grey poupon - no rolls royce required!

How awesome is this? I was selected to do a product review for Grey Poupon mustard. They sent me two flavors for my family to try, and asked for an honest review in return. I was more than happy to oblige.



You know the name. You know the image - the old "chap" in the back of his Rolls Royce limousine experiencing the dilemma of the day, when his jar of Grey Poupon runs dry. It's only natural that he would ask the distinguished gentleman in the Rolls next to him to borrow a smidgen.

Honestly, this image is the precise reason why I haven't been purchasing Grey Poupon in the past. No, I'm not some reverse elitist who scoffs at high-ticket grandeur or "gourmet" delicacies. Rather, I'm a budget-minded cheapskate who never bothered to look at the price because I assumed it would be too costly based on the commercials. In fact, when I was selected to do this product review, I figured that I would be receiving the mustard equivalent of Taco Bell's hot sauce packets in the mail. Imagine my surprise (and penny-pinching delight) when two full size 8 oz. jars of Grey Poupon arrived at my doorstep. (Okay, so I'm easily excited, but this is GREY POUPON after all!)

Suddenly my family found itself struggling to devise a dinner worthy of this kitchen connoisseur's condiment. Not one to break too far from culinary tradition, we settled on a turkey, lettuce, tomato and bacon sandwich creation. I tried the Hearty Spicy Brown and my wife selected the Harvest Coarse Ground. The kids, weenies that they are, opted for the usual generic brand yellow. The "brown things" in the mustard frighten them. Talk about coddled kids, eh?

Anyhow, the Hearty Spicy Brown was scrumptious. It tasted like it had fresh onions in it, and the flavor was powerful enough to still stand out among the bacon grease and tomato juices. If there's one thing about mustard, I want it to be strong on my sandwich. Mustard is one of those love it or hate it condiments, and while it is easy to put too much on a sandwich, it's also not something that you use to add subtlety. In my book, mustard is for adding robust flavor, not just an accent. I guess that's why I chose the flavor with the word "Hearty" in the name. My wife really enjoyed the Harvest Coarse Ground. When Grey Poupon says "Coarse", they really mean it. It looks like it has whole mustard seeds in it!

So now we've got two full size jars of Grey Poupon to digest by July of this year (when they expire). It's difficult to say if we'll be able to purchase Grey Poupon regularly after that, as I still have no idea what it costs and if it will fit into our tight budget. However, I have to admit that the flavor may well be worth the extra dollar or two compared to generic brown mustard. I can think of all kinds of meals that this mustard would be complimentary with - sandwiches, brats, steak, even liver. Yep, I'm convinced that fried chicken livers would be awesome with Grey Poupon, assuming that you're not too much of a wimp to try chicken livers. My family loves them.

There are certain things in life that still support the theory that you always get what you pay for. As such, there are certain products that I will not buy in generic brand fashion, regardless of how much money it would save us. Toilet paper, orange juice and paper towels immediately spring to mind. By the time we finish these two jars of Grey Poupon, I may just have to add brown mustard to that list. Sometimes you need to live a little.

product review: QuickTrophy Dog Tags

A couple of weeks ago, I was presented with an opportunity to review a product from QuickTrophy, an online store that offers custom trophies and plaques for sports teams and social organizations. At the time, I had been having some trouble with my toddler. His older sister has started to wear jewelry around the house, and he has managed to break just about every one of her bracelets and necklaces in an effort to be more like "big sis."

So I figured that doing a product review for a customized dog tag might be just the thing to cure his sibling possessiveness. After all, dog tags are strong - strong enough for the army and to accompany soldiers into battle. They ought to survive my toddler, right?

Ordering the product was fairly straight forward. You go to the Quick Trophy homepage and click on the "What's New" category to see their new line of customized dog tags. You select a sport to get a small graphic printed on the tag, along with your personal engraving. Since this wasn't for sports or a team, I decided on the pinecar derby image, which was a set of racing flags. Then I borrowed a passage from one of his favorite movies (Cars), and personalized it. It turned out great:



Overall, I was pretty pleased with the transaction. My only complaints had to do with their shopping cart sequence and the shipping charges. Once you have entered your engraving, there are two buttons at the bottom of the page - one for checkout and one to continue shopping. I kept clicking on the continue shopping button by accident. I'm not accustomed to seeing that button until you've seen the item placed in your cart. Maybe it's just me, but I like to know that the item has been placed in the cart before I am given the option to continue shopping. Otherwise, I feel like it didn't "stick". I also never received an email confirmation for my order. If this wasn't for a product review, I would have been on the phone with them asking if the order went through or not.

My only other concern is that the cheapest shipping option is USPS priority for $8.70, which seems a bit steep for a single dog tag. In my case, since this was for a product review, they simply stuck it in a 55 cent letter-sized envelope and I paid no shipping. But I'd be interested in seeing why they charge that much to ship a dog tag for a regular order. I guess part of it must be "handling" charges.

The price of the tag was reasonable - $3.50 each, with discounts for ordering in bulk. It was cheaper than a custom engraved dog tag at the local pet store, if you don't count the shipping. It appears to be of good solid quality. The edges weren't sharp, and it's been taking a beating from my toddler already. Even the necklace has survived so far. If they combine shipping for bulk orders, this would be a great little inexpensive morale booster for sports teams. I may even have to get a pink one for my daughter, as she is now jealous of my son's.

product reviews - coming to a blog near you!

While large scale retail sites like Amazon are consistently pushing for user generated content in the form of ratings and reviews, individual bloggers are also getting in on the action. Several of the paid blogging programs are now testing the waters for physical product reviews, and in the last week I have been approached to review things as diverse as arthritis gel and Air Jordan shoes.

This is definitely one of those cases in which the blog revenue service will do well to screen the bloggers that they commission for reviews, as sending out physical products is not cheap and the last thing you need is for someone in their twenties to receive a request to review arthritis gel, or a goth to review a pair of Air Jordans.

As the idea of sending out product samples for blogger review is fairly new to the web (or at least the non-A-list blogosphere), I'm sure we have some speed bumps and an initial learning curve to get past. As a blogger, I find it promising that we may be seeing opportunities to blog more about products we use every day (and getting a free sample is a nice perk!).