Trader Joe's New Pumpkin Flavored Stuff 2021 Part II

My co-worker brought some more snacks to the break room table...

Pumpkin Flavored Joe Joe’s with other natural flavors
Another delicious pumpkin fall offering from TJs. The cookie was flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg and wasn’t sweet, which paired well with the sweet filling. The filling was perfectly pumpkin and tastes like a homemade pumpkin pie and is actually made with pumpkin purée and pumpkin powder. So, in essence, it is a tiny pumpkin pie! These are a must buy if you come across them at TJs, but according to my co-worker, everybody else knows this, so they're out of stock more often than not.

Trader Joe’s Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread, soft pumpkin bread with warm spices
The crust was smooth and thin like pao de queijo, so I’m assuming it’s the tapioca starch that has something to do with that texture. Inside the loaf was soft, but not moist. The bread has a good pumpkiny, seasonal-spicy flavor, which is the winning point and why I’d consider purchasing gluten free pumpkin bread if I was ever in the mood for pumpkin spice sweets. I would reach for the Joe Joe's or blondies first.

Trader Joe's New Pumpkin Flavored Stuff 2021

Trader Joe's puts out new fall-themed items each year and my co-worker brought a couple of them to the break room table. 

Pumpkin Blondie Brownies

I’m not a huge fan of cake, but I’m a sucker for spice cake. After tasting this TJ's product that is labeled as a brownie, I will argue that I had some of the best spice cake I've had in a long time and it was cut into brownie-like squares. I’m not clear about the pumpkin flavor, but the combination of warm spices formed a delicious, yummy and moist melt-in-your-mouth spice cake. The cake had the perfect amount of sweetness to balance with the icing and white chocolate chips. Pecans added a crunch. These so-called brownies are delicious and dangerous!

Pumpkin Spiced teeny tiny Pretzel

These tiny pretzels have a yogurt-flavored coating, which is sprinkled with bits of crushed pumpkin seeds that are sweetened. I tasted pumpkin spice, but it wasn’t the nice, warm spices smoothly blended that made the brownie yummy. The pretzels had a more artificial taste and, quite frankly, an unpleasant mouthfeel. Maybe if I were more of a sweetened pretzel person these would work for me, but they don’t.

Fage Crossovers tomato basil blended low-fat Greek strained yogurt

I heard in passing that some yogurt company was going to release a curry-flavored yogurt and I got excited. I found myself in the dairy section of a supermarket with one of my aunts and we came across some yogurts with interesting combinations, but nothing savory. We ended up grabbing a few of those to try, but my search for the savory continued. About a month later, I found it: Fage Crossovers coconut curry blended low-fat Greek strained yogurt with roasted cashews. Right next to the curry was Fage Crossovers olive thyme blended low-fat Greek strained yogurt with roasted almonds and Fage Crossovers tomato basil blended low-fat Greek strained yogurt. Tonight, I tried the tomato basil.

Texture is thick smooth and creamy just like most greek yogurts.

Flavor: Before adding the almonds, there's a tangy, savory-sweetness to the yogurt. It took me a while to get, but after a few tastes I finally got the tomato flavor and then the basil came through, too. After adding the roasted almonds, which were seasoned with salt and course ground black pepper, the black pepper took over the flavor and it was hard to sort out the tomato and basil.

I was amazed at how much I liked a savory-flavored yogurt. I would have this again, but I wouldn't add the full serving of almonds so the tomato flavor won't be overpowered. This is a good serving for a light and savory snack.

7 Select Brand Spicy Guacamole Thin Tortilla Chips

The bag says “thin tortilla chips,” which is accurate. They are light and crispy and a nice texture for snacking. No jaw-shaking crunch or mouth-slicing shards of hard tortilla chips. 

The first thing that hits you is the spice. These are spicy, so those with a low tolerance for the heat, should avoid them, but the acclimated will think it nothing. When you start chewing and moving the chip bolus around you get a creamy nuttiness that I assume is supposed to be avocado. Then the smokiness comes in and brings it all full circle: a smoky, creamy spice. I wasn’t able to taste any tomato, although there’s tomato paste in the ingredients. But I think the sour cream, onions and garlic that really come through. There’s no avocado listed in the ingredients! 

Overall, these are good. I would eat them, again. I would serve them at a party. I will probably use them in my taco salad recipe. I give them three potatoes. 

My best friend bought these for me from 7-11, where they continue to offer interesting and often good flavors under their own brand. 

Carmela's Mint Cacao Nib Ice Cream

October 6, 2013

I first came across Carmela Ice Cream when they had a booth at the Larchmont Farmer's Market. I would buy several different flavors in their small cups and take them home or to someone's house for a tasting. The flavors were novel and quite yummy. I remember how excited I was about learning what new flavors they were offering. My favorite during that period was the Aztec Chocolate Ice Cream, an amazing blend of cinnamon, chili and chocolate an ice. Then suddenly, they weren't there anymore. 

I thought they just went out of business, so I was surprised to come across their simple little ice cream shop near the corner of 3rd and Fairfax. 

The past few years, I've found a lot of enjoyment in not-green mint chocolate chip ice cream, and I was happy when I found the Carmela was offering their own take on it. The cream was smooth and refreshingly minty. The cacao nibs brought a subtle and slightly waxy cocoa flavor. If you look at the spoon in the picture you can see that there's a substance that is left on the spoon. The ice cream was so good that the substance was hardly a turn-off, but I did some online digging and I found some suggestions that it separated butterfat, which is a sign of over-churning. Oh well! I'll order this ice cream every opportunity!

Bulgarini Gelato's Olive Oil

April 4, 2014
Probably one of the best frozen treats that can be found in L.A.County is Bulgarini Gelato, especially their specialty dish, olive oil gelato. As you can see, it is a white gelato that is tangy like a greek yogurt, somewhat salty and drizzled over with olive oil. The best way to try to describe it is kind of like plain greek yogurt, but much more complex with an explosion of sweetness and sourness that is only enhanced by the chilly temperatures.
If you're ever in Pasadena or surrounds it is very much worth the sidetrip to visit and taste the offerings of this hidden gem.

East Coasting 2013 Part VI... Mister Ed's Elephant Museum!

May 2013

Mister Ed's Elephant Museum is a place I've visited several times in my life and it is fun and interesting every time. Mister Ed apparently really loved elephants and started collecting them, figurines and photos and such, not the real ones. So there's the elephant museum where you can see thousands of elephant things on display. I don't know if Mr. Ed also loved candy, or if it was a subsequent owner who opened the candy emporium, but it is there and full of all kinds of candy including retro candy, homemade fudge, saltwater taffy and other snackie yum yums. 

The grounds around the museum are also very pretty and have cute little elephant touches and a giant talking elephant. 

When I visited Pennsylvania this past June, my aunt said the current owners are trying to sell and might end up closing Mr. Ed's. I thought it was important to post this, just in case. 

East Coasting 2013 Part III... Other snackie yum yums

The above are photos from snackie yum yum experiences i had while traveling around the East Coast in 2013.

• Antietam Dairy consistently serves me the best ice cream I've ever had. That's double scoop of chocolate chip at dusk. 
• I also drove around Lancaster County and found myself in Lititz, PA. That's a town with a great snackie history. I visited the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery. Sturgis boasts being the oldest pretzel bakery in the United States. There's a giant pretzel to prove it. Also in Litiz I visited the Wilbur Chocolate Candy Americana Museum and Candy Store. At the time there was a view into the Wilbur Chocolate Plant, but that is no more. It closed in January 2016.

Beer & Pizza in Jingletown: An Audio Tasting

Watch/listen to this, another audio tasting, done with my friend, Aram, while we were in Jingletown, an arts district in the Bay Area, for its biannual artwalk.

The beer you see in the slide show that we refer to as Steelhead, isn't one of the Steelhead Fine Ales, but made by a former Steelhead brewmaster named Larry Lesterud. So we should have probably called it Lesterud's Suds, at least that is what I'm going to call it from now on! Lesterud is also a fantastic photographer. That's how we came to meet him. While perusing the galleries and workspaces that were participating in the artwalk, I found an awesome print of some graffiti that spelled out my name (Crazy serendipity!). I bought it and we got to talking with the photographer. I asked him for a card or something and he gave me one of his old brewmaster business cards, which got Aram to asking questions. Turns out he brewed a special beer just for the occasion and well, we just couldn't keep ourselves from trying it.

The pizza you see in the pictures is from Fist of Flour Pizza Company. Owned and operation by a really awesome master of pizzas named James Whitehead. Other artwalk goers, Aram and I stood around and talked with him and his assistant in front of his mobile wood-fired pizza oven for a while. The pizza, by the way was Freakin' Delicious. I had 3 slices of veggie and 1 slice of Margherita. All the slices as you might be able to tell from the slide show, were a quarter size of the whole pie. Whitehead uses a distinct sauce that set all other toppings off beautifully. It was the perfect combination of spicy, sweet and tangy tomato. The veggie had arugula and some type of mushroom on it from what I could tell. And the crust was like a soft cracker, a bit lavash-like,  charred at the edges. It wasn't like any thin crust I've tried, but I'm no pizza expert.

I would highly recommend attending the Jingletown Artwalk, if not to experience great original works, but to at least sample Lesterud's Suds and grab a slice. 

Drake's Hefeweizen at Elevation 66 Brewing Company

Norm and Cliff welcomed me.

I went up to the bay area for family event and thought it was the perfect time to hang out with my friend, Aram, who was talking about leaving the country for a few months, if not longer. First thing we did was to meet up at his favorite bar, Elevation 66, a modern looking joint, with half its seating at the bar, and beer tanks behind the bartender. Aram knew almost all of the brewpub's crew, but also a lot of the customers walking in, out and sitting around us. It was like an episode of Cheers and I was guest starring! Ha!

Bad picture. Good beer.

Elevation 66 obviously has their own house brews, but I ended up with a glass of Drake's Hefeweizen, one of the bar's guest beers. And I couldn't have been happier. Drake's had a really beautiful, almost floral mulling spice flavor. It was flat like all hefs. And didn't leave my mouth with any unpleasantness.
I was pretty hungry when I got there, and so along with the beer, I ordered cod and crab cake sliders, a side of chips and housemade pickles. It was like a festival of things I love!

Fries, sliders, chips, pickles and aioli. 

As far as the seafood sliders, I wish they would have had a little more seasoning, but I wonder if the food is prepared with the idea that you'll be drinking beer with it. In that case, it was perfectly seasoned not to throw one's tongue off of the beer's flavor. Plus, the sliders enlivened when a little curry aioli was smeared on them. The pickles couldn't have made me happier. They're the perfect accompaniment to beer and a great palate resetter. The chips were great for pub chips. They're not what I'll be coming back to this place for, but I will order them again....with the pickles! Aram ordered french fries, which were yummy, too.

This place is great. I love the care and attention they pay to everything they serve. The people were pretty cool, too. Thanks, Aram!

The Mystery of the Haw Flakes

The first place I can remember living is in a 2-bedroom apartment with my mom in Koreatown where we lived until I was in Kindergarten, I think. We were surrounded by awesome neighbors who left me with a couple of really good memories. The apartment to the left of our door belonged to a Korean family with a little girl who's name I couldn't remember. We used to play together a lot and I remember being in her apartment, having fun and the smells of Korean food that came out of her mom's kitchen. Its amazing that these details are the ones that stuck in my mind.

Another thing I remember about this little girl is that she used to share with me a particular kind of candy. It was a flat round disc, dusty rose in color,  and it kind of tasted like tamarind. After moving a few times and years have gone by, I remember how yummy that candy was, but I never saw it in candy shops, liquor stores or grocery stores. I would remember and search everywhere I could think of, then I'd forget and wouldn't search at all.

Then after so many years, I was sitting down to eat lunch with some friends while in grad school and one of them pulled out this little colorful package with an Asian language on it and rips it open to reveal flat dusty-rose-colored discs, that were bigger than I remembered, but definitely it! I asked her what they were called and she said Haw Flakes. She let me try one and it was confirmed. I asked her where to buy them and she said any Asian grocery should have it.

I eventually found Haw candies at Wing Hop Fung. They had more than just the discs. It was like a cornucopia of Haw! I bought a reasonable amount, but went through it fast. I went back to Wing Hop Fung, but they didn't have them anymore. Sad! So, I visited Assi,  a Korean grocery. They didn't have any Haw, but they did have MSG. Hmmm.

Fast forward to June 2012: I was at a Polynesian festival in Bonelli Park with my parents where they had a booth of candy and snacks that I guess are popular with Polynesian folks. There they were and in bulk and on sale: Haw flakes, 6 packages for a $1!!! I bought about $8 dollars worth.  Yum for a long time!
That's my story of Haw. Here are a few photos and an interesting article. After reading this, I now only eat Haw flakes in the safety of my bed!

Oishi Ribbed Cracklings in Old Fashioned Salf & Vinegar

Dante and I went exploring at an Asian grocery store on Sunset Boulevard called Grocery Warehouse. We combed the aisles and I came across several items that I wanted to try including shredded papaya, Seasoning (that's what the sauce is called!) and this here bag of chips. I was intrigued by the "old fashioned salt & vinegar," but I was sold when I read that "'Beer Match' series of snacks are cut in big, big bite-size pieces. Flavors were selected specifically for a beer drinker's [sic] enjoyment!" Chips flavored and shaped for beer drinkers? I've got to try those!

When you open the bag you get a whiff of typical salt & vinegar smell, but these are not like any
S&V chips I've ever seen or tasted. First of all, these are not potato chips. They are starch chips made from wheat, tapioca starch, corn starch, oil and flavoring. They have the same texture as Shrimp Chips and even the same background fishiness.

The first taste...There is a spicy flavor as if there's some pepper in the mix, which there very well might be since listed "spices" as an ingredient. I feel like the tang is supposed to be the tang of vinegar, but the flavor chemists didn't quite hit the nail on the head. So instead of vinegary flavor, its vine-peppery!
There is not an unpleasant aftertaste, but the spicy flavor leaves a light tingly sensation in your mouth for a while. Also, after having ate a quarter of the bag, I feel like I have a slight balloon head going on right now. I'm not dizzy, just a little floaty. I'm going to blame that specifically on the MSG without any evidence or facts to back me up. Darn skippy!

I kinda like them because the flavor is different and as a potato chip taster, it is so pleasant to taste something out-of-the-ordinary. But I will never eat them again, because I felt like I dropped a sample size LSD dose after eating them. Chips aren't supposed to give you balloon head. And finally, I try to avoid MSG and artificial pork flavoring as much as one potato chip eater can. A solid Two Potato for Oishi's Ribbed Cracklings.

Pop Nation Ice Pops (aka Paletas)

At the San Francisco Carnaval Festival my friends and I came across an interesting looking paleta vendor. I can't pass up good ice cream, so I put the booth on my short list of things I was definitely going to get myself into. I ate three Pop Nation ice pops over the weekend and for $3 a pop (Ha!), it was totally worth it! Here's a brief description of my exploits:

Spicy Bangkok Night Market

Rich and creamy coconut milk or cream (probably cream) mixed in with a lot of chili and some other seasonings/herbs is what this delectable paleta tasted like. I asked the pop creators why it wasn’t spicy as advertised and they said it was a mild batch, explaining that you have to add more chili to the mix because since freezing causes chili to loose its potency. I do have to say that by the end of pop, I was a little tired of it, since it was so rich, but that ‘s another good thing about these pops, they’re the perfect serving size to just get a good go at the flavor and then its over. Its like a satisfying walk around the block: You wanted to get out of your apartment, but you didn’t really want to go anywhere. Okay, so I’ve gone off in a totally different, and strange direction. I’ll stop here.

Lemon-Lime Kiwi Ginger

Tart and serious is the best way to describe this paleta. Serious? How is food serious? Well, thank you for asking! What I mean by that is that it tasted like it was good for me and going to do great things to my body, especially my digestive track. This flavor wasn’t as fun as the others, but it was still an yummy blend of tangy and sweet, and the only pop that I tried that didn’t have cream in it.

Strawberries N' Cream with Basil

My friends and I were leaving the San Francisco Carnaval Festival and I wanted to try one more paleta. There were a couple flavors I was considering but I took a risk on Strawberries n' Cream with Basil. I’m not big on strawberries and cream flavored stuff, but I tried this paleta because I figured it would probably taste better using fresh ingredients and not the artificial or “all natural flavoring” that you usually find down grocery store freezer aisles or the candy rack. Of the three I at this one was the best. A big smile formed on my face every time a bite captured both the creamy strawberry flavor and a bit of basil. What a glorious combination!

Yay for Pop Nation!

Lotus Root Chips at Burma Superstar

I just got back from a weekend in California’s bay area and I had a blast! Did lots of dancing and came across some amazing tastes as well. One notable place in Oakland is Burma Superstar, specializing in Burmese cuisine, which is a mix of neighbor’s influences (i.e. India, China, Laos, and Thailand).



For an appetizer, I shared lotus root chips with my friend (Terrible picture, I know, but its what I got!). Thinly sliced lotus roots, which look like uncooked chicharones de harina, are fried until they turn a golden burnt orange, then seasoned to perfection with chili and salt. Delicious, simple and amazing! You can’t just have 5 or 6 of these chips because with the large holes in the root, you have to eat at 20 to equal a heaping handful of regular potato chips.

We also ordered the Burma Cooler: Ginger and lemon mixed into beer. At first we found all those bitter tastes too much for our palate. In fact, the Burma Cooler was bordering on unpleasant, but I’m not one to waste beer so I was drinking it anyway. After we started on our entrees and adding all the tangy, sweet, salty flavors to our tongue, and especially after the yummy garlic sautéed pea leaves (Say what? Yeah.), the Burma Cooler’s bitterness melted into a yummy, smooth palate cleanser. It was like a ginger-lemon wine cooler, easy to drink and flavorful, but not overpowering.

The rest of the food was great, too. They don’t have a huge selection of beers on their list, but a few microbrews and I don’t remember seeing any of the major brands available.

Burma Superstar!
4721 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
510-652-2900
burmasuperstar.com

Sweet Potato Tortilla Chip Rounds

From Trader Joe's May 2012 Fearless Flyer:
Think of these chips as the comestible equivalent of a musical mashup, only instead of pairing the Beastie Boys with Adele, we’ve paired the venerable corn tortilla chip with the orange wonder of the tuber family, sweet potatoes. Trader Joe’s Sweet Potato Tortilla Chip Rounds have only four ingredients: stone ground yellow corn, sweet potato powder, oil and sea salt.

Sweet Potato Tortilla Chip Rounds (SPTC) are denser- less crispy than regular tortilla chips, making it really a perfect chip for nachos or other heavy chip toppings and/or dips. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the addition of the sweet potato or not, because I've had thick tortilla chips before. Uhm....Yeah, I'll go ahead and venture to say its because of the sweet potato.

The exact ingredient is sweet potato powder: Sweet potato, maltodextrin, corn starch and sunflower lecithin. Sweet potato powder is supposed to be high in fiber, vitamin A, iron and calcium, which are all present in these chips, but not in any sort of exciting amount. Imagine a multi-vitamin tortilla chip? Ha!

SPTCs have a distinctive tuber-y flavor, that is not a mean, bully flavor. It blends very well with the corn flavor.

The question is: Is it worth it to pay $2.49 for chips just because they have sweet potato in them when Trader Joe's has tortilla chips for $1.99, or you can even get tortilla chips from the 99 Cent Store? I would say yes because I'm a chip fanatic, but if I were really being frugal, which I am with almost everything else, I would go with cheaper, 99 Cent Store tortilla chips because they're good.

Tonight I ate SPTC with my Black Bean Salad. They were great with the salad's mix of tangy flavors and mushy textures.