's Roasted Coconut Chips

Since Hurricane Sandy paid us a visit this week, knocked over some trees in our neighborhood here in the Philly suburbs, and took away our power from Monday night into Tuesday morning, we've been thinking a lot about her Caribbean origins. Her Caribbean origins made us think about coconut. And our thoughts of coconut led to our purchase of a bag of Trader Joe's Roasted Coconut Chips.

It's mature coconuts soaked in young coconut juice. The best of both worlds. No need to choose experience over youth or vice versa. I'm pretty sure young coconuts are greenish and old coconuts are brownish, but other than that, I don't think I could tell you much about them. But I've always liked coconuts and coconut-flavored things, and this bag of snackaliciousness is no exception.

They're satisfyingly sweet, and they're big enough to treat them like bite-size snack chips, yet small enough to use them as toppings on cakes, ice cream, pudding, or what have you. At $1.99 for a bag, I'd say they were a pretty good value. If you're a fan of coconut, go ahead and shell out the 2 bones for something that I think could very well find itself appearing regularly on your TJ's shopping list.

They have a similar texture to that of the shredded coconut bits that we all know and love—the kind that are used as toppings on cakes and other desserts, but these "chips" have properties similar to other chips. They're flat and extremely crispy. They crunch when you eat them, and they have significantly more surface area than a bit of shredded coconut. 

Sonia gives them a score of 4 stars. She wishes the bag were larger, but other than that, she was quite pleased. I agree that in this case, more would have been better, but this relatively healthy snack was tasty enough to garner 4 and a half stars from me.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.