The Curious Shopper

Hey Ang,

I hope that summer has treated you well and that the world of artisan treatmaking is thriving! I myself am finding that this fall is already rife with opportunities in both seasonal and artisan treat-eating, and of course for the latter I largely have you to thank. Now that winter is fast approaching I’m sure that you have several icing-drenched Holidrizzlepopcorns all queued up to torment me and my willpower. And gosh Angie, you know I love you for it. But until then I’m afraid I have a bone to pick with you.

Now Angie, like I said, you know I love you. You know I love your kettle corn, and I also from time to time even eat your plain popcorn and I don’t even like plain popcorn. And yourmagical iced popcorn is nothing if not delicious. But lately, Angie, I gotta say. You have become a bit shifty. You are no longer keeping it real, and more recently also I think you may have lost your mind. I am here to intervene, as a friend, before it is too late.

I think we both know where this all started: Boom Chicka Puff. Cute name, like Boom Chicka Pop! But you are making cheesey puffs now, so of course you’ve gotta pounce on that cute little substitution. Angie being Angie. So clever. But these aren’t just cheesey puffs, they are ANCIENT GRAIN cheesey puffs. What you only put corn in your cheesey puffs? Pshaw! For peasants! We shall have quinoa and sorghum in our artisan cheese puffs, or artisan cheese puffs they shall not be.

And you didn’t just stop at Boom Chicka (Cheesey) Puffs, you broke the mold and opened our eyes to a whole new world of puffs. Boom Chicka Barbecue Puffs. Boom Chicka “sweet and salty” puffs (btw Angie you aren’t fooling anyone my wife figured out like immediately that this is just Waffle Crisp cereal in cheesey puff form). We feasted on ancient grains and laughed in the face of gluten and lived in blissful denial of our Cartman-esque existence and it was good.

And then, today, I step into Target, and discover a new monstrosity on the shelf. Boom Chicka Bites by Boomchickapop Ancient Grain Popcorn Clusters. Angie, girlfriend, you are like a snake eating its own tail. Angie, you ARE NOW GLUING GLUTEN-FREE ANCIENT GRAINS TO YOUR GLUTEN-FREE POPCORN WITH GLUTEN-FREE DRIED CANE SUGAR SYRUP. Get ahold of yourself, woman. The day you slapped the Ancient Grain logo on your motherfucking sugar-coated flavored popcorn is the day I lost all respect for you. I am urging you to see the light. I am urging you to slowly back away from the puffed amaranth, set down the vat of tapioca syrup, take a deep breath, and look at what you have created. I am about to smack you in the face with a cold hard dose of reality.

Angie. ANGIE.

Let’s call a spade a motherfucking spade.

ANGIE, THIS IS CALLED PINA COLADA FLAVORED POPCORN:

Yes Angie, it contains nothing but ingredients I will love. I know Angie, it is cholesterol free, whole grain, and certified gluten-free. AND IT IS 100% COATED IN SUGAR.

ANGIE, LISTEN TO ME. ANGIE! PAY ATTENTION! THIS. IS. CALLED. CRACKER. JACK.

Yes Angie, I know. It IS, totally fantastical, yes. You are totally fantastical. You are the pride of North Mankato, Minnesota. I’m just asking you to dial back a bit on the ancient grain talk and admit it when you act like you are re-inventing a food item so old that it appears prominently in a song that is part of the public domain, and while you are at it maybe also stop pretending it is healthy.

It’s ok, Angie, it’s gonna be ok. They’re still delicious, and I’ll always be here for you.

Love,

The Curious Shopper

PS Please let me know where I can find the Mixed Berry Boom Chicka Bites and also the Salt and Vinegar popcorn.

PPS And the Sweet and Spicy popcorn.

PPPS And the Caramel Cheddar mix. Kthx.

If you think for even ONE SECOND that I would be tempted to try the Halloween Whopper:

 or the Rainbow Doritos:

well let me just tell you that you

are

possibly

right.

If you, like me, are perfectly fine with regular mayo but hate the overly sweet, pungent, sickening disgustingness that is Miracle Whip, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT purchase Trader Joe’s mayo or any Trader Joe’s wrap/sandwich that lists mayo as an ingredient because regardless of what else is in it, it will taste like a Miracle Whip sandwich.

GUYS

I just ate the best potato chips I have ever tasted and I need to share.

So, rewind, those of you who read this blog who are related to me, aka those of you who read this blog, might know that for the past six years I have lived in a 100-year-old dumpy apartment in a vermin- and college student-infested neighborhood, and we just recently moved to a froufy house in a froufy suburb. Let’s play a tale of two kitchens. I just went from this white-walled nightmare:

…replete with floor tiles barely nice enough for an Ocean State Job Lot:

 …to this magical kitchen dream land:

I still can’t even handle it.

And with this froufy house in a froufy neighborhood comes, among other things, froufy grocery stores. For example, our new Whole Foods is magical, the hot bar is three times the size of the one in Brighton and I estimate we have spent approximately $500 on it in about one month. But the most surprising frouf of them all is the froufiest liquor store I have ever been to: Marty’s. Now there is a Marty’s in Allston but that Marty’s is not this Marty’s. That Marty’s is just a dark warehouse that I do adore for carrying our favorite London No. 3 gin, but that is about it. This Marty’s (while it upsettingly does NOT carry London No. 3) is the most amazing store I have ever been to. Not only does this Marty’s have like seven varieties of Ballast Point beer, but this Marty’s also has a deli counter and a grocery/frozen section that is the most amazing selection of delicious imported and local shit. Dial this back and reprocess it: the giant liquor store HAS A DELI COUNTER that make SANDWICHES and every kind of delicious imported/local shit. They have Sweet Sloops. They have twelve different curry powders. They have those metallic tubes of garlic/pesto/anchovy/tomato pastes. They have maple sugar candy. They have Mexican chocolate. They have spicy sushi mayo. But most importantly, they have Torres Select Black Truffle Chips and Torres Select Black Truffle Chips, I learned today, are the most delicious potato chips I have ever eaten in my entire life.

Holy crap, these things are so good. Let’s investigate more, shall we? Oh, I see they are made in SPAIN. Shocking.

Also, check those ingredients. Truffle oil? Psh, truffle oil is for peasants and Frito-Lay. No, they have full on DEHYDRATED BLACK TRUFFLES because they are not fucking around. Look at these flecks:

That’s truffle baby. Guys, this is nuts. These things are like $3 for a single serve bag but it is so totally worth it. $3 for a bag of potato chips. They will change your life.

In summary…

Lay’s Do Us A Flavor West Coast Truffle Fries chips are this:

Torres Select Black Truffle Potato Chips are this:

REMINDER: you can still vote in this stupid contest to make sure that Lay’s Do Us A Flavor West Coast Truffle Chips are taken off of this planet and never returned. Vote Biscuits, biscuits.

…and so am I!

This year we have four very intriguing candidates with fun, hip regional monikers we’re sure to get behind with local pride. I will review in the order tasted.

…my wife found me all of these in mini-bags because she is the best

Southern Biscuits and Gravy:

Welp, good on you Lays, these taste like biscuits and gravy, and by that I mean they taste like bacon fat and black pepper, and by that I mean they taste like magic. Where Chicken and Waffles swung for the fences and whiffed, Biscuits and Gravy slices down the line and gets all caught up in the bullpen chairs for a triple, maybe even an inside-the-park home run.

Greektown Gyro:

God, I love gyros. They are the best goddamn sandwich in the world and I really don’t eat enough of them. These chips tasted deliciously like gyros, and while yes, they were delicious… at the end of the day to be honest they just made me really want a gyro. Also what sliver of the American landscape is being referenced by “Greektown?” Anyways these are not bad chips, eat them if you want to (but not with a Gyro because that would be redundant).

New York Reuben:

How do they do this? It tastes like pastrami and thousand island dressing all at once. I guess if I had to dig deep for a criticism, FINE, I couldn’t really make out any rye. But who gives a shit? These chips have given me so many Violet Beauregard moments I can’t even handle it. These are also not bad chips, and you know what – hey, go crazy, eat them with a Reuben, I DARE YOU.

West Coast Truffle Fries:

These things are such a disappointment. THEY DO NOT TASTE LIKE TRUFFLE. THERE IS NOT EVEN A HINT OF TRUFFLE.* TRUFFLE IS SERIOUSLY THE EASIEST FLAVOR TO OVERDO HOW COULD YOU CONCEIVABLY UNDERDO IT? YOU MADE A CHIP THAT TASTED LIKE A GYRO AND A CHIP THAT TASTED LIKE A REUBEN SANDWICH AND A CHIP THAT TASTED LIKE BISCUITS AND FUCKING GRAVY AND YOU CAN’T GET YOUR HANDS ON THAT MAGICALLY UBIQUITOUS ARTIFICIAL TRUFFLE OIL THAT IS OVERUSED IN FUCKING EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE?

These fucking pieces of shit taste like sour cream and onion chips, and you know what that means…they are going to win.

BUT NO. WE ARE NOT GOING TO LET THEM. I CALL ON ALL OF YOU, RIGHT NOW, TO GO TO THIS DUMB WEBSITE AND  VOTE FOR ANYTHING BUT THE TRUFFLE CHIPS. BUT WAIT NO DON’T DO THAT ACTUALLY. If you vote for anything but truffle there is going to be an even spread of votes for everything and then Donald Trump is probably going to win. Yeah yeah, so unlikely to happen just like when Arnold freaking Schwarzenegger was running in a gubernatorial recall election and now his fucking signature is on my goddamn PhD diploma. So yeah, we must get behind a single candidate, and that candidate is Biscuits and Gravy. I hereby decree. Vote early and vote often. Keep faux non-truffle (which is exponentially more offensive than faux truffle) off our shelves and out of our childrens’ hands.

*Edit for fairness, if you shove like 10 of these in your mouth at one time there is a tiny hint of truffle

“Why would you do this to yourself?”

was my first reaction to trying Trader Joe’s Partially Popped Popcorn.

I didn’t like these things the first time I tried them, back when they were called Corn Nuts. I don’t like them now. It’s literally the worst part of a popcorn bag, and according to the description they wasted valuable Trader Joe’s Food Research Laboratory man hours developing a “proprietary method…that makes them almost addictive & easier on the jaw.”

I’m serious, Joe really said that. Jesus Christ, just read this bullshit for yourself:

Almost addictive, but not quite addictive, because in order for a food to be addictive it generally needs to taste good, and these do not taste good.

I supposed half the reason you’d buy is to see what they look like, so here you go:

The bag says “with butter and sea salt” but the kernels are powdery, taste a little bit cheesy, and leave a film on your hands. None of this is OK. Just move along from this product unless you really hate yourself and your gums.

Hello!

I just got back from a trip to Madrid. I think I am finally over my jet lag because this is the first night this week I haven’t fallen asleep on my couch at 10 pm and woken up in a confused stupor at 3 am. Now I am just straight up awake in a confused stupor at 3 am, so everything is back to normal.

I had to travel to Madrid for work for a one day meeting, so as a true academic I decided to bookend the trip with five days of vacation with my beautiful wife, and one day of being bored wandering around Madrid by myself. Now, I am not super into travel. I hate planes, I think other countries are generally weird, and I have never left the North American continent. I like North America. North America is a good place. So I have to say, when I first found out I had to go to Spain, I was not terribly excited outside of the fact that it would be my first trip abroad. But the more I read about Madrid, the more I realized…

Madrid is probably the place I am supposed to be.

Now, it’s not like I’m gonna be uprooting my life and moving there any time soon, but seriously, just about everything about Madrid that is different from the US is perfectly fine-tuned to my preferences. Some examples:

• They eat dinner anywhere between 8:30 and midnight….I EAT DINNER ANYWHERE BETWEEN 8:30 AND MIDNIGHT!
• They eat like four thousand small meals per day….I AM HUNGRY FOR LIKE FOUR THOUSAND SMALL MEALS A DAY!
• They mostly subside on cured meats, cheese, and bread…I BASICALLY SUBSIDE ON CURED MEATS, CHEESE, AND BREAD!
• They offer tapas so you can try everything in little, inexpensive portions….I WANT TO TRY EVERYTHING ON EVERY MENU EVER!
• Their “gin and tonics” are like five shots of gin and a 12 oz can of tonic in a giant wine glass….MY GIN AND TONICS ARE LIKE FIVE SHOTS OF GIN AND A 12 OZ CAN OF TONIC IN A GIANT WINE GLASS!
• They have like zero rules with regard to where you can wander around in public spaces with a glass of wine or beer in your hands…I HATE RULES RESTRICTING WHERE YOU CAN WANDER AROUND IN PUBLIC SPACES WITH A GLASS OF WINE OR BEER IN YOUR HAND!
• They straight-up day drink. Like elderly women knocking back beers and potato chips at 11am in a coffee shop while I’m enjoying a cafe con leche trying to wake up. This happened multiple times. Now, this is not very perfectly fine-tuned to me. I’m not much of a day drinker. It makes me sleepy. OH WAIT….THEY TAKE MID-DAY NAPS. PROBLEM SOLVED.
• Also, they pay waitstaff a living wage so you don’t have to tip more than 5-10%, they include the tax in the price of everything, and on top of that everything is extremely cheap. I HATE SPENDING MORE MONEY ON THINGS I LIKE WHEN I COULD SPEND LESS MONEY ON THEM.

So yeah, multiple times per day I think “I wish I was back in Madrid.” So in honor of the awesomeness that is Madrid, I give you:

Weird things I tried in Spain, with brief reviews:

• Chipirones en su tinta (squid in it’s ink) – excellent
• Tosta de angulas (Spanish baby eels on toast) – interesting
• Tosta de pulpo (grilled octopus on toast) – excellent
• Crab pate – wasn’t a fan
• Two godawful Caesar salads – please don’t eat Caesar salads in Spain it doesn’t work. Much like grain-based tortillas and consonants, Caesar salads are Mexican, but not Spanish.
• Orujo de jierbas (herbal liqueur) – taste: delicious smell: grappa
• Vermouth on tap – kinda like a Manhattan but made with Coca Cola
• Jamon iberica de bellota – this is special ham made from pigs who only eat acorns for their whole lives and it is amazing and my wife who doesn’t even like cured meats became completely addicted and THE MAN will not let it into the USA because there are TOO MANY FUCKING RULES IN THIS COUNTRY. But fuck them. Because you know what I did bring into this country?

SABOR A JAMON POTATO CHIPS.

And when US Customs started drilling me about the delicious food I had stashed in my luggage and they asked if I had any meat products I said “no” because Sabor A Jamon means “flavor of ham,” not ham, bitches. They are fucking delicious.

And now, for posterity, some awesome, less-weird things I ate in Spain that were amazingly delicious:

• Croquetas – my wife is a croqueta fiend, but I am more discerning. Light and airy, yay. Wet and heavy, nay nay nay. We ordered them at every restaurant we ate at and my approval rate was about 50%.
• Pulga de bacon – “pulga” translates to “flea” and I had no idea what that entailed but ordered it anyways and it was literally a mini bacon/french bread sandwich that I added on to my cafe con leche for like a dollar. God, I miss Spain.
• Padron peppers –  I first discovered these in a CSA box and they are known as the “Russian roulette” of peppers because approx. 1 in 12 is spicy. 12 in 12 are delicious. The Spanish fry them up in olive oil and toss them in flaky salt. (If you ever make them yourself at home, keep the oil because you can dip bread in it and it is literally one of the most delicious things that will ever touch your lips.) Amazingly, we ordered two giant plates of these in Spain and didn’t get a single spicy one!
• Assorted burrata tapas – this was actually a little weird – they were burrata in name only, toast with thick whipped cream/fresh mozzarella shreds topped with stuff like jamon, boysenberries, pesto. I seriously ate so many of these.
• Venison bites – fantastic, probably the best tapa we had
• Marzipan from Toledo – least sweet and hence, best, marzipan I have ever had
• Cafe con leche – currently angrily resenting my morning coffees and saving up for a Nespresso machine.
• Chestnut honey – brought some back it was so good
• An olive oil that had sort of a spicy aftertaste – made me cough, not a fan
• Porras con chocolate – I have mixed feelings about this entire practice
• Freshly fried patatas fritas (potato chips) – almost died
• Chorizo – best chorizo I’ve ever had
• Chorizo pizza – tasted like my Mom’s pizza but it had chorizo on it
• Pigs in a blanket where the pig is chorizo and the blanket is croissant dough – ate this on my last day and regretted not eating it every day
• Wild boar – boar was delicious but the sauce was meh
• Several raw milk cheeses including arzua gallego, manchego, camembert, cabrales, and mahon – died
• Several varieties of olives – died
• Sardines with parsley and lemon on top of a freshly fried potato chip – the thought of eating it disgusted me but I tried it anyways and it was delicious and I can’t stop thinking about it
• Slow cooked beef cheek – died
• Slow roasted pork shoulder on toast – died again

Tosta de pulpo, breaded camembert and the chorizo/croissant pigs in a blanket situation.

Various meils (honeys)

Beef cheeks

Chorizo pizza

Tortilla (spanish omelette), patatas bravas and chorizo con patatas fritas

Is that an earthquake? No, its JAMON.

Padron peppers and jamon iberico con pan con tomate.

And finally, to round it out:

Weird things I sort of wanted to try but didn’t

• McDonald’s “Cool Chutney CBO” – there were ads for this sandwich everywhere. I have no idea what CBO means, but “Cool” was literally the English word I encountered the most in Spain because of this ad. I wanted to try it so bad but I have not eaten McDonald’s for over a year and while it was oh so tempting, I didn’t want to break the streak. I did obsessively watch people who ordered various things from McDonalds in Spain because nothing they were eating was at all recognizable.
• Percebes (“goose neck barnacles”) – according to Wikipedia these are also available in California so hope is not lost

• Starbucks “American pancakes” – J/K I don’t know WTF this is all about but it was happening in every Starbucks case and it cracked me up every time.

As a final aside, the one thing I learned from all my travel guides is that Madrid is like a gazillion times cheaper than other European destinations like Rome, London and Paris. Seriously, I was paying for my “copas de vino” with coins. COINS. If you like the foods above, you should go to Madrid. And take me with you.

True story, I was walking with my wife to CVS to buy shampoo and walked past Trader Joe’s with no intention of going in until I saw this endcap display through the window and was drawn inside by a mystical force. Once I entered, I made my first of several disappointing realizations regarding Baconesque Popcorn.

Disappointing Realization #1: This Baconesque Popcorn is not Maple Baconesque Popcorn. The actual reason I made a beeline for htis Baconesque Popcorn is my current OBSESSION with the knowledge that the Kettle Brand Potato Chip company also makes a handful of flavored popcorns, and one of these flavored popcorns is maple bacon flavored. I want to try it so bad, and I can’t find it anywhere. Like everything in life, I can get it on Amazon, but when I last checked it was like $35 for 2 bags and even I’m not THAT impulsive:

The prices have come down since then but only in the sense that I can now get 6 bags, but I still have to spend $35. I’ll try almost anything, but I’m a fan of “trying” things in quantities smaller than would be sold at Costco, so I’m holding out hope for finding this stupid maple bacon popcorn in the store. Every single week I walk with childlike excitement to the popcorn/potato chip aisle at Wegmans hoping to find it and it is never there. Also every single week I see the Kettle Maple Bacon Potato Chips and for a second think it’s the maple bacon popcorn because of the word “kettle” and, yeah… Every. Single. Week.

So when I saw the words Bacon and Popcorn together on that Trader Joe’s chalkboard my first thought was “Eureka! I have found it! The Trader Joe’s knockoff of the maple bacon popcorn!!!!” which leads me to…

Disappointing Realization #2: This Baconesque Popcorn is actually Baconesque White Cheddar Popcorn. Not only is there no maple, no kettleness, etc, there IS white cheddarness. I am not a huge fan of White Cheddar popcorn, so this was a major bummer.

BUT, I bought the stuff anyways! Because who walks into a Trader Joe’s and walks out empty handed? (Just kidding we bought like 500 other things) I have now tasted it, and the final verdict takes the form of….

Disappointing Realization #3: This Baconesque Popcorn is not very good.

This crap tastes like Smartfood tossed in liquid smoke. It is also SO SALTY. I love salt and it is too salty for me. Be advised.

Also, fair warning, if you have the unseemly and, lets admit it, unavoidable habit of wiping your hands on various items of clothing whilst eating cheesy powdered snack foods, you WILL come away from your Baconesque Popcorn nosh session smelling like you just got back from a week of camping / pig smoking / fighting brush fires. I ate this stuff watching TV on the couch in my PJs and had to change my t-shirt before bed because the smoke smell was so distracting and gross. When I say “so distracting and gross” I mean both in its inherent smokiness and also in my own personal realization of just how much I had wiped my hand on my shirt without realizing it. You know when your dentist gives you those little tablets to chew on that stain your plaque red to identify your brushing “problem areas” and you chew them and smile in the mirror and you look like a cannibal clown and are totally mortified? Yeah, this is the popcorn equivalent of that. Who needs that kind of jarring reality check from their snacks? I’d rather go about my life in ignorance: with blind faith that the next weird thing I buy will be delicious, blissfully unaware of the various food residues on my clothing, and always hopeful that there will be bags of maple bacon popcorn stacked floor-to-ceiling just around the corner…