Cucumber Water and Trader Joe's Cocoa Almond Spread

when we lived in nebraska, there was this (pretty famous) sushi/japanese funsion restaurant in old town omaha called Blue. it was a little high end and more than a little pricey, but the food was good and you can trust such any sushi in omaha, nebraska. it was a great date or girl's night atmosphere, and it had fun mixed drinks (and about a thousand kinds of martini). two of my favorite things about the restaurant though were the steel chopsticks (i can't help it, they were really cool!) and the cucumber water. it's just so dang refreshing and i always drank about five times as much water as usual when i was in there. for some reason, now that that's in the past, cucumber water just doesn't happen often. i actually haven't ever been to another restaurant where they put cucumber in my water. for some reason i thought about this recently, and happened to have a cucumber on hand. i have been chugging water since them, it's just so good and refreshing!

on a different note, i posted a random thing on everybody's favorite social networking site the other day about nutella. my mother hates the stuff, so i never even tried it until i was twenty years old. this is practically a travesty. but now i know better and we keep a jar on hand at all times. i love it with fruit, dissolved in a mug of hot milk, and with cheese flavored glutino gluten free crackers. don't judge, the cheesy crackers aren't too cheesy and it's a fabulous combo. somebody pointed out that one of my favorite stores ever (trader joe's) recently came out with a cocoa almond spread, which is similar to the nutella. i had seen it before but didn't bother with it, because i don't typically love the texture of almond butter. 

you guys...this stuff is amazing. nutella is ridiculously smooth and very milk chocolatey sweet, with hazelnut playing a supporting roll. the cocoa almond spread is much smoother than i thought it would be, though not quite as smooth as nutella. it has the texture of typical peanut butter. it's dark chocolate and the almond is prevalent and delicious. i don't think i could choose one i like more, but i think i can eat the trader joe's cocoa almond spread a little more often because it's slightly less sweet. i have so far eaten it on...a spoon.