Twenty
eight years as a primary candidate for anger management who spends her time
trying not to flip sits down at the breakfast table before 8AM EST on a Sunday
and is encouraged by a yogurt company to do exactly that. Imagine that? I
promise the likely one reader that this blog has that this is not a
pumpkin blog. That being said, it’s only natural that consumer packaged goods
companies step up their seasonal game during the fall and announce the
introduction of pumpkin flavored everything to their product lines. I’m just
human, born without any real will power to resist.
Cue:
Chobani Greek Yogurt Pumpkin Harvest Crisp Flip, which is described as pumpkin
low-fat yogurt with pie crust pieces, pecans and glazed pumpkin seeds. Besides
the contempt that I hold in my heart for Greek Yogurt, I like every piece to
this puzzle here. There’s a rule of thumb in my head that if you add pie crust
pieces to anything, your mind will blow. If I had to wake up and eat yogurt,
then hell let’s dress it up like a dessert.
The
contents of this yogurt racks up to 210 calories, which is reasonable enough by my
calorie counting (lack of) standards. Since I wasn’t blown away last year by
Chobani’s pumpkin yogurt, I easily moderated my expectations here. If my memory
serves me, which it rarely does these days, my biggest issue with last year’s
yogurt was that it wasn’t sweet. As a self-proclaimed sugar addict, I was left
feeling want.
Opening
the lid to this thing, I thought “Oh God.” This yogurt does not appeal to your
eye. The expiration date was far in the future and perhaps this container suffered
from natural settling over the time, but there was water sitting on top of the
yogurt and at first sight, I would describe the innards here as looking very “tired”.
To
get a good sense of what I was looking into, I reluctantly tasted the pumpkin
yogurt alone and WOW. This is not the same pumpkin yogurt that broke my heart
last year. This should be more accurately described as low-fat pumpkin pie
yogurt as the base. The missing sweetness was here as if to say, “I’m sorry I’m
late. I was stuck in traffic, but I’m here now.” Just this season I had a spoonful of the plain
pumpkin yogurt container and that is NOT this, but this is really something
enjoyable
When
it came to “flipping” the container, I couldn’t get it done. The plastic wasn’t
malleable enough and at this early hour I was far from tempted to have to clean
the contents up off the floor if I got too mavericky. Like any person desperate
to stop thinking and start eating, I took my spoon and slowly laid out the
contents atop the yogurt.
There
were ample toppings provided and even once it was completely mixed up, each
bite contained something special. The pie crust was broken into very small
pieces but the flavor was noticed by my palette and made me feel happy in my
belly. The pecans were the run of the mill and as a pecan fan, that was
pleasant as well.
Perhaps
the most surprising ingredient here was the candied sunflower seeds. While they
were sugar coated and had nearly a smoky flavor, they also brought a
significant element of salt. I enjoyed this, but admittedly it was a bit of a
tongue whiplash. I would be curious what another taste tester of this yogurt
might conclude about this.