Trader Joe's Light Coconut Milk

Clickety click click click. Click. Click clack moo.

"Whatcha doing over there?" asks my wife, laying on the other couch, relaxing after dinner with her Nook as Baby M snores away n her car seat (She's been asleep since we got home, and don't you mess with a sleeping baby).

"Uhhh..nothing" I say. "Really, not much at all."

"You're typing something. I can tell by that fourth-grade style hunt and peck you do. You're thirty, learn how to type like an adult. Typing something up for your TJ's blog or that other one you do?"

"Like, I said nothing really. Go back to your Nook."

"Nah, you're typing something. I'm going to guess it's your TJ's blog. Whatcha reviewing? Aren't you gonna nag me again for your Golden Spoon rating? You and your spoons, thinking you're so clever...."

"Okay, fine, I am writing a TJ's review."

"On?"

"Uhhhh......Trader Joe's Light Coconut Milk."

"What the heck can you write about a can of friggerin' milk?"

"I don't know, but we seem to pick it up pretty often. I mean, every time you make your Tres Leche cake, you add some in to make it a 'Cuatro Leche' cake. You really need to make that again sometime, and by that, I mean, like right now. Or last night, when I used a can to make some Thai-style coconut and chicken soup. Even with all the spices and stuff I put in, you still tasted the coconut, right? Or didn't we use it that one time with some mango and make that really good coconut-mango rice we both really liked?"

"Yeah, but, it's still just a can of milk."

"Well, no poop, but...everything at TJ's can't be cookie butter and impossibly good ice cream and candy bars. It's a grocery store, and they got to get some of the staple stuff right, or they'll just be some sort of store all full of gimmicky stuff and not much else. Sometimes I want all the gimmicks, but I still need me some groceries too. It can't hurt to write about those every once in a while, too. Like the maple syrup last week. Right, my dearest of loves? Right?"

"....Sure, you're right. I guess. Have fun. I'm just going to lay here and read my Baby Sitter's Club book for the 693rd time. This one is one of my favorites. It's the one where Mallory has to try and beg and plead her parents to get her ears pierced. It's...just...so...good!"

"Well, you know what else is good? I'm pretty sure we've picked up both the the regular and light versions of this coconut milk, and kinda like regular and Diet Dr Pepper, it's hard to tell the difference. Well, it's not impossible, the regular has just a little more coconut richness but, they're both good, and get enough coconut flavor in. I think the difference is the light version because it's made from coconuts that were jumped on their way out of a Weight Watchers meeting. Ha! That's a funny line I need to remember to put in. Nah, seriously it's because it's the second time they press the coconuts and the first time all the...."

"Excuse me, I'm trying to read here. What are you prattlin' on about coconuts about?"

"I'm just thinking out loud about how smokin' you'd look in a grass skirt and coconut top...."

"Errr, no. And don't put that in your review. Or the line about coconuts going to Weight Watchers. That's stupid."

"I thought you weren't listening."

"I wasn't. Mallory almost has them convinced!"

Ladies and gentlemen, this conversation, which completely did not happen, is why when you choose for whatever reason to write a review about a can of coconut milk, you just go and write it, and leave your better half alone. That said, both Sandy and I like the canned coconut milk and heartily recommend it for all of your coconut milk needs.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Light Coconut Milk: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons.

Trader Joe's Speculoos Crunchy Cookie Butter

Well, if you want the short story, I'll just say this: if you like the original cookie butter, you'll like the crunchy stuff, although you shouldn't expect the crunchfest of the century. This product is still pretty smooth.

For those unfamiliar with cookie butter, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you it's awesome. And then I'll continue to overuse the word "awesome" for the rest of this blog post. How awesome is cookie butter, you ask? So awesome that our review of cookie butter is by far the most read post of all time on this blog...out of 362 posts! That's partly due to Russ' epic write-up on The Daily Meal and partly due to the fact that cookie butter is just friggin' awesome.

And this crunchy stuff is automatically friggin' awesome by association. In my review of the smooth version, I mentioned that there was really no evidence that the product was ever actually in cookie form. It's "smooth like butter." But the crunchy variety actually feels a little like biscuits—pulverized well beyond recognition.

So it's still pretty smooth in my opinion. There's a much greater difference between smooth peanut butter and crunchy peanut butter, if you ask me. And I guess I was expecting the cookie butter equivalent of crunchy peanut butter, which I certainly wouldn't have minded. But considering I don't have a dental plan at the moment, I suppose it's a blessing in disguise. I wouldn't want to chip a tooth on a giant chunk of speculoos biscuit while devouring a piece of toast slathered with crunchy cookie butter.

And if you're wondering—yes, the taste is exactly the same. It's that same sweet, scrumptious, gingerbready deliciousness that we've come to know and love. Someday I'm going to fill the bathtub with cookie butter and jump in and put it on our YouTube channel. Stay tuned.

Since this product could have been a tad crunchier, I'll have to dock it half a star. Other than that, it gets the same score as the original cookie butter. 4.5 stars from Sonia. 4.5 stars from me.

Bottom line: 9 out of 10 stars.