When I saw these Mushrooms & Truffle Pastificio G Di Martino Stuffed Gnocchi at the World Market (~$4), I got pretty excited. I love gnocchi, I love ravioli, and the idea of stuffed gnocchi seemed logical. They had them in a variety of flavors, and I decided on Mushrooms & Truffle as everyone in my household loves mushroom ravioli.
It wasn’t until I came home that I noticed the Prop 65 warning in the package: the gnocchi have lead in them! There is no safe level of lead exposure, and the consumption of even a standard portion of lead contaminated mushrooms can have negative health effects. Lead is particularly problematic for children, who absorb a far greater proportion of it than adults. Before this purchase, I had not realized how mushrooms – in particular dried wild mushrooms – often contain lead as I hadn’t seen the Prop 65 warning before. I probably wouldn’t have bought the package if I had noticed it, but I decided to make them for myself anyway.
I shouldn’t have bothered. The gnocchi were a complete failure. The gnocchi themselves were simply not tasty. Even though I cooked them in salted water, they hadn’t really absorbed it and were in need of it and probably some type of spicing. The texture was very dry and even powdery, perhaps because they were made with dried potato flakes rather than fresh potatoes. The filling suffered from the same issue, it was very dry and had a strange consistency. Its main ingredient is ricotta cheese, and it really didn’t taste much of mushroom.
I tried them both by themselves and with tomato sauce and grated cheese. The sauce and cheese helped with the flavor, but they couldn’t really do anything about the very unpleasant texture. And for that reason, I wouldn’t bother trying the other flavors.
I got Dolcetto Tuscan Crisps at World Market ($5), and seldom I’ve been more disappointed on a World Market find. Granted, it’s my fault for not having closely examined the ingredients before I bought them. If I had, I’d noticed that far from having an “Italian cheese blend,” they had practically no cheese at all. Indeed, “natural cheese flavor” is listed as an ingredient after salt, and “cheese” is the next to last ingredient.
The result is that they don’t taste like cheese. They are mildly salty, but they don’t really taste like anything. They might be a good conduit for actual cheese – I haven’t tried them with any yet – but on their own, they are just insipid.
I love international snack boxes, but they are usually a bit too expensive for my pocketbook. Alas, I found this box of Universal Yums Germany snacks at World Market on clearance for $9, or 55% off its regular price, as they were near expiration, and decided to give them a go. Most of the snacks expired in December, so the box wasn’t really appropriate as a gift, but there is nothing wrong with gifting yourself.
The box comes with a little booklet describing the snacks, that includes some trivia about German food and even a recipe. There is also a sheet for rating your snacks.
The first snack I tried was this package of Waffelz cheesecake flavored wafers ($3.10 at Universal Yums). This seems to be a relatively new brand of wafers of an old German baking company, and I was somewhat surprised the whole packaging was in English – which suggests it’s manufactured for export. The wafers were just OK. They weren’t as crispy as we prefer – whether this was because they were near expiration or their style, it’s hard to stay – but the main issue was the flavor. It basically tasted like a sour version of a regular vanilla wafer. It didn’t taste of cheesecake, however. I wouldn’t buy them.
Second, I tried the Lorenz Pomsticks, in sour cream (geschmack) flavor. These are very crispy, thin and short potato sticks seasoned with onion powder, parsley and yeast extract, as well as buttermilk powder and sour cream. They don’t have the very strong sour flavor of American sour cream and onion chips; rather, it’s more subtle. They are also less salty than their American equivalent. They are just as addictive, however, and I had eaten half the 2.5 oz package before I realized what I was doing. All in all, I preferred it to American chips, both because of just how crispy they were and how mild the flavor was.
While the chips are made in Germany, this particular bag seems to have been imported to either the Philippines, Malaysia or Singapore before making its way to the US. They were sold out at Universal Yum (previously $3.70), but they are available from other German food stores in the US.
The third and fourth treat I tried was this yum bag which came with five Kuhbonbon salted caramel candies (I ate one before the photo) and four or five unbranded candies. I felt that Universal Yums was rather deceitful about counting this bag of small candies as two treats, particularly as even put together they don’t amount to a full size bag of candy! This con would make me reluctant to buy a box at full price.
Fortunately, both candies were pretty good. The Kuhbonbon candies had a very strong caramel flavor, which was almost too intense. They were a bit crumbly, perhaps because they weren’t very fresh. The unbranded little candies – which came in green apple, grapefruit and passion fruit flavors – provided intense bursts of delicious flavor. Sure, they had only a passing relationship with the flavor of the actual fruits, but they were delicious anyway. Unfortunately, they are very small.
The fifth treat were Halloren O’s fudge in “Brownie” flavor ($5.50 at Universal Yums). The package came with a dozen bite size bombons with a soft center and a chocolate cover.
I was very disappointed in these brownies. They had no chocolate flavor whatsoever and instead they were just super sweet. It was also a weird sweetness, probably because, in addition to sugar, they are sweetened with “wheat glucose syrup,” which I’m going to guess is even sweeter than sugar. I struggled to finish one, and I’m going to leave the rest for low-sugar episodes, where flavor doesn’t matter. Update: they worked exceptionally well for that.
The sixth treat was a nice-sized bar of Böhme Pfefferminz Creme-Schokolade ($3.60 at Universal yums). This was one of two treats that actually had German-language packaging. This is a chocolate bar with a creamy mint filling. I’m not a huge fan of mint chocolates, and I particularly disliked this one (you guessed it, too sweet), but my husband liked it very much.
The last treat was a full size bar of Porta amarena kirsche ($5.50 at Universal Yums), chocolate with cherry flavored filling. None of us in the house are fans of cherries, so I think it will take a while before anyone tries it.
My daughter picked up this tiny jar of Luscioux Pistachio Spreadable Cream at World Market, and we all liked it. It had a strong and pleasant flavor of pistachios, though it was a little on the sweet side. I don’t have much experience with pistachio butters, though I know they are all the rage now because of the popularity of Dubai chocolate. Still, I preferred this one to the one we’d bought before.
At over $10 for a 7oz jar, it’s rather expensive – twice the price than in Europe (thank Trump’s tariffs), but still cheaper than most of the pistachio spreads you can buy on Amazon. As other spreadable, sweetened and emulsified nut butters, this product contains vegetable oils – sunflower and cocoa butter in this case. It is about 45% pistachios – which is much lower than the 90% nuts required to be called a “butter” here in the US (until Trump changes these regulations), thus the name “spread”. It’s till higher than the 13% hazelnuts Nutella has and it doesn’t have palm oil. Other ingredients in the label include powdered milk and whey (so it’s not vegan), olive oil, soy lecithin and “flavors”.
In all, I enjoyed it on top of a crumpet but it’s too sweet for me at my age, and I wouldn’t buy it again. My daughter might, however.
I wouldn’t have paid $20 for 4 oz of Ibérico cold cuts if it wasn’t my birthday. But it was, so when I saw this tapas sampler at Cost Plus I threw caution to the wind and put it in my cart. I’m glad I did. While ridiculously expensive (but, Ibérico ham is ridiculously expensive in Spain too – though a sampler like this would cost about half to a third as much), it was absolutely delicious. As good as any pork product I’ve had in Spain, at stores or restaurants. Even as good as the Ibérico ham my friend’s mother – a butcher – would send from Extremadura to her house in Madrid.
The sampler comes with one ounce (28g) each of jamón ibérico, ibérico pork loin, ibérico salchichón and ibérico chorizo. I had meant to eat these with bread or crackers, but I ended up eating them all on their own. The paper thin slices of each were so good that I couldn’t bear to add other flavors to it. I really can’t say which was my favorite,
“Finca Helechal” is a brand of Ibérico pork products producer “Embutidos Fermín“, a small family company based on La Alberca, Salamanca. They have different levels of products, the top ones made from pigs fed acorns. These ones are made from grain-fed free range pigs that are only 50% Iberian. Unless you are tasting the two products side by side, I don’t think you’ll notice.
I’ll definitely buy this again. And maybe next time, I’ll share it.
We got Patak’s Korma sauce along with its tika masala sauce a couple of months ago at Cost Plus ($3.50). We didn’t like the tika masala, but the korma was much better. It wasn’t as sweet or delicious as a restaurant korma, but it was creamy and tasty enough for a quick, weekday dinner. I browned and simmered some cubed beef on it for about an hour (with some extra water), and served it over cuscus. Next time I’m at Cost Plus, I’ll probably pick up a couple of more jars.
A couple of nights ago I served chicken with Patak’s Tikka Masala simmering sauce which I bought at Cost Plus ($3.50 for a 15 oz jar, enough for 1 lb chicken and 2 1/2 people). It was OK but it didn’t taste at all like tikka masala. Mostly it tasted like other generic jarred or frozen Indian curries. Its main ingredient was oil, so it’s very fatty (but it gave a wonderfully tender consistency to the chicken), followed by lemon juice, so it’s also very sour. I don’t feel any compelling reason to buy it again.
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