Annie Reviews Costco

24/11/2021

08/11/2021

For some reason my post about my previous disastrous attempt at making a gingerbread house disappeared 🤨 No idea why, I didn't receive any notifications. Anyway, I'm reposting it because I thought it was funny and I have to earn my keep somehow. Sorry to those who have seen it before!

08/11/2021

There was a terrible accident early this morning 😱 I'm claiming storm damage from last night... oh wells, looks like I get to take gingerbread to work for morning tea! 😁

08/11/2021

*Abtey Happy Hour Advent Calendar 🍸*

Christmas for me is a magical time of the year. I’m one of those freaks who has already decorated her gate (I’m in a rural area and you can’t see the houses from the road so hence we decorate our farm gates), bought and wrapped the majority of her presents, and that gingerbread house I made a week ago? The roof has several suspicious chunks taken out of it already.

I know though that for some, Christmas is a horrible time of year, full of crowds, gaudy decorations, and the same six Christmas carols played on repeat whenever you venture out of the house. I may not be able to empathise, but I can sympathise and so this review is for you. Because what better way to deal with the urge to shove a roll of wrapping paper up the bum of the next person to wish you a Merry Christmas than to distract yourself with booze and chocolate?

Now, some people think that it’s bad luck to open an advent calendar before the 1st of December. I’m sure that they’re the same people who will walk an extra kilometre to avoid a black cat, have a cardiac infarction if they break a mirror, and sunbake naked to recharge their chakras. I’m not sure what they think will happen - maybe my mulled wine will turn to grape juice? Or Santa’s reindeer will p**p on my front doorstep? Whatever bad luck awaits me, I’m willing to make the sacrifice for you, dear Christmas Grinch, because that’s what heroes do.

The Abtey Happy Hour Advent Calendar is strictly for grownups, mostly because kids are the smart ones and think booze tastes horrible, no matter how much chocolate it’s coated in. There are 24 little doors and behind each one is a selection of elf sized liqueur chocolates. They come in the following flavours:
5 x Gin Fizz Cocktail
5 x Mojito
5 x Vodka Apple
5 x Vodka Lemon
3 x Spritz Cocktail
and on Christmas Eve you get 2 x Sparkling Marc de Champagne.

Now, these aren’t just booze flavoured choccies, there’s actual booze in them. It’s not much, but it’s enough to get an elf a little tipsy (they contain 6.3% alcohol by volume). Besides the extra fancy French tipple (which are shaped like corks), they’re all in the shape of bottles and are coated in ‘premium dark chocolate’. The Swiss might have something to say about that but given the sort of people who enjoy liqueur chocolates, I’m sure no one’s gonna be complaining that it’s not quite as premium as the packaging makes it out to be.

You get 25 choccies, and they cost $13.99 which works out to be .55c per mini shot. The back of the pack says that there’s 7 serves per pack which means that they don’t hold with the bad luck theorists either. So if you need more than one teeny tiny tipple to get you through that trip to the shops, don’t feel guilty for opening more than one day’s worth at a time - it’s not only allowed, but it’s the recommended serving suggestion.

So to all your Christmas Grinches, good luck and Godspeed. To the rest of us freaks, only 47 sleeps till Christmas! 😱 Eeeeee! 🎅

08/11/2021

Guess who is heading to the holy land! 🙋‍♀️ Depending on what treasures I find, we might have a new review in a day or so 😁

04/11/2021

*Review - Create a Treat Gingerbread House*

I’ve never had much luck with building gingerbread houses before. Usually what is supposed to be a house ends up looking like the sort of shack that Mick Taylor entertains backpackers in, complete with sagging roof, blacked out windows, and suspicious stains on the floor. I’m not exaggerating - I’ll share a post from a couple of years ago after this that sums up my incompetence nicely, but I’m nothing if not stubborn and when I saw the Gingerbread House kits at the Holy Land, I was determined to try again. I did read a tip online that suggested using a hot glue gun to help with structural integrity but only the Grinch would make a gingerbread house that you couldn’t eat. Instead, I decided to give Dr Oetker’s Baking Glue a try to see if that would make much of a difference (which I got from a small, nameless Swedish store near the freeway).

I debated whether or not I should have some liquid courage before attempting my build but figured that drinking on the job would only lead to allegations of criminal neglect if any Gingerbread People were injured during the making of the house. I (soberly) unpacked the kit and laid everything out in preparation. The kits seem to be the same brand as the ones you can buy at Coles (I’m going completely by the similarities in the icing packets and the taste - I honestly don’t know the name of the brand at Coles) but these ones are slightly bigger (they come with a tree), and cheaper (I’m sure I paid close to $20 for the Coles kit several years ago whilst these are $13.99).

Another tip I read online said to decorate the sides of the house before construction begins which was extremely helpful. The icing tends to drip otherwise so definitely do this unless you want the sides of the house to look like they’re melting (which in all fairness, you might if you’re making this for a Climate Change rally). The baking glue actually worked a treat and dries much, much quicker than the icing that comes with the kit and so I somewhat successfully assembled a building. It’s definitely not the Ritz-Carlton, more of a Holiday Inn, so Santa wouldn’t take Mrs Claus there for their anniversary but he’d be able to meet his mistress there for a quick hookup while his sleigh is passing by on Christmas Eve.

The assembly tray that comes with the kit is slightly problematic in that the slots for the little people are way too small and there’s no way in hell that the Christmas tree will fit in its allocated position either. The good news is that while trying to break the tree up along the little baked-in line it completely fell apart so I didn’t have a tree to display anyway. The even better news was that I got to eat the tree immediately which made me immensely happy. With the gingerbread people (preferred pronouns are they/them if you’re polite enough to enquire), I simply leaned them against the house and stuck them there with a little baking glue, their faces frozen in a terrified rictus as they await their doom.

The entire kit weighs 1.3kg and will feed 45 elves (which works out to be 31c per serve) or 2 Annies ($6.99 per serve). This is probably the best bought gingerbread I’ve ever had, in the Goldilocks Zone of not too soft or too hard, not overly spiced but not bland. The icing is nice and buttery tasting and really compliments the gingerbread. I will definitely be getting another one next year and give it 4 Santas out of 5 🎅🎅🎅🎅. If it ends up being a line that Costco discontinue, I will die of sadness and will appear each year henceforth to haunt the Holy Land as the Ghost of Gingerbread Past.

22/10/2021

Get ready, Costco, I'm coming!!!

17/10/2021

*Review - COVID Testing*

Okay, so, not gonna lie - I’m sure most of you did a double take at the title and figured I’ve finally gone completely cuckoo because really, who the hell reviews a COVID test? But you know what? We’ve been so lucky here over in Westralia that unless you’re someone who needs regular testing for work, or are one of the lucky few who have been able to travel across the Clive Proof Fence, there’s still a large percentage of us who haven’t yet had our COVID test cherry popped as yet. It can be a scary thing, taking that next step in our relationship with WA Health, and a lot of the stuff that you hear on the playground isn’t exactly factual (for example, you *can’t* get pregnant from swallowing the testing swab) so this newly deflowered CT virgin is here to share with you her experience.

Knowledge isn’t just power - it’s sexy af 😉

So, as most of you already know from my overshare about tissue usage, I’d gotten a little too intimate with The Dreaded Lurgy. Now, the chances of this particular lurgy being the same bad boy that’s been all wham bam thank you ma’am with close to 220 million people was low. I do have *some* standards and I don’t just fall into bed with a sore throat, headache, and fever for just any old virus. But we didn’t exchange numbers so I couldn’t exactly be sure so I figured that I would do Daddy Mark proud and go and have a test done.

Midland and Joondalup are equidistant for me so I figured I’d head to Midland simply because I knew exactly where the clinic was and I wasn’t likely to get lost and drive around for three hours getting stressed. I donned my mask, fogged up my glasses, and made the walk of shame towards the entrance. It was 9am on Saturday morning and there were naught but tumbleweeds in the queue in front of me and I was met instantly by a woman in full hazmat gear.

If I had to work in Midland, I’d probably wear full hazmat gear too.

I was led to an empty waiting room and asked to fill out a questionnaire. WA Health is a considerate but jealous lover and wanted to know *everything* about my time with The Dreaded Lurgy. Did he make me sweat at night? Was my throat sore? How many tissues did I use? Could I tell if he was wearing deodorant? Then once they had satisfied their curiosity, they returned with a rather prominent er, rod.

Okay, I had expected a cotton tip or something, but what the lovely nurse was holding was more like what they use for a damn pap smear. Or the thing I use to clean my reusable straws. She happily informed me that she was going to swab both sides of my throat and then both nostrils and before I knew it, she was triggering my gag reflex in a way that only happens on special occasions, like anniversaries, or when my husband does the dishes without being asked.

*fade to black while romantic music plays*

That’s what happens in PG rated films right? Oh wait, considering the sheer number of euphemisms here, I don’t think this can be considered PG in any way, shape or form… So, yeah, I got wham bam and thank you ma’amed.

Despite the somewhat… rough handling, WA Health is a much classier being than The Dreaded Lurgy so I *did* exchange numbers with them. As I left with a flirty little wink, they promised to text me and they did, the very next day, to tell me that I didn't have any STDs.

Oh, or COVID. That too.

All in all it wasn’t as bad as I had heard but it also wasn’t a walk in the park followed by dinner and a movie. WA Health just aren’t that type of lover but they’re upfront about it so as long as you guard your heart and don’t form attachments, you’ll be okay. And when all was said and done, I got home and found that I still had The Dreaded Lurgy waiting for me, so I smiled coquettishly at him and it wasn’t long before I was falling back into bed with him. And my tissues.

15/10/2021

*Review: Kleenex 2 ply tissues box of 8*

It’s a lovely, sunny October day. The sun is shining and the temperature is kissing 33C and most Westralians are frolicking outside, laughing joyously as they chase dragonflies and enjoy being outside in nature.

Then there’s me. For the past several weeks my body has been fighting a staid and prudish battle against fornicating flowers. No matter how many unwarranted snide comments I make about their promiscuous ways, or threats that they’ll all burn in hell, the male flowers continue to throw their boy germs into the air with carefree abandon, happily pollinating the nearest trollop that has a bit of stigma flashing.

To make matters worse, I then went and caught the lurgy, even though cold season should be well and truly over. I’m not sure where I caught it from - I work in a public library so I may very well have been sneezed on when someone was borrowing a book to nurse them through their own time of need. Or, I caught it from my poor chicken who was sick last week and had to have a course of antibiotics as she was wheezy and sneezey… if so, um, WHO, there may be a new variant of bird flu around. Just sayin'.

Where I caught it is neither here nor there, what matters is that, on top of my normal allergies, I am an absolute miserable cow at the moment. You know how it is with colds - they won’t (generally) kill you but you sure feel like you want to die. I cannot go thirty seconds without having to blow my nose since I have since shed my human body and have transformed into a Snot Tsunami. It simply does not end. A never ceasing deluge of congestion from my poor, abused, Rudolph looking facial or***ce.

Luckily for me I happened to have in my hoarding room several cartons of Kleenex tissues that I purchased in preparation for the o**y that takes place between every single pollinating plant each spring. I have never before been so grateful that I can buy tissues in bulk as I am going through them at an alarming rate of knots. Anyone would think that I have several pubescent boys living with me, but alas, the only bodily fluid I am cleaning up is mucus. So. Much. Mucus.

It’s utterly delightful…

So, after horrifying you with the details of my suffering, it’s now time to get down to the nitty gritty. Each carton contains 8 individual boxes of 2 ply tissues, 200 tissues per box. I dug out my receipt from when I last bought them and it cost me $15.49 for the carton, but this was quite some time ago so take that price as a rough estimate as it may have changed since. This equates to less than 1c per tissue, or 96c per 100 tissues (which is the weird way they break the price down in supermarkets).

I don’t splurge on the more expensive soft eucalyptus ones because over my many years of being allergic to most things under the sun (alas, it may be worse come spring but I suffer from allergies all year round), I’ve found that by the time your nose is raw and aching, it really doesn't make much of a different. Unless of course you’re using a homebrand tissue which is generally just straight up sandpaper. This is only useful if you want to reduce the size of your nose and can’t afford rhinoplasty. The structural integrity of the Kleenex tissues is good however and they tend to not fall apart in your hands, leaving you covered in goop like some of the cheap brands have a tendency to do as well.

All in all I give them 4 pollinators out of 5 🐝🐝🐝🐝 I will definitely be adding more to my hoarding room in the future, probably sooner rather than later the way I’m going.

07/10/2021

For those of you who are always asking me to write more, more, more, I figured that I'd drop you this link. It's the column I write for the Northern Valleys News, my local paper. Since I do this as part of my real life job, it's not full of innuendoes and isn't quite as quirky as my reviews but I do try to make them entertaining. I hope you enjoy :)

30/09/2021

*Non-Costco Review*

Joyfulicious Chocolates for Connoisseurs

When random message requests pop up on Facebook, clicking on them can be like playing Russian Roulette. Is it some dodgy guy wanting to buy my underwear? Has my long lost Nigerian uncle died and left me eleventy billion dollars? Or is it a lovely local business who has reached out because they love my reviews?

Luckily for me, this time it was the latter. Sheila from Joyfulicious Chocolate is a fan of my reviews and asked if I would do one for her. Other than sending me some samples, this isn’t a paid review and she has specifically asked for me to ‘cut sick on my review, good bad or otherwise - I’m fond of honesty.’

After agreeing (free chocolate in exchange for some words? Sign me up, baby!) I immediately stalked her page and when I had picked up my jaw from the ground, I wondered how on earth anyone was supposed to eat anything so damn pretty??? The link is below and so you can see for yourselves - her chocolates are a bloody work of art and not the ‘art’ that I’m capable of (trust me, a four year old can draw/paint/create better than me). I asked her how long the process takes and you can see her reply in the photos below but it can take 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴. Like, wtf? That’s dedication!

Sheila sent a box of 12 choccies to me via express post and I was thrumming with excitement this morning when I heard that they were waiting at the Post Office for me. I was also extra happy because one of my workmates was having an absolutely sh*tty day (and it wasn’t even 9am yet!) and I figured that chocolate would definitely cheer her up as well!

After opening the box we marvelled at the perfection within. Then I read the descriptions and marvelled some more. I’d been expecting the usual assortment like hazelnut or plain caramel but no, these are chocolates for 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘴 and so I went and put on a fancy hat and my monocle so I could enjoy these flavours the way that they were meant to be enjoyed - in 𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦.

The box contained the following flavours: Salted Caramel, Vanilla Ganache, Hazelnut Gianduja, Peanut Butter Fudge, Pandan Ganache, Pineapple Caramel Marshmallow, Strawberry Ganache, Passionfruit Ganache, Banana Ganache, Coffee Ganache, Coconut Ganache, and Pecan Praline. Some of the flavours I wasn’t exactly sure what they were. Gianduja is, as Sheila puts it, adult Nutella and Pandan isn’t a baby Jedi like I suspected but is a tropical plant that tastes like grassy vanilla and a hint of coconut. It is also traditionally used to treat constipation so I immediately planned to save that one for last so I could unblock the plumbing after gorging myself on chocolate. But you know, daintily. Like the connoisseur that I am.

I did have a little trouble telling the difference between the Metallics and the Drag Queen colours but in the end I guessed right and the purple swirly galaxy one was indeed Salted Caramel. My colleague had that one and from the almost indecent noises she was making (we’re in a library and it sounded like she was doing a dramatic reading of Fifty Shades of Grey) I’m guessing she enjoyed it. I tried the Pineapple Caramel Marshmallow and was immediately the Christian to her Anastasia. Then because my willpower hadn’t kicked in as yet I figured I owed it to myself to have the Coconut Ganache, and holy sh*tballs, it was awesome. Cue more inappropriate sounds to be making near the picture books and the loss of my Working With Children’s Check.

Honestly, the quality of these chocolates is amazing! After trying them and seeing how good they are, I realised that they’re not the sort that you’d want to sit down and devour all in one sitting - save the box of Cadbury Milk Tray for the mindless gorging. These are to be savoured and enjoyed (and hidden away from everyone else so you don’t have to share). It’s hard to eat them since they’re just so damn pretty but your mouth will thank you afterwards, trust me. I will definitely be ordering some of these in the future from Sheila as gifts for close friends (frenemies and casual acquaintances don’t deserve indulgence like this) and I’d recommend them to anyone. It’s a great quality product and the customer service is amazing and I’d say that even if I hadn’t been sent choccies for free. This is definitely a local business worth supporting!

https://www.facebook.com/deliciousandsweetchocolate/

28/09/2021

I find the best way to deal with trolls is to laugh at them. I honestly feel sorry for people like this, what a miserable existence.