McCormick Coarse Ground Black Pepper

Humble black pepper is my most used spice, both historically and presently. It is the only spice I've ever used up before the expiration date. I probably use one container a year, so it's not like I'm doing anything totally wacky. It tastes like black pepper. Maybe good for sneezin'. I prefer the pepper grinder to this pre-ground stuff (for both Fun and Freshness), but at my most recent buying this is all that was available. 

I come to you today in a slightly happy mood, because the reviews on the McCormick website for this stuff are absurdly low (like 2 stars), whereas they are 5 stars everywhere else. What is the nature of the consumer complaint? Is it the lack of freshly ground pepper? No no, nothing about flavor. Instead it is the Holes. People are mad about the size and number of cap holes. People are so good. And they are right to complain -- I use an 11 hole lid and it works great, but I can see how a 5-holer would mess up my whole life. So now I have an additional, previously unknown thing to be grateful for! 

 

 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10
Holes: 11/10

SunBelle Blueberries

Belle from Beauty and the Beast could only see the world through books; I can only see the world through fruit in my local produce box. These bleuets are from Peru! (Distributed via Illinois.) But I digress. Blueberries are a top tier fruit. Never caused me an allergy problem or any other problem. Sure, sometimes you get a moldy one, or a squished one, or a shriveled one, but for the most part they're hardier than {rasp/black/straw}berries and probably equally tasty. Very consistent. These were particularly large, plump, and light-colored (therefore less sweet). There were also a few live ladybugs in the container, which I took as a good omen. (I did not eat or harm the ladybugs.)

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10

Tootsie Roll Harvest Chews

Tootsie sure produces a lot of mid products. But I still love them. Hope for us all! 

Green Apple - It tastes very bad. Like overripe fruit, wax paper, and something uniquely sour. 3/10

Pumpkin Spice - This also tastes like bad artificial wax, or Jones soda. It's better than apple, but not good, either. 4/10

Candy Corn - This tastes like the vanilla (blue) OG tootsie flavor roll, which I like. Maybe a slight candy corn vibe. Pleasant. 6/10 

Cinnamon - This was like a pleasant dessert. Tastes like dulce de leche cookies. 7/10

The ratio was horrible: I got 2 cinnamons, 4 candy corns, and like 5000 green apples and pumpkin spices. It's like they know what the bad ones are (like Starburst and their "mostly yellow" sticks). Interestingly the only flavor that's "natural" is green apple, the rest are artificial, and I never would have guessed that in a million years. Guess my supertaster gene is melting.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

Altar Asparagus

Hello babydolls. I had to be aggressive-aggressive today (as opposed to passive-aggressive or better yet, passive-passive), and I had to be it multiple times! That's like, my least favorite thing to do. The end of fall semester always ruins my life, but luckily my life was already a bit ruined, so I can probably cure my ills by praying at the Altar of asparagus. Did you know asparagus is espárrago in Spanish? I think that's beautiful. These were quality stalks. Pretty thin, and I was generous in my tip-snapping, but it was a hearty bunch and tasted great with no mealy bits or secret pests. The label is in English/French but they're from Mexico and distributed via California. (Love my local produce box... nothing suspect about the eco-ness of their operations at all...)

Would buy again, weekly. Top tier veg, good producer. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10

Signature Select Cut Leaf Spinach

I had to decide between this and Signature Select Chopped Spinach. Both had the same price, same weight, and same nutrition, so it was very difficult. Are cut leafs not, in fact, chopped? I'm sure it's a size-of-chop thing, but these were pretty small pieces, so I really don't know if it's worth them producing two near-identical products. Do I like spinach enough to buy the other one next time and investigate? Based on this, it's kinda 50/50. I may switch to Birds Eye or Green Giant actually. I got 3 pounds(!!) of this stuff to make a creamed spinach dish, which was extremely "meh" (possibly because I didn't do a good enough job pressing the cooked spinach with towels, but still). It was also kinda gritty, and while I know spinach is just like that, this was next level. I thought for a moment I had dropped some eggshell in the pot even though there were no eggs involved. Also, there is a warning on the back that it has so much cadmium it'll give you cancer! Dang, spinach. On the other hand, good source of fiber and no allergies? :D?

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [3$]
Taste: 5/10

Utz Butter Waffles Pretzels

Whew, rough day. (Rough week... rough month... rough year... rough life??!) I'll spare you the non-pretzel related details, for now. I reached for these as my first food of the day, tried 2, and then had to stop eating them and then later throw out the rest of the bag due to potentially deathly cross-contamination by a family member. Luckily they weren't amazing, so it's more of a monetary loss than a deliciousness loss. I like the cute shape, but I didn't realise these were "artificially butter flavored". That butter flavor is very strong and yea very artificial. So, I wouldn't rebuy these, although if there were "plain" waffles (!) I would get those.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10
Agonies: 9/10

Andes Toffee Crunch Thins

These are, strictly speaking, forbidden. But they're also, strictly speaking, really small. While we're speaking strictly, these are also a little bit gross. But just a little because they're small. 

Meanwhile, I'm cultivating a little dietary restriction paradigm in my head. You've got physical restrictions (allergies, intolerances), ethical restrictions (veganism, kosherism), and then a scale of strength (death vs tummy aches) and temporal resolution (immediate consequences vs longterm consequences). It all adds up to a pretty cool chart that I will not bother to actually produce. But it's something I'm cultivating, OK? So even if the brain diet restrictions are potentially strong, the temporal resolution is long. It's like, yes maybe god will smite me, but it'll take so long that I won't even know if it's because I ate this bad Andes mint or if it was something else I did. Herein lies my defense to my future self (or family, weepily reading this blog as they say "It was the Andes mints that did it"). Thank you for your prompt attention.

Now then. These taste like malted milk balls. I do not know why. Also these are not mints, I shouldn't call them mints. But they aren't chocolate or toffee either. Or even crunch. I guess it's true that they are "thins". The taste is bad. The texture is identical to mint-Andes. The chocolate is worse than mint-Andes because of the weird artificial malt-toffee (and lack of mint). If you want to punish yourself (as I often do), these are perfect. The color makes them look like they'd be good. Sneaky.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 4/10