Trader Joe's Garlic Bread Cheese

 There's some basic things that take me entirely too long to grasp. Just ask my lovely bride. 

Latest example: What the label of the new Trader Joe's Garlic Bread Cheese was trying to convey pre-prepping. 

Bread cheese? What's that? Like...cheese with bread in it? Cool! Right? I'd give that a try. But ooh let's read the description: 'Seasoned with garlic powder & baked golden brown." Golden brown what? Bread crumbs? Something else? C'mon TJ',s tell me. What else we got here?

But upon opening, further inspection and reading of the ingredients, and the sudden realization that the word "baked" was a verb and not an adjective (it wasn't entirely clear at first, phrase parallelism be darned), it was pretty apparent: this is just some cheese with a little bit of garlic in it. Nothing much more, nothing less. 

I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. Garlic and cheese are tasty! But to expect something groundbreaking here is the wrong thought train. It's a pretty mild cheese, kinda like a cross between mozzarella for its taste and halloumi for its heat resistant properties (though not so much it's crumbly curd-y texture). There's a subtle, not-so-in-yo-face garlic flavor somewhat permeating, and is made more apparent by the glistening effect of heating the cheese for several minutes. It doesn't get all melty, just a little sweaty, and remains softly firm, if that makes sense. 

Really, though, that's it. Not everything has to be full flavor onslaught, but this TJ's garlic cheese does tilt more towards bland than bold. It's not awful, and I can what they're going for - like the cheese from cheesy garlic bread - but most of those I've had have more garlic and zest. Serving with some sauce would really help out, and I can see cutting up tiny bits for like a pasta or veggie salad, and how that'd be a welcome addition, but by itself? Meh. 

Would buy again, especially at its reasonable price point (something like $4 for the 6 oz chunk) but I'm not gonna be stocking up and probably won't notice when it's gone. Middlin' scores all around. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Garlic Bread Cheese: 5.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Tangy Turtles

Back in the day, before the current heliocentric model of the solar system was widely accepted, philosophers used to ask one another—and I'm paraphrasing here: "If the earth is a big flat plane in the middle of nothing/everything, then what is it resting upon?" One of the philosophers suggested that the plane of the earth was resting upon the back of a turtle.

So then, the obvious follow-up question arose: well then what's the turtle resting upon? And the obvious answer came up: an even larger turtle. And what's that turtle resting upon? And so on and so on. I think you see where this is going.

Eventually they decided that "it's turtles all the way down." There's a Sturgill Simpson song by the same name. So...that was my inspiration for the product photo. The turtles aren't mating or anything like that, just in case you were wondering.

These particular turtles wouldn't do a very good job of supporting the earth because they are indeed soft and squishy, and they have holes in their middles. Their texture is fine, with just a hint of crunchy sugar granules, particularly on the turtles' colorful backs.

They're a little bit tart and a little bit sweet. There are three different colors: green/yellow, red/orange, and blue/purple, though I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be different flavors. The ingredients don't really mention any particular fruit flavors or anything like that, though they do use "vegetable juice," "fruit juice," and "spirulina extract" for color.

These are on par with junky dollar store gummy candies, flavor-wise, though they might use slightly better ingredients. The first words out of Sonia's mouth after trying one were "Ewww! Gross!" She wishes they were either super sour or simply sweet. She's not into the whole sweet-tart thing. She describes the white part of the turtles as "disgusting," though she's okay with the colorful part. I suppose two stars from her is pretty generous, considering her initial reaction. I'll go a star higher and note that I've had worse gummy candy in my day. We'd both recommend the recently-reviewed Fruity Gummy Candies over these any day of the week.

Bottom line: 5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Key Lime Kettle Popcorn

Random amazing facts:

Both Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery were almost in the Lord of the Rings movies as Aragorn and Gandalf, respectively. That woulda been interesting, especially if somehow the famous quote from The Rock (kinda NSFWish) got referenced...

Actually, no, my mind is too blown at that to really go on too much more down that rabbit hole, but let's just also mention that somehow, corn is not the number one ingredient in the new Trader Joe's Key Lime Kettle Popcorn. 

Naw, fam, it's good ol sugar. 

More sugar than corn in popcorn - what? Does that technically make this a candy? Can this legally be labelled as popcorn? Who knows? 

At first thought, lime and popcorn seem odd bedfellows, especially key lime for a more dessert-y take than, say, a Mexican-style. But, really, it works. Must be all the sugar. The basis, of course, is a crunchy, fluffy, good ol' fashioned kettle corn kernel, which admittedly I was too busy shoveling into my mouth to snap a pic of...yet again...sorry, fans. The kernels themselves have this somewhat odd looking coloring, almost like a green fluorescent highlighter than may or may not be glow in the dark. But apparently that's all the key lime, because it hits - bright, citrusy, very lime, and super delicious. It's important to note that this is not key lime pie flavor, so don't expect hints of pie crust or cream topping or anything - nah, just good ol' lime. It works, it really works, and in my opinion really oughtta be tasted to have it make sense. It will. 

All the descriptors on the packaging work. Sweet? Yes, obviously. Salty? Of course. Tart? Heck yeah. Tangy? Sure thing. One thing to note: coconut oil is used as the popping oil, and while that doesn't add any obvious flavor, it's something to be aware of for allergen reasons.

We got one bag for our family to take on a picnic dinner to an outdoor concert in the park in the other night, and within seconds each of us were clamoring for the bag and trying to horde as many handfuls as we could. Kids loved it. We loved it. Absolutely we're going to have buy more, and my lovely bride even did some recon on buying a case - it's something like 64 bags, and while that seems a bit overkill, I don't think I'd be terribly upset about it either, long as it got eaten. Hate wasting food. 

Sandy will give it a four, only because she's "not the biggest fan" of kettle corn in general. C'mon now....ok, yes dear. I'll have to go above that. We're gonna have to try our best to bring some more back home and have at it. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Key Lime Kettle Popcorn: 8.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons