My First Graze Box: The Rest of It
I am a Grazer. Having subscribed to my first official Graze box and having decided to continue that subscription, I not only believe myself to be initiated, I believe my stomach to be initiated as well. My dreams are full of wrapper adventures while my meals are left half finished in the spirit of portioning off grazeable amounts of food. Never will I sink into the gluttonous sin of a full stomach again.
That being said, my boyfriend and I shared three snacks at once a few days ago, and I plan to eat the remaining four over the course of the hour it will probably take me to write this experience, as sublime as it will be.
Thai Style Sweet Chili, Anytime Energizer, and Jelly Doughnut are the snacks we chose to sacrifice together, my boyfriend and I. The chili was full of nuts and beans, some of my least favorite ingredients in life. I savored every sweet and slightly spicy crunch, for nuts and dried beans would never taste so good again. Each bite was like a prayer to the gentle and nourishing sun, cradling my spiritual crops--as well as my taste buds--with a mother's warmth.
The Anytime Energizer was less profound and carried more practical and gym-time notes. The pear pieces had too little taste for the volume of chew that they packed. The cherry was too cherry. The walnut was just right. My inner blonde-braided child sufficed that it was good eating for someone else.
Then came the astoundingly addictive tartness of the Jelly Doughnut. The name describes the flavor perfectly, yet does the snack so much disservice as real jelly doughnuts are just bags of puffed up wheat with uneven patches of Snow White foundation and too much chemically flavored edible lipstick caked onto the teeth. The one true Grazer's version is a collection of raspberry flavored jelly strings, small crisp cookie drops that smell like vanilla cake and crumble in the mouth like tea biscuits, actual dried fruit and tiny chopped slivers of almond that add a hint of cherry to each whiff as well as a creamier texture akin to almond milk, only in solidified form. Did I mention how much I dislike nuts and cherry?
I loved this.
Did I also mention that I'm still on my period and therefore have to nap in the middle of the day at the height of Advil efficiency like some old lady with lifelong post-surgery back pain? Well, here we are about three hours later and a New York Everything Bagel in hand to keep my hunger busy while the roommate and I wait for my boyfriend to come home with some delicious steaks in tow.
The NYE Bagel certainly smells like a bagel, which is one of many delicious morning smells to wake up to. Naturally, because I love nuts so much, I go for the cheese cashews first, stained with orange dust as they are. I don't know what they do with their nuts, but they're always creamy. If nuts always had the taste and texture of milk, I wouldn't dislike them so much. The poppyseed onion sesame sticks really pack that "everything" flavor, along with that of a crunchy toasted crust. This is bagel heaven for me. There's nothing better than biting halfway into the ring of a freshly crisped bagel, the brim of it hard and brittle and the furthest part of your bite digging through a thin granite top just before cutting into the tootsie bread center. The sesame sticks are just that experience over and over again, and the satisfaction runs deep into the root canal. Admittedly, I thought the roasted pumpkin seeds were going to be my least favorite part, but they're soft and almost fluffy, making up the warmed and tender part of the bread. Get a pinchful of all three ingredients together, and you get a tiny bagel with a lot of punch. I almost want to spread cream cheese on it, but there's no reasonable amount of surface area to work with.
Next up is the Snickerdoodle Dip. My favorite part about Graze snacks so far is always the wrapper removal. I get hit with a cozy aroma, cinnamon logs roasting in a pretzel fireplace. I dislike pretzels, but these sticks give me the same feeling as when I light a scented candle--I know I'm going to sniffle from allergies for a couple days, but at least for now my nose gets well pampered. I'm not sure if I've ever had snickerdoodles before, so I'm not sure what they're supposed to taste like, but I imagine they taste just like the fuzzy cookie butter caramel residue I just licked off the wrapper. The pretzel stick by itself is, as with my allergies to perfumes, full of regret. My nose predicted sugar and spice, but there was nothing nice. They do taste wonderful though and my roommate is apologizing for taking more than one. Whatever snickerdoodles are, the dip tastes like caramel graham crackers, and coats the pretzel with the same kind of family Christmas spirit as a stocking full of common necessities (toothbrush, floss, chapstick, socks). It's both delicious and heartwarming and I never want it again.
The Sweet & Spicy Beet Crunch is the first Graze snack I legitimately dislike. The jalapeno chickpeas have an airy crunch, further elevated by a mild pepperish fever. The sunflower seeds do nothing but add more disgustingly soft texture to the beet chips that don't deserve to be called chips. They chew without being chewy. They twist and bend around the grinding of the teeth and slowly deform under large amounts of pressure like half-hardened glue. After smelling something similar to the blue BBQ potato chips sold on the Jet Blue airline, my expectations were depressingly let down.
The Fantastic Forest Fruits is like a snack you'd expect to find in a fairy tale hermit cave. I imagine an old herbalist crone, 129 going on 130, her home littered atop the entire low ceiling of the cavern with hooks and ropes tied up around bundles of sage, cinnamon sticks, yew twigs, berry pouches, and numerous other forest collectibles. A small cavity in the wall has a smoked out cold fire going, keeping that small space dry and dehumidifying the rack above it. That rack is covered in some kind of mesh, and on top of that is the pile of soft, dried fruits that this snack comes from. I can almost smell the crone in these fruits. These are easily one of my favorite Grazing nibbles, if only because it appeals to my fantasy fascination. That, or it appeals to my current period cravings.
I can't wait 'til the end of the month when I get my next Graze box. And also when my period ends.
