How cute. Cheesecake slices for dolls. I mean, I'm a dude, so you know...cheesecake slices for action figures. When we were kids, we'd take our G.I. Joe toys and set them up with my friends' sisters' Barbie dolls. They'd fraternize, eat tiny cheesecakes together, and then they'd get a little amorous, you know? Things might have gotten a little frisky between the Joes and the Barbies. But then Sergeant Slaughter would realize his pants were fused onto his legs, so things never really got out of hand.
Anyhow, tiny cheesecake slices. They're "truffles" that are "cheesecake-inspired." I've always been a big fan of cheesecake. Truffles? They're kinda hit or miss. I don't generally gravitate towards them. But cheesecake-inspired truffles are worth a whirl, I figure.
And yes, the morsels in Trader Joe's Cheesecake-Inspired Truffles Collection are awesome. They do indeed taste like cheesecake. Texture-wise, they're close to real cheesecake. It's like cheesecake but not as dense. They feel like whipped cream cheese on the inside. The outside is like your typical candy shell or thin layer of chocolate.
I LOVED the two fruit flavors: lemon and raspberry. Sonia agrees about raspberry but not lemon. I have no idea why. I almost felt personally insulted when she mentioned she wasn't as big a fan of the lemon flavor. They're both super tart and super sweet. I guess there's more tartness in the lemon flavor—a bit too much for Sonia, apparently.
She loved both of the non-fruit flavors. I liked them okay, especially the vanilla one. The caramel one was my least favorite, and even it's nothing to complain about. I think the salted caramel flavor just overshadowed the cheesecakiness to some degree.
If they made a box with four different fruit cheesecake flavors, it would be a shoo-in for this blog's Pantheon. They should keep lemon and raspberry. I'd also add orange cream, cherry, strawberry, and/or blueberry.
$4.99 for eight miniature cheesecakelets. Would buy again. Perfect as a gift or to substitute any occasion you might buy one of those boxes of chocolates with mystery truffles. Eat your heart out, Forrest Gump. I give Trader Joe's Cheesecake-Inspired Truffles Collection four stars. Sonia does too.
Bottom line: 8 out of 10.
A long time ago, I had a colony of Sea-Monkeys that lived for at least 5 years, spanning from my tweens until well into my high school years. It got to the point where they could survive on the algae naturally growing in their little aquarium. Generation after generation spawned and lived out their uneventful lives right there on our kitchen counter. Once a month or so, my dad or I would check on them. "Yep, they're still alive," we'd announce, despite their water getting murkier and murkier with each passing season.
Sonia was recently lamenting the fact that she had been deprived of Sea-Monkeys as a child, so we got some of the novelty pets off Amazon and hatched them about a month ago. We had to laugh at the ridiculous art work on the packaging that anthropomorphizes the brine shrimp and depicts them as a typical human family but with tails and weird spikes on their heads.
In a similar fashion, my overactive imagination can't help but picture probiotics as little people-like creatures swimming around in my guts every time I partake of yogurts, dietary supplements, or in this case, a beverage with "live cultures" or "probiotic" microorganisms.
I figure they have parties and play games with each other down in my belly. It's a bit disturbing when I think about it too much, but everything I've read insists that they're good for me. So...bottoms up!
Trader Joe's Tangerine Probiotic Sparkling Beverage not only provides a hundred billion little Sea-Monkey-esque people to swim around inside your tummy and promote gut health, but it doesn't taste half bad, either. It's a very refreshing, light, fruity flavor. It's sweet, but not too sweet; tart, but not too tart.
The carbonation level is perfect. It's actually surprisingly bubbly. I feel like it's a tad more fizzy than most of Trader Joe's sparkling juice beverages. Maybe it's just the probiotic critters splashing around having a good time. I dunno.
$1.99 for the 12 oz can. I would absolutely buy this again for the refreshing taste and carbonation alone, and any health benefits that might come with it are just a bonus in my book. There's a ginger version, too. I'm going to have to try it now. Four stars from Sonia. Four and a half stars from me on Trader Joe's Tangerine Probiotic Sparkling Beverage.
Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.
