Trader Joe's Wine Country Chicken Salad

This is one of those rare items that has stood the test of time and has consistently been on TJ's shelves for years. After recently reviewing the Curried Chicken Salad, I was reminded of the Wine Country Chicken Salad, which at the time, I had completely forgotten about. After the memory jog, I did recall having it years ago back in California. It's one of those items that we've actually eaten, but somehow a review slipped through the cracks. So for many of you, this might be an "oldie but goodie." If you've never tried it, though, it's worth checking out.

Similar to the Curried Chicken Salad, it has big chunks of white meat chicken. It also has celery, cranberries, and pecans. The white sauce is just enough to make it scrump-dilly without taking anything away from the natural flavors of the other ingredients. It's great with bread, crackers, and honestly, once you open the tub, it's really hard to stop eating it. Although I wouldn't put such a feat of gluttony past me, I did NOT eat the entire tub by myself in one sitting. I had a little help from Sonia. She's a huge fan of it, too.

As the name suggests, it would pair beautifully with wine, probably a pinot grigio would go best. We wouldn't know, because our PA TJ's don't sell wine, and I didn't feel like making an extra stop after my last TJ's run, what with the sub-zero temperatures and all. Weirdly and unexpectedly though, there are vineyards just west of Philly, so there are plenty of local wineries we'll have to check out in the near future—that is if the vines survive this arctic vortex.

Sonia and I are big fans. 4.5 stars from each of us. We couldn't score it quite as high as the curried version because we're both spice hounds, and we crave that extra tingle on the tongue. But for a tame, creamy chicken salad, it doesn't get much better than this.

Bottom line: 9 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Cioppino Seafood Stew

Well, it's a good thing I checked Wikipedia, or I would have really kinda embarrassed myself here.

You see, I thought cioppino was of Portugese (or at least Mediterranean) origin. A few years ago, through the generosity of my folks and the marvels of resort timeshare networks, Sandy and I honeymooned in Albufeira, Portugal, in the coastal Algarve region - an awesome week full of castle exploring, vinho verde drinking, and subtitled Simpsons watching - and we saw signs and menu listings for seafood stew everywhere, and it had some sort of fancy name. In my mind, it was cioppino. Anyways, we actually never tried it, because, well, when you're honeymooning on a preschool teacher and temp worker's salary, you gotta make small cuts somewhere (especially when factoring in dollars-to-Euro conversion), and man, chicken piri-piri is good anyways. Fast forward a few years later, and for an anniversary dinner we went to a fairly fancy Portugese/Mediterranean restaurant here in town, and here they had some sort of fish/seafood stew on the menu, which we both got, and it was awesome. In my mind, once again, it was cioppino.

Nope. Cioppino was actually invented by an old school Left Coaster here in the good ol' U.S. of A, and made from whatever leftover fish at the end of the day, and given a fancy enough name to fool me all these years later. So, while seeing Trader Joe's Cioppino Seafood Stew helped evoke some warm memories, I was a little disappointed to find they weren't entirely accurate.

Regardless, this is one tasty fishy stew. I'm not sure if it say more about the restaurant we were at, or our bag of soup from TJ's, but this stuff was as good as what I recall having there. I'll choose positivity here. There's little not to like, assuming you're a fan of assorted seafood. There's clams and shrimp and mussels and scallops and cod all up in this. And there's a lot of seafood too - it's far more generous than what's typically expected of a packaged product. I could have used another shrimp or two, but that's mostly just because I really like shrimp. No real complaints about seafood volume.

But, in an upside down turn of events, there's not enough of anything else. You see, the tomato-ey soup base is pretty darn good - somewhat spicy, very flavorful and rich but not overpowering, letting the freshness of the fish, etc really come out. It's pretty hearty and if it's tomato based and my wife likes it, you know it's darn good. Problem is, there's not enough of it. I mean, for me, half the fun of a good soup is enjoying all the broth at the end. Here, there's not enough of it to really enjoy - I'd say this is like 70% seafood and 30% broth. The picture I took above is somehow misleading. Maybe it's possible to add a little water to make more base without affecting overall taste quality all that much - it's not like all that sodium is going anywhere. Also, I got only one or two mushrooms and tomato chunks, which included all of Sandy's, so I'd be in favor of more of those, too.

I'd recommend getting a good, crusty hunk of bread (all the better to sop up whatever's left in the bowl) and a side salad along with a cup of this. Hmmm...even better idea - serve this inside a sourdough bread bowl. That'd be fantastic. Just know that a serving really doesn't stand alone as a meal. Honestly. both Sandy and I could have eaten an entire bagful each for lunch and not felt too bad until we saw the nutritionals on it. Still, for a $5-ish pickup, it's a good value because of the absolute abundance of nearly every consumable sea creature known to man present. If TJ's hadn't cheaped out on the cheap part, this cioppino would be even better, in our opinion. Sandy is going with a solid four, as am I.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Cioppino Seafood Stew: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons.