PASSIONATE RATIONS

I am particularly proud of the fact that, on at least one occasion, I found a gourmet goodie before Trader Joe’s began marketing it.

Crackers are known more as vehicles for getting cheese to one’s taste buds than as sensations in their own right.  Indeed, I am often disappointed by their inflated promises.  Enter, Wisecrackers, the exception to the rule.

It was summer several years ago.  We’d bought a box of roasted garlic with rosemary Wisecrackers–a product of Seattle-based Partners foods–at a specialty food store and hauled them along on a car camping trip.  Breaking them out to accompany the cheese we’d brought, I tried one.  The cheese had to wait as I exclaimed, “Oh wow.  These are great!”

Slightly sweet and packed with flavor (roasted garlic, sesame, spicy pepper melange or poblano chile with sweet onion), they are made entirely with natural ingredients (i.e. you can understand the label and they taste better than anything processed could ever hope to).  They are delightfully delicate thin crisps.

Even better…they are low fat.  A snacker’s delight.

I had never before actually contacted a manufacturer to praise their product.  On this, too, Wisecrackers proved the exception to the rule.

My dismay at only being able to obtain Wisecrackers intermittently at specialty stores turned to delight when Trader Joe’s found them and added them to their shelves.  (Have I mentioned my love affair with Trader Joe?  Well, since my husband reads this, I won’t go on).

Anyway, you can try them too.  Visit Joe.  Tell him I sent you.