2020 Wimberger Zweigelt-Rosé

2nd day of the semester, and my head is about to explode, so I'm reaching for a fun and cheery rosé! healthy! I was about to list my hundreds of complaints about life, but suffice it to say, things aren't great even more than they weren't great before. Where was I??! Ah yes, so, it's the right time for a fun and fizzy wine. 

This is a cute looking bottle, although due to it being Austrian, I have no allergy info to comfort me. But, I drank it with no issues. It had a little fizz, which surprised me, and is also a bit more acidic than I expected, but it's still pleasant. Good both warm and cold. I made the Burrata, Strawberry, and Basil Salad (minus walnuts, see photo) to go along with it, and that was nice as well - sweet and very filling. Hopefully this will help me get through the week!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Haribo Twin Snakes

I had a lil 2 pack of these, and I think they were yellow and green, so I'm not sure what flavor that is. The two snakes were stuck together so it was basically like a big, chewy, sour gummy. Not bad all in all.

Purple+Orange:  This combo was also not bad, and also very deeply stuck together (but only at the tips). The orange was like a nice orange soda flavor; the purple was a little plasticy and not that sour, but maybe vaguely grape/pineapple flavored. Very classic gummy vibes from the purple. 6/10

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Bagel Bites - Cheese & Pepperoni

When pizza's on a bagel? That's good. I had been avoiding this flavor for I while 'cause I thought it had soy in the roni, but it actually doesn't! And these aren't bad tasting at all - I guess they're roughly equal to cheese in my taste rating, but guess these have more protein? Still a mild flavor, mostly "bread" notes, and they always cook unevenly, but I like 'em for a snackmeal. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

2020 Castillo de Logroño Rioja Garnacha

Garnacha, it turns out, is Spanish for Grenache. (Or is Grenache French for Garnacha?!). A solid red wine. I didn't get strong vanilla/chocolate/berry/cinnamon notes from this (the supposed flavor notes), but I did enjoy it as well as pretty much any red wine you'd enjoy. Slight cherry/woodsy flavor, not too strong in any direction or too acidic. Gave me a pretty tingly/heart palp-y reaction, which is making me wonder if I have a sulfate allergy ha ha. But the wine was nice. I did think it was less good cold, but here on day 2, I'm pairing it with the Smoked Cheddar and Ham Toasties with Fig “Mostarda” recipe and it's working for me. Almost like a fancy juice. Downsides, the cork is an OG cork and they didn't answer my (spanish AND english) allergy inquiry, at least not yet. But I also did not perish, at least not yet.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Flamin' Hot Fritos

Flamin', I like; Frito, I don't. If only they were more flamin', to cover up that they are frito. They're pretty filling compared to the other flaimin' snacks (cheetos etc), and the seasoning is fine, pretty much identical to the other sorts of flamin' -itos, but corn chips are gross to me, so it's a bit like buttering a basket.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Birds Eye Steamfresh Broccoli Florets

Floret is a weird word, right? It's like, brocco is the only time you use it. But I digress. I got these at Walgreens since I'm avoiding the grocery, and these are the only brocco at Walgreens. They are more pricey than storebrand, but they taste pretty good, and are definitely easy to cook. The downside of the steam-in-bag is that you're likely to eat the whole bag at once at that point. But they are very tender, and mix with risotto! I was pretty happy with both the taste (no plastic/freezerburn) and the texture (soft, with a small crunch).

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts

As an adult, I stand by teenie-me's opinion that chocolate flavored things are not that good. Therefore, these are not my favorite pop-tarts. They are indeed fudgey, and maybe less sweet than some of the others (and more fatty), which is nice, and there's a nice sticky chocolate filling inside, but the outside is your typical chocolate packaged-dessert flavor, which gets a resounding "meh" from me.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Kellogg's Raisin Bran

Alas, this is by far the inferior Raisin Bran when compared with Post Raisin Bran. But, I think Kellogg's is better with allergy stuff, so it's not all bad. Plus, if you let this sog up in milk for a while, it's pretty close to the mushy Post. Still thicker crisper flakes here, though, and the raisins don't have that sugary coating. It's fine; the cereal concept is a winner.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Downeast Pear Cider

Cider never does it for me anymore, and even among ciders, this isn't my top pick (Woodchuck baby!). It's a little bit sour. It did get better with time, but still more sweet than I'd like, you know? One great thing about cider, though -- ingredients on the can! God bless 'em for that.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats Cereal

This cereal definitely reminds me of my mom, who used to like these (maybe still does?). It used to be in a red box! Back then, I didn't like 'em, but to be honest they're not bad. A little bit of that basketty texture, but generally sweet and 'cereal' tasting, in the classic sense. Filling, too.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

2018 Pedro Mittelbrunn Castilla y León

Ah, wine, my old friend. This was a solid red, I never heard of the grape before but it basically tasted like a good, canonical red wine. Not too acidic or thick or weird in any way. And of course, nut free! The cork was also a weird plasticy deal, which I liked -- super easy to remove and didn't flake into the wine. A nice wine without any frills.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Betty Crocker Gingerbread Cake & Cookie Mix

Because I'm an idiot, I used this mix to make a sheet cake instead of cookies. This was a mistake! I don't know what I expected, but the resulting gingerbread cake (aka ginger Bread) was OK -- it tasted like a dense bread with ginger flavor. It needs something more, like cream cheese frosting. I did melt butter on top and add sugar, and that was good but still ultimately just a filling sweet bread. Very easy prep though, just required one egg. Probably would not make again. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

Gilliam Old Fashioned Candy Sticks

Alas, the three of these I got were all broken in at least 2 parts. But on the plus side: apparently the current maker of these says all their products are top-8 free. Pretty fortunate! And the sticks are individually wrapped with ingredients on them, so I feel good about that. 

Blueberry: This flavor tasted OK, but not as good as I'd hope. It didn't really have a distinctive flavor, just generic 'sweet' and even medicinal at points. But also enjoyable at points. At least these last for a few minutes, and are better than EnjoyLife lollies! Shrug 6/10

Passion Fruit: What is passion fruit, anyway? Is it an actual fruit [edit: yes]? I feel like I should know this. Anyway, whatever it's supposed to be, this stick tasted like pineapple and papaya. Tropical, I guess. It was sweet, and had a more distinctive flavor than that weak blueberry one, so I prefer this. 7/10

Birthday Cake: Well, this is an interesting flavor of candy stick! I think it was pretty accurate to piece of cake -- sweet, a little buttery, a little cloying but not as gross as it could be (see: birthday cake gum). Not my favorite flavor, but well-executed. 6/10

Blackberry: Very similar to what I remember of the blueberry -- kind of a strange, artificial flavor to it. Not bad, and very pretty to look at, but not really that tasty either. 5/10

S'Mores: This is a pretty good one -- tastes mostly like marshmallow, but with a little sweet smokey flavor added in. Shades of Jelly Bean s'mores flavor, but less cloyingly sweet. 6/10

 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Jack Link's Teriyaki Beef Jerky

Turns out my grocery store sucks, so I'm still buying a lot of stuff online. Endless quarantine life, baby (except that I have to teach in person). The little bags are pretty convenient protein, and decently filling for only 70 cals. The flavor is a little bit like beef teritaki, which is good, but the texture was pretty unappealing - kind of soft and mealy. The sodium and sugar stats are also not great, so maybe it's for the best I don't buy these too often.

Overall
Cost: 4/10
Taste: 6/10

Act II Light Butter Popcorn

Light butter popcorn always seems like the right choice. I like butter, and I like feeling like I made a healthy decision. But it's never really that good, and the health difference is so negligible between light and non-light. This one was OK. It had a little bit of a weird taste to it, and often came out overcooked, but it was fine enough. 260 cals isn't bad for a filling snack, either.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

MadeGood Strawberry Granola Bar

Another MadeGood success story! This had a cute little touch of strawberry jam (or cherry/apple) almost tucked in there, making the taste a bit sweeter than the other flavors. I liked it. The texture was chewy/pliable, which is a little weird, but the flavor was a bright strawberry/oat overall, which was pleasant. I wish these were sold in stores by me.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Lucille Restaurant

Minor drama ensued when we tried to pick a dinner place on a Covid-Sunday in Madison (everything nut free was far or closed)! Eventually we landed here, on this hip pizza place. We split Cheese Curds as an app, and let's just say, it's no poutine. Maybe they weren't great ones, but they basically were like cold mozz sticks. The ranch sauce was good, the marinara was marinara. I ate almost all of them anyway because I'm an animal, but it didn't impress me. 

Then we got 'The Standard' steel pan pizza (see photo), because I heard that "Madison Pizza" is apparently a style and I wanted to try the local hotness. The local hotness is weird -- basically a baby chicago pizza, very very thick crust, tasted good but supremely filling and not my platonic ideal of pizza. Quinn thought "no thank you". Ah well, I didn't die!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Act II Butter Popcorn

I bought this because it was cheap, so maybe what the box says ("best value in popcorn") is actually right! I was waffling between a 6 and 7 rating for this, but since it is better than the butter lovers flavor, I'll give it a 7. I think this is probably the best microwave popcorn I've had to date -- it has a good taste, reminiscent of movie popcorn, and a good crunchy texture. I've never had it come out too soft or too burnt, so it seems very consistent also. Maybe not the healthiest snack, but the stats seem within the ballpark of all the other microwave popcorns, and honestly for how cheap and filling it is, it isn't terrible for you (I think). 

Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 7/10

Lay's Wavy Jerk Chicken Chips

Lay's? More like Not Okay's. These taste like corn chips with cinnamon sugar on them, which is very weird and not what I like at all. Is that what jerk chicken tastes like? I didn't think so, but if it is, that's nasty.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 3/10

Red Vines

I had a really good memory of Red Vines from a cool rooftop showing of Greek (a show I was very into) way back in college. They were tasty and nut-free and I associated them with the cool West Coast, baybee. But I had them again recently and I was underwhelmed. Alas, they were nowhere near as good as I remember. Super tough, plastic-y red flavor and little else to recommend them. Yes I ate them all, but that's true of most anything. Red non-pull-n-peel twizzlers might be superior after all.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10

2020 Grape Abduction White

This seems like it'd be very cool -- I mean, look at the label art! Very cute and not in-your-face with text. Plus a 1 liter bottle, and a screw top. The downside is, they didn't answer my FB message about allergens (maybe because they're Slovenian and I wrote it in English? IDK). But the wine was solid anyway. It definitely has that sweet white pineapple juice scent, but the taste was a little drier/more sour/less sweet than similarly profile whites. I think I like it. There was still pineapple/melon flavor, and it made my nose tingle a bit. Best warm, but doesn't change or degrade too much in the fridge - still solid days 2/3.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10

Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Bar

This tastes like a dark chocolate bar, all right! The nice thing about dark choco is that it really doesn't contain any allergens in the first place. So, even though this is dairy and wheat and egg free, that doesn't affect the taste or texture at all. It's a solid dark choco bar with 4 sizeable squares, with a good snap to them too. The bad thing about dark choco is that it just isn't as good as milk or white choco, per my tastebuds. So, they did what they could, and it's not a super dark choco (50 some percent?) which I like, but it's still not my favorite treat. Definitely pleasant though.

Overall
Cost: 4/10
Taste: 6/10

Girves Brown Derby

Ah, the ol' Ohio trip. Of course, we were a big big group, and my parents + I got there late which literally always happens on family dining events, and so I ended up awkwardly sitting away from the actual family I came to see, and next to some strangers who did not share my political views. Love to have the allergy stress + covid stress + memorial sadness among a bunch of people who hate my guts!!! Disregarding all that (lol), the food was fine. I got the Smothered Chicken, which wasn't really that smothered but came with a ton of mashed potatoes and was mighty filling. I also got a side of brocco, and coffee, I think. I didn't die, but the allergy info didn't seem super great/reassuring. I didn't eat any of the bread, as per usual. It looked like a nice place though. 

Overall
Cost: 4/10 (probably not the best use of ~grandparents' estate~)
Taste: 6/10

Nutri Grain Bar - Blueberry

Yet more Ohio hotel brekkies. In truth, this made me a bit itchy?? But I was very hungry when I ate it, and so that's probably why it tasted better than the apple one. Ha ha.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Cheerios

Gosh, who knew I tried so many hotel snacks on this Ohio trip. Cheerios are a real last-choice item for me, but you know, they weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. They had a little sweetness to them (or maybe that's the milk?) which made them a nice change of pace from the Cinnamon Toast Crunch sugar spree.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10

Mama Julianne's

This was a cute little place near my grandparents' house. They had a nice menu with lots of italian classics, and nothing that looked especially nutty. I got a slice of pizza and it was good and filling (thick crust). There was a little salad too, which was cute. My parents enjoyed the hot subs they got as well.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Nutri Grain Bar - Apple Cinnamon

Ah, another hotel breakfast covid-snack. On the plus side, this didn't kill me. On the minus side, it's truly not tasty (IMO), and it's not healthy either! Deceptive! These are always around my life because they don't have nuts -- my parents got them when I was a kid, my boyf gets them, and I eat them at hotels, but they're so inferior to fig bars or basically any other bar-shaped snack that they frustrate me unduly.

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 5/10