I have heard a rumor that before the end of 2011, there will be a Trader Joe's near Naples. I refuse to believe this rumor until opening day of the store, because I firmly believe that the Trader Joe's corporate beast is not above f**king with my brain.
In the meantime, I make sure to stop at Trader Joe's whenever I am traveling in a city that has one. (I call these cities "Lucky Ducks" and also "Cities I hate!" But I'm not bitter ...) I recently was in Minneapolis, a Trader Joe's lucky duck city. I headed straight over to suburb Woodbury to breathe in the wonderfulness that is Trader Joe's. Unfortunately when I visit TJ's in other cities, I can only purchase non-perishable items. (Darn you, Delta airlines for not having freezers under your airplane seats!) I skip joyously through the Trader Joe's aisles and look for any non-perishable item that looks delicious and easy to throw in a suitcase. It was on this type of a mission that I stumbled upon Trader Joe's Bite Size Everything Crackers - inspired by Everything Bagels. I love a good Everything Bagel - not so much for its flavor, but because the Everything Bagel is a ticking time bomb - drop one in a bag of assorted bagels and it will make every bagel in the bag taste like an Everything bagel in no time! Sorry blueberry bagel, you've been dominated! You have to appreciate a food product that can destroy all other food products in its wake!
I was intrigued to see if the Trader Joe's Everything Crackers would have the lethally potent punch of an Everything Bagel. Would these humble looking crackers have the intensity to knock out all cracker toppings? It was a question just dying for a scientific experiment. And by scientific experiment I mean a plate with smoked rambol cheese and monterrey jack with habanero peppers cheese.
I would love to say that Trader Joe's did it again - that the Everything Cracker was Everything I Wanted And More! But I make it a point not to lie in my blog unless I feel like it ... and I don't feel like it today. It's New Product Wednesday, for Heaven's Sake ... I can't lie on New Product Wednesday!
The crackers have a dusty/crumbly like quality that I can only compare to the wicked cracker of my childhood: Nabisco Chicken in a Biskit chicken-flavored crackers. Now to this day, I have no clue whether "biskit" means biscuit or basket ... and I have a slight suspicion that growing up in a world where there were chicken-flavored crackers taught me at a very young age that "the man can't be trusted." Here's the difference though - Chicken in a Biskit crackers, in my childhood memory, rock. (I am NOT going to buy a box today, as an adult, because I have also realized that my childhood taste buds were kind of dorky.) Trader Joe's Bite-Size Everything Crackers ... do not rock.
I was expecting a hair metal band of flavor. Instead I got a bite-size morsel of Lawrence Welk - easy-listening, bland flavor. Whole grain, sort of nutty tasting with a confusing blend of Everything spices - but none seeming to hit their intended mark. I assume the intended mark was "tastiness." Weak in terms of the powerful punch of an Everything Bagel. Oh sad, sad day.
Now the cheese I paired with the crackers could hold their own. Frankly, I'd eat Monterrey Jack with Habanero Peppers on a cardboard toilet paper roll and still be somewhat happy. So the TJ's experience wasn't slowing down my love of all things cheese. (You can read more on my scientifically-implanted desire for cheese in the previous New Product Wednesday post, located conveniently at this link.) If you're looking for a bland, unassuming cracker that will piggyback a savory cheese, try the Trader Joe's Bite-Size Everything Crackers. If you were hoping that the "Everything" Cracker would climb on your back and do the guitar riff from "All Along The Watchtower," then skip this cracker and get yourself over to your favorite bagel shop instead.
I still love you, Trader Joe's and I really do hope you're opening a store in Naples, Florida. I will roadtrip with a car full of coolers to stock up on your wonderfully addictive products, except I'll skip the Everything Crackers. They are not "everything" to me.
Have you also noticed that these crackers do not look like the picture on the box? In fact, I found this blog post when "researching" the issue of these crackers having changed. They did not used to be greasy/crumbly. They had actual everything bagel toppings on crispier wafers... they tasted much more like everything bagels. I hadn't had them in a while and I was so disappointed when I opened a new box that I just put them aside. Fortunately, they're still good a month later, and I do think they're tasty, but these are simply not the product they used to sell.
ReplyDeleteYes- definitely a disconnect from the picture on the box and the actual cracker. I wonder if they changed distributors?
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