Severe no for Trader Joe’s Chocolate Chunk Cookies. The cookies are dry and the chocolate is not satisfying and tastes cheap. I’m Yankee thrifty, but I’m tempted to throw the rest out! Ingredients look fine (ie, no corn syrup, which I won’t eat anymore), and there’s a bit of honey, which will usually raise the rating, but not this time.

Perhaps not the most appetizing photo. From here.

Part of my bitterness is because they used to make a chocolate chunk cookie that was totally great, maybe 8 years ago. It was dense, hard, but not too hard, somewhat grainy, with good quality chocolate. (may have been Guittard’s.) All you needed was a couple to make the starving (or sad) feeling in your gut go away. ( I met a guy standing in line behind me once, buying only these cookies, and he told me he would eat the whole bag in one sitting. Ah, men, and their lucky, lucky metabolism.) A bag in the cupboard always made me feel happy. Grrr at TJ for always always dropping good food. I wrote a lyrical poem about Trader Joe’s in my other blog, here. It’s not very nice. Read more »

Heads up, and it’s on sale right now at Gelson’s!

I warn you, this is still very pricey, at an outrageous $4.99 a pint! Normal people shouldn’t have to pay this much. But I decided to splurge one evening, and now that I know it’s the best, I keep watching for sales, and hope they’ll get it in other stores at a more reasonable price.

Greek Gods Honey Pomegranate Pagoto Ice Krema.

The website says:

In the 4th century BC, it was well known that a favorite treat of Alexander the Great was snow ice mixed with honey and nectar.

Ok-ay! Everyone knows the benefits of pomegranate juice by now, a powerful antioxidant. I don’t think everyone knows how great honey is, though; it was used to cover wounds in the battlefield during WW 1, before antibiotics were invented. I myself remember clearly that when I was 8, I was so sick, lying on the couch while the grownups played cards, and my grandmother’s friends made me honey toast. I wasn’t even hungry, but I ate it and got well within the hour. Really. (I collect honey cookbooks and booklets, but I think it’s hard to bake with – it doesn’t have the same binding qualities as sugar, or some technical cooking thingie.)

Greek Gods decided the best kind of marketing is the kind with no available photos, so I uploaded this cheerful one from Fancy Flours, instead.

So this is good for you, as well as being good on your tongue.

This ice cream also contains mastic:

People in the Mediterranean region have used mastic as a medicine for gastrointestinal ailments for several thousand years.

Chowhound isn’t as crazy as I am about it, and says:

We also tried the Honey Pomegranate flavor, which is not as impressive: the flavoring is much more subtle and mainly the honey comes through.

But that’s exactly why I do love it! Ice cream is so cold, it’s a challenge to get the subtler flavors to come through when your tongue might not be as sensitive. You can actually smell the honey, too! It’s a great mauvy color – if I could make this color with watercolor, I’d use it more.

May I have some MORE, please? /Oliver Twist.