Trader Joe's Pecan Pralines

Man, 2020 has been quite a year so far, and we're not even halfway through it yet. Has the whole world gone nuts?

Apparently, everything is happening on schedule. Earlier this year, I finished reading a book called The Fourth Turning, written the year I graduated high school: 1997, over two decades ago. This book specified that the "climax of the crisis era" would begin "around the year 2020" and would be marked by "new diseases," "cultural distress," "social distress," "political distress," "economic distress," and "military distress." These predictions were made based on the simple theory that history repeats itself roughly every 80 years. 

Look at 1940: WWII raged around the world and the U.S. got pulled into it the following year. 80 years prior: 1860, the American Civil War. 80 years prior to that: 1780, right in the middle of the American Revolution. The pattern actually goes back well before the formation of this country, and it can be observed in almost any civilization throughout history. It's an incredibly insightful read and I could go on and on for pages, so to prevent this snack review from becoming a book report, I'll try to wrap things up. My point? It's going to be a bumpy ride for a while, but stuff is cyclical, and no, the world is not nuts—or more accurately, it's no more or less nuts than it's ever been.

What is nuts? Trader Joe's Pecan Pralines. In times like these, it's nice to have an old familiar snack that you can count on to curb the munchies, satisfy a sweet tooth, and keep your blood sugar up without too much fanfare.

The pecans are a good mixture of pecan halves and smaller pecan bits, generously coated in a praline confection consisting of sugar, butter, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt. They're very sweet, moderately salty, and surprisingly buttery. Texture-wise, for a fraction of a second, they feel almost breaded when they're in my mouth. I guess that's a testament to the amount of sugar, butter, and salt that's on there.

The flavor is so potent that I'm usually pretty satisfied after just two or three pecans. Beyond that, I feel like I'm teetering on the brink of hyperglycemic shock. That sweet butter just builds up on my tongue and I need to chug a half gallon of water to reclaim equilibrium in my mouth. In light of that, I think this single tub would last me quite a while if it were just me. Sonia's quite happy to eat them all day long, however. She finds them supremely addictive.

These have been around there on TJ's candy shelf for a number of years now, at least. Once again, this is the first opportunity we've had to try them. If you already like pecans and enjoy them in a buttery candy form, then this snack is for you. I'd be okay going quite a while before we purchase them again, but I think Sonia will grab them sooner. 

A plastic tub will run you just under $6 at Trader Joe's, or....what the WHAT? You can pick them up on eBay for about $40 plus shipping?

Four stars from Sonia. Three and a half from me.

Bottom line: 7.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Coconut & Almond Creamer

Ahh, coffee. So good, right? And who knew how wrong I've been making it for years?

It's simple, actually. We just bought a kitchen scale for use for baking and fermenting, but my lovely bride Sandy just realized we should be using it to make coffee, too, for our French press. Something about 1 gram of coffee for every 15 grams of water or something....for someone one so math adverse as her, I'm surprised she took it on. But dang! Awesome coffee every time she's made it that way. Smooth, mild, highly drinkable, enough kick. Coffeehouse quality, as simple as that, for a fraction of the cost.

Of course, I haven't embraced or learned this new to us method quite yet, so when I had to make some brew to get us going yesterday, I reverted to the old ways. Grind some beans, dump in an approximate amount, pour water til it looked about right. Result? Comparatively speaking, it was barely drinkable. Looks like I'm going have to do some coffee break science from now on.

About the only thing that made my coffee drinkable was Trader Joe's Coconut & Almond Creamer. Or so says Sandy, I choked down my coffee as is, but when she's gone for creamy coffee recently this has been her choice.

Obviously, it's dairy free. So that's an okay start...we both can handle lactose just fine but prefer to save as much as we can for cheese. Coconut creamer can tend to be a little too heavy, while almond creamer never really seems to make coffee quite creamy enough by itself, so a good blend of the two seems to make the right kind of sense to approximate "regular" creamer the closest.

Not too much coconut or almond flavor comes through - a little, sure, but it's not gonna taste like a flavored latte. The small hint of vanilla helps smooth all that over as well.

 Anyways if you're looking for a decent dairy-free alternative to the usual half and half, giving this one a try wouldn't be a bad idea. I have a feeling we'll be restocking on an as-needed basis, until I can convince Sandy to go all black coffee like I do. I don't have much of say here, so like our old way of making coffee, I'm gonna approximate and hope for the best when I say a seven overall. I forgot to take a pic of the nutritional info so check it out here.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Coconut & Almond Creamer: 7 out of 10 Golden Spoons