Products – Page 95 – The Celiathlete

July 11, 2011

Enjoy Life makes amazing products, just not bagels

I have had quite a few success stories with products made by Enjoy Life. Their dairy-free chocolate chip cookies work well in any dessert…or my gluten-free pancakes I make for breakfast at times. So, when I was still hunting down the perfect gluten-free bagel, I spotted Enjoy Life’s Cinnamon Raisin Bagels on closeout at the grocery store.

Ahhh…a sale! Perfect reason to try out a new product.

So, I purchased it and brought it home with high hopes and expectations. After all, not only am I a fan of the Enjoy Life chocolate chips, but also of their cookies. So the bagels had to be good, right?

The next morning, I tore into the bag and pulled out one of the bagels. Immediately, I felt my excitement wane when I looked at it. This didn’t look like a bagel at all. It looked like a sad doughnut, to be honest. The size and thickness was all wrong. It looked like an anorexic doughnut to be completely honest. There was no depth, no width, no height. Just two very dense halves.

Hoping that the toaster might work some magic on these bagels, I dropped them in and set the level of crunch I wanted. I’ll give Enjoy Life this…these smell amazing as they are browning in the toaster. The entire apartment smelled like a cinnamon roll. And that was a good thing. I might be able to forgive the initial appearance if it tasted as amazing as it smelled.

They popped up from the toaster, but due to their smaller size, I had to unplug the toaster and use a knife to dig them out and set them on my plate. Still, the aroma was amazing. So, I took a bite…

…and disliked it from the start. The flavor was fine. It had the right hint of heat from the cinnamon. And the raisins added that sweetness to counterbalance the spice. But the texture was wrong. Completely wrong. These bagels were far too dense, just as I feared they would be just from holing them. There was no bounce, no moistness. Just a thick texture that reminded me more of a dry cake doughnut than a bagel.

I felt cheated. Here was a company that had done great things with other products. And yet…the bagel disappointed me. This was nothing like the bagels I used to be able to eat. Not in size, texture, taste or appearance. And I felt slighted by the fact that Enjoy Life was marketing these as bagels. Far from it. And there were far better gluten-free versions out there.

I thought about getting the plain bagels from Enjoy Life the other day when I spotted them on closeout at the grocery store, but decided against it in the end. After all, how different could they be from their cinnamon raisin counterparts? I wasn’t going to spend the money to find out. This was a battle Enjoy Life lost out on. I’ll still sample other products…but Enjoy Life bagels fell so far from the real thing, I don’t think I could convince myself to give them another try. Not anytime in the near future, anyway.

July 11, 2011July 11, 2011

Kinnikinnick falls short of New York-style bagel taste…

Kinnikinnic's New York Style Plain Bagels — Kinnikinnick's Tapioca Rice New York Style Plain Bagels

I’m a New Yorker. Bagels mean the world to me. And since having to go gluten-free, I’ve been having to pass on not just toast, but English muffins and bagels too. Do you realize how much it pains me to pass on a bagel with peanut butter after a race? I am a bagel-fiend. I mean, I grew up in New York. New York does bagels right.

So, one day while shopping at the grocery store, I discovered Kinnikinnick’s brand of plain bagels. The packaging declares itself to be a Tapioca Rice New York Style bagel of sorts. Since I was familiar with the gluten-free company of Kinnikinnick, and the item was on closeout, I decided to pick up pack of them and give them a try. This would be my first foray into any sort of gluten-free bagel due to the sheer cost of these products. But on a closeout sale, I could totally swing it.

I was quite excited about giving these bagels a try the following morning with my breakfast. So, that morning, I pulled them from the freezer and pulled one out of the package. Immediately I noticed the size was all wrong. These were definitely much smaller than a standard bagel. My heart fell a little at that. I wanted as close to a real bagel experience as I could get…and already I felt slighted. Reminding myself that size doesn’t always matter, I split the bagel and popped each half into my toaster, getting them nice and toasty. When they emerged, they were lightly browned to perfection and I laid them out on a plate and lightly spread each side with a little jam.

Then…the moment of truth. My very first bite.

While it wasn’t a complete disappointment, I was not 100% sold on the texture. While it was certainly puffy with a moist crust, as New York-style bagels are known for…it didn’t really have the right kind of bite to it. And the texture didn’t taste like the heartiness one would expect from a bagel. It wasn’t a complete letdown, but it wasn’t what I really craved either.

All-in-all, the Kinnikinnick plain bagels are okay…if you simply want something bagel-like to satisfy a craving if you are no longer able to consume the real thing. It does its job in a pinch, but it just isn’t quite there yet as far as getting that bagel texture down. It comes right to the brink of getting it right.

Close, Kinnikinnick…you came so close. But this New Yorker needs real New York-style bagels…even gluten-free ones.

June 11, 2011

Praise of Celestial proportions!

Sleepytime Love — I love Celestial Seasonings!

It’s not every day that you run across a company that really, really cares about its clientele. Seriously. I’ve written letters to restaurants regarding their menus (lack of options for a vegetarian with a gluten intolerance…trust me!) and have received defensive letters in return or a form letter.

That was not the case with Celestial Seasonings in Boulder, Colorado. I visited the plant back in April when I ventured away from a convention I was attending in Denver to go see the plant. I am a tea fiend and Celestial Seasonings is my go-to tea…because it’s available EVERYWHERE! Before taking the tour, I had dropped into the café for a small breakfast and fell in love with some gluten-free breads that they had for sale.

As mentioned in my previous blog about my visit to Celestial Seasonings, I had e-mailed them about possibly receiving the recipes for the bread, as buying anything gluten-free out in Indiana is not only expensive, it’s practically impossible. (Seriously, grocery store sections are usually very small and most don’t even carry Udi’s bread!).

I received a message back from their Consumer Relations saying that they stumbled upon my blog and have been trying to locate the recipe for me, but currently haven’t been able to track it down. And they apologized for the time it took to get back to me. Needless to say, I was already impressed. One weeks later, I received another e-mail back from a different person in Consumer Relations, this time telling me that the gluten-free breads are actually brought into the café and not made on site, so recipes are not available to them. The fact that they spent all that time trying to track this down for me spoke volumes of the dedication they have to their customers. If I was impressed before, I was now gobsmacked.

But here is the epitome of customer appreciation. Upon returning home from work yesterday, I went to get the mail from my box and noticed an envelope in there from Celestial Seasonings in Boulder, Colorado. Upon opening it, I found a nice letter from a Jessica, a Consumer Relations Representative. This was no form letter either. It was typed out addressing not only their delay in getting back to me, but voicing their appreciation of my patience. But here is the kicker, folks…also inside were not only coupons for Celestial Seasonings tea and Arrowhead Mills gluten-free baking mixes…they also put in some recipes for a variety of gluten-free breads, muffins, cakes, pancakes, waffles, cookies, etc. This goes beyond customer service. This is ensuring customer satisfaction!

I said it to our tour guide on the tour of Celestial Seasonings, I said it to everyone back at the convention center where I was in Denver, and I’ve said it to people here where I live. I would work for this company!! I would love to work for Celestial Seasonings…even more so now because I have now been given ultimate customer service. When contacting companies these days over things, normally you don’t even know if you’re going to get a person on the other end. Celestial Seasonings is definitely run by real people. Real people who care and who take time to not only find an answer for you, but contact you back and make sure you are satisfied with the response they give.

I’m impressed. I’m beyond impressed. Boulder, Colorado is such a healthy area. The fact that gluten-free products are so readily available make me want to pack up and head out west. Maybe one day. But for now, I’ll remain in Indiana…and give these kindly provided recipes a whirl.

Thank you, Hain Celestial Group, for making me a bigger believer, not just in your company, but in your dedication to your customers. I raise a mug of Sleepytime Tea in your honor. Cheers.

June 10, 2011

Enjoy Life and take a bite out of chocolate chip cookies again!

Back in February, I was told that I have a gluten intolerance. This was…heartbreaking. I’m a girl in love with her carbs. Bread, pasta, pancakes, pizza, pretzels, muffins, bagels, donuts…all delicious and, sadly, all very glutenous. It has been a challenge taking on a gluten-free lifestyle. Expensive too. Sometimes I just can’t justify spending money to try out a product that I might not like. Granted, gluten-free products have come a long way over the years, but sometimes the trial-and-error method doesn’t work into my budget. And, not surprisingly, there are times all I crave are things that I can no longer easily have. One such thing was cookies.

That was until I was entered into an online contest during May’s Celiac Awareness Month on Gluten Free Networks. Just for being a member of the site, you were entered into drawings for gluten-free prizes all month. It just so happened that I won.

My prize was a box of gluten-free cookies from Enjoy Life. They had just rolled out their new line of crunchy cookies. I was going to receive one of four flavors: chocolate chip, double chocolate chip, crisp sugar, or vanilla honey graham.

My box arrived in the mail not long after and I received a box of their crunchy chocolate chip cookies.

I knew what dessert was going to be that night so after eating dinner, I broke into my prize and pulled out the cookies. On the box, despite being listed as crunchy, they still look very raised and soft. The cookies are pretty flat when you see them. But…sometimes cookies baked at home are like that. Let’s let the taste buds do the talking.

Now, my roommate does not have to be gluten-free, but she does eat that way sometimes because I’m the chef in this apartment and I refuse to cook things two different ways. So, I handed her a cookie and got my own. I was nervous about the first bite, but after taking it, feeling the crisp cookie break away and dance across my tastebuds…I was sold.

Not only did these taste like homemade cookies, they were really delicious! The crunch was just the right kind that I like with cookies (despite that I much prefer soft-bake…but Enjoy Life makes those too and might be worth a try). The chocolate chips were perfectly sweet and paired with the sweetness of the cookie base. I admit that I even reverted back to being five years old at one point and dunked the cookie into my glass of almond milk. A pre-packaged product that tastes like a homemade cookie isn’t an easy find, but I found it in this box. The rest were devoured throughout the week and I savored every bite.

If a grocery store out this way ever starts carrying these delicious treats from Enjoy Life…I’ll buy them up. I’m now dying to try the other flavors. Gluten-free tastes oh, so good again!