Hershey's Milk Chocolate With Caramel Bar

Do I dare to eat this weird little square chocolate bar? I do dare. It's 2 rectangles that say 'SMORES', so I guess this is meant for SMORES, but I wasn't equipped for all that. Basically, it is a flat carmello -- typical hershey kiss choco with a thin layer of liquidy caramel toward the top. It's pretty good, not just because it's nut-free but also because the caramel is so thin as to be a treat rather than a burden. There's no empty air pocket, which is good for preventing unwanted melting. Made me a little panicky after eating (itchy mouth, head is goo), but what doesn't? I imagine the next one will be a treat.

Overall
Cost: 4/10 (7.50 for 6, but they are babby bars; like half a normy bar)
Taste: 7/10

Old Tyme Potato Rolls (Sandwich)

The rare sandwich roll in 2025 without a sesame warning (or copout sesame ingredient)! I bought these since Martin's (while good and nut free) technically contain sesame per the ingredients (even though I think it's basically a may-contain since I have never seen a sesame seed on them), and I probably shouldn't be playing sesame russian roulette. But at the same time, I might go back, because these taste like straight butter. They taste like a dinner roll with a big pat of margarine right on top. They taste like a weird butter-flavored cracker. IDK what's going on there or who this is meant to appeal to. There is sugar in the ingredients, maybe that's what I'm tasting?? Structurally, they are sound, and they look a little wrinkled and tragic (possibly just the bag I got; it was the only one left) but ultimately held up to heavy filling. No mold or allergy concerns, but the product is really not my favorite, flavorwise. Maybe I just need to get used to it. Anyway, grateful this is an option, regardless.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Bigelow Perfectly Mint Black Tea

Continuing to play whack-a-mole with health problems... supposedly spearmint tea helps with insulin resistance. But this is the only spearmint tea I'm not allergic to, and it also has black tea, which is caffeine (?bad for brain?). Also, spearmint tea tastes a little like an old lifesaver I left in my glove compartment for 10 years. Mixing it with black tea helps, I guess. It's not the worst tasting tea, but I don't know if it's a great evening beverage, and it's certainly not a morning beverage. It also used to be called "Plantation Blend", which, yikes. Perhaps I'm just in a mood. The tea is fine.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Partake Lemon Cookies (Soft Baked)

Who out there was clamoring for lemon cookies that taste like an oaty foot?? These are not great. Taste like weird, sour bread. A very slight lemon flavor, but not as strong as many other delightful lemon cookies. The texture is very nice, like a firm butter cookie (a good "bite", a good "chew"), but the taste is so-so. Like with many things, it does improve as you keep eating them, however. A little salt on the finish. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Pringles Mingles Cheddar & Sour Cream

Yo, my hands are like, super veiny today. Body horror caused by Pringle???? Or just heat + aging? Who can say. Anyway, these aren't pickle flavored, so that's a plus, but they aren't good, either. Not BAD, just not good. Pleasant cheese-curl texture, cute shape, massive serving size (still 56), but the taste is more sour cream than cheddar, which is weird. I don't like non-cheese dairy very much. A little bit "tangy" (I guess that's the sour part), but also a little bit ... parsley? Artificial (the ingredients are natural, but still)? I dunno. Cute bag though. Sorry Mr. Pringle, it just isn't meant to be.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Signature Select Wild Wonders Medley Tomatoes

Some of my best friends are wild wonders! I guess it seems I'm on a bit of a tomato kick, but it's just that there's always a different brand at the store and tomatoes are in a lot of recipes. (Healthy orzo bake, this time.) These tomatoes were not quite as flawless as the last ones I had, but they weren't too bad looking (or tasting). Just a lil wrinkly, but I didn't have to toss any. The medley element is mainly: red ones with a few dark orange ones -- not that wild, but neither am I, so it was just fine.

Overall
Cost: 5/10 (~4$)
Taste: 6/10

DeLallo Orzo

A brief return to the DeLallo life since the store had no DeCecco orzo. This stuff is solid. I don't like orzo, but I was making a ~healthy~ orzo spinach bake. It was OK. The orzo didn't fully cook but it soaked up all the broth after sitting for a while, and that really impressed me. They are very little.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Pringles Mingles - Dill Pickle & Ranch

God, what am I even doing? I hate dill pickles and ranches. But I can't resist the stupid little pringles man and his weird new rhyming snack. Plus the allergy info had a may-contain (soy and egg), which means I trust it mayn't contain nuts. Also I should probably eat less sugar in case I have secret diabetes (this thinking will probably last like 2 days or until I get the relevant labs done). Anyway, long story short, these are kinda bad. But the shape (weird puffy bowtie) and texture (cheese-curl-esque) are good. The taste is much like the pickle Dorito, another "why did I buy this" classic. Mostly pickle vibes, with some cheese-curl-creaminess to the puff itself, which I guess is the ranch element. A serving is 56(!!!) of these, which is making me ask myself if I'm a masochist or just a lil bit obsessive-compulsive as I suffer through exactly 56 pickle pillows (jk, I think we all know the answer to that one).

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Cheez-It Smoked Gouda

Unlike families, each unhappy Smoked Cheez-It flavor is pretty darn alike. I don't think I could pick this out of a smoked lineup, even though the reviews for it are weirdly positive. Sure, gouda seems much classier than cheddar, and it looks like it might taste different, but the overwhelming note is still Smoke Flavor, which I hate. (I got these at the same time as the other ones, if you are wondering "why then do you have these.) I guess they are marginally less intense, which is a slight point in their favor, but it is marginal. If it weren't for the smoke flavor, I think they'd be tasty, since I do perceive a pleasant cheese cracker in there somewhere. If you eat a bunch at once, the smoke flavor is kinda backgrounded, and so they do get better. But each new session is an agony. Alas. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Village Farms Lip Smackn' Grape[tomatoe]s

Tomato branding sure has gotten trendy. This looks like Target packaging, which is now an insult (boo Target, all my homies hate Target). The product was good. Grape is my favorite tomato subtype, and although there was no smackn' [insane typography] to speak of, these were in much better shape (redness and unwrinkledness-wise) than other tomatoes have been. Didn't have to toss a single one. Juicy. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Main Street Produce - California Strawberries

I've really been missing fruit in my life, but since OAS erupted it's so much bother to cook with it (and it's not quite the same). However, I made some strawberry muffins with these, and they maintained their form pretty well (and I didn't cut the pieces as small as I should and had a bit of Soggy Bottom situation, but so it goes). Anyway, no allergy issue when cooked, and although they were kinda on the verge of molding and not super fresh looking, I used the whole box because again, they were cooked. So there's some pros here!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Hot Wheels Jelly Bellys

Something went wrong at the Hot Wheels Jelly Belly Factory, and maybe that's why these were on Max Clearance at the store. Motor oil in the orange bean former, maybe? On a bit of a losing streak with sweets lately, but you're a fool if you think it will deter me! In this bag we have

Cherry: Not my favorite, 5/10
Grape: A strong grape flavor... better than a grape dum-dum at least. 6/10
Lemon: Wonderfully lemony, this one is good 8/10
Blue: This is blue, like blue Kool Aid. Pretty fun 7/10
Orange: This is the real horror. Like rubber bands or vasoline! Coconutty?! Disturbing. Did not eat beyond the first. 2/10

Overall
Cost: 8/10
Taste: 5/10

Pop Tarts - Girl Scouts Frosted Coconut Caramel

Nope. Not good. Nope nope nope. Dunkin' often has a winter line of Girl Scouts coffee flavor swirls, and their coconut caramel one is also (if I recall correctly) quite artificial and gross, but that's par for the course with Dunkin' flavor swirls. Alas, soon that'll be the pop tart reputation too if things keep up (I mean, they're already usually gross, but the artificiality is more recent; they used to just be pure sugar with a bit of natural flavor). These have an overpowering coconut smell, but the flavor is mostly plastic, sunscreen, and expired cinnamon bread. Like a lot of other bad pop tarts, the badness is really concentrated in the filling; the icing is just generic chocolate (fine) and the bready bit is just generic bready pop tart shell. On the upside, they're very convenient, and filling if you can choke 'em down. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Cheez-It Smoked Cheddar

I dunno why I got these, since I never liked Cheez-Its much to begin with, and I absolutely hate "smoked" flavor on anything (especially Chee(z)e). It's like I see a "new flavor" label on something I'm not allergic to and I fully dissociate until I'm home eating them. Very cool behavior. Anyway, these taste about like you'd expect. Baseline Cheez-it with smokey fake flavoring on top. Somewhat addictive once you get going. They do have MSG, which is either a migraine trigger or simply racism (or both). I didn't finish the last gross smoked Cheez-It box I bought, but it's about to be summer, so maybe I'll be so bored I'll finish these. It won't be a pleasure, though!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Hershey's Kisses

These seem like they'd be gross, but they're actually pretty good. Not milk choco (or even white choco if we're being real), but the essence of cinnamon toast crunch milk in a kiss shape. Cinnamony, milky, and with little hard "cereal" pieces in the middle. Like a less cloying, more cerealy dulce de leche kiss. The texture is good and interesting. The taste is like cereal, which is not really "delicious", but is tasty. They also have a buttery inside for some reason (a "cookie finish"), which elevates things. No allergy concerns, no migraine concerns, just the usual "junk food probably bad for your health hehe" concerns.

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [6$, also limited edition so probably unbuyable now]
Taste: 8/10

Filippo Berio - Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I use a lot of olive oil in my line of work (consumption), and so I like to get this one, because it's usually the cheapest non-store-brand option. The allergy situation seems to be good as far as nut oil cross-contam, because I think these guys just make olive oil (and pesto, but that's, like, presumably on another line). It tastes like olive oil. What more can one say?

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Mutti Passata

This isn't a cookie! (Or else it's a very very bad one.) I got this tomato puree (passata for snobs) to replace pasta sauce/ketchup/manwich/other tomato things with added ingredos so that I could control my ingredient consumption. To that end, this is great: it's just tomato and a little salt. But it's also pricier than all the more dolled up things it replaces, I guess because it's clean & classy. Anyway, no issues, but also nothing special to recommend it besides what it doesn't contain! 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Pop Tarts - Girl Scouts Thin Mints

I told my doc approx 1 year ago that the only things that seemed to have a positive impact on my (physical) misery were eating sugar and walking around. That still seems to be true, so I sure hope all the walking around counteracts whatever all these cookies and pop tarts are doing to me.

Anyway, I like a thin mint, so this is a good pop tart. Definitely not a great pop tart. But there's no weird cinnamon vibe or any other weird flavor notes, just vaguely bready chocolate with a very subtle/light mint flavor. The unfilled edge crust is probably the best part. I can't eat actual Thin Mint but as I recall, they taste nothing like these. Nevertheless.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10 (on a pop-tart scale, not an overall scale)