Try The World for our Birthdays

We got a great gift from our daughters for our birthdays this year: a subscription to Try The World. Try The World curates a box of gourmet foods with a selection from a different featured country every two months. Our first selection is from Thailand, but more on that in a later post.

This post is about the "gift card." Knowing that the first Try The World box would take up to two weeks to arrive, our daughters curated a package from their corner of the world: Brooklyn. This could very well be the best gift card ever. Their package included BKLYN Larder hot chocolate mix, Liddabit Sweets sea salt caramels, Empire Mayonnaise smoked paprika mayonnaise and BKBJ Bangkok Betty beef jerky. This was a selection that not only features great Brooklyn products, but also seems custom made to our tastes. Our daughters know us.

I tried the jerky first, since I couldn't help but open it. The flavor profile is lime, ginger and Sriracha. The flavors were subtle, and I couldn't taste or feel the burn of the Sriracha, but the lime and ginger flavors were great with the beef: a little nod to the upcoming Thai package.

Gail and I both loved the caramels, which we ate plain, mixed in coffee and made into a chocolate caramel mocha. The caramels were remarkably soft with the beginnings of a firmer crust that added a nice texture as I chewed it. The salt flavor was again subtle; actually at the exact level I like. I was pleased as I got to the end to get a little rock of salt that was hiding in the center.

We also both loved the hot chocolate mix. Even on our first mixing we couldn't bring ourselves to mix it at full strength. It called for some cream and a surprising amount of the mix. We skipped the cream and went with 3/4 of the recommended mix. At that it was delightful, but too strong for us. Earlier today we made it half strength, mixed it with coffee and stirred in a caramel to make the mocha mentioned above. That was wonderful.

Finally, the radioactive orange of the smoked paprika mayonnaise. It had never occurred to us to mix these flavors, and it worked excellently spread on a cracker by itself. We put it to use as a thick layer on a roast pork sandwich. The flavor didn't hold up as well with the heat, but I added a little more at the table and really enjoyed it.

Good luck to Try The World beating our daughter's Brooklyn curation.