Trader Joe's Cookie Mug Hangers

Apparently these have been a thing for a while. Makes sense. It's not the first time I've been oblivious to a product that has existed in the world at large for months or years, only to have Trader Joe's draw my attention to it when they offer their own iteration of said product.

If I'd had these as a kid, I'd have undoubtedly played with my food until yelled at by one or both of my parents. I would have lined the little cookie men up on the side of a mug of hot chocolate and pretended it was me and my friends by the poolside in the summer. I'd have imagined the marshmallows as little floaties and tried to get the gingerbread men to lay on top of them without sinking into the hot cocoa.

Or I'd have imagined the cookie men were villains about to be summarily executed by being thrown into a vat of boiling liquid or perhaps eaten by a hungry dinosaur—played by yours truly—limb by limb, all the while begging for mercy.

I might have imagined them as deep sea divers, about to plunge into the abyss to explore an unknown trench, only to be consumed by a giant sea monster, again played by me. At any rate, I'd have had fun. Lots of fun.

And I'm not saying they're not fun as an adult. They are. They're cute, seasonally-appropriate, and quite tasty for pre-packaged gingerbread. If they'd had guts made of cookie butter, they might be even more impressive.

And they actually hang on to the side of your mug. I was thinking maybe we needed mugs with wider rims or something, but each mug we tried was easily straddled by the little mug-hangin' buggers. The foot on the inside on the mug actually dangles into your hot beverage of choice and is fully saturated within seconds, ready to be slurped off the cookie. Of course, he doesn't hang quite so well with only one leg left so you've got to do some old-fashioned cookie dunking at that point, but I'm perfectly fine with that.

The recipe seems pretty much like classic gingerbread. It's got a sweet, cinnamony essence and wheaty base. There's not much in the way of real ginger or any other pungent spices, so it's more of a "kids' gingerbread" flavor by my estimation. I'm usually turned off by an overabundance of clove and allspice, so plain sweet cookies are fine with me, especially when paired with a beverage.

The cookies are plenty crunchy and crispy until they get wet, at which point they become nice and soft and even more delicious. Not sure if we'll pick these up again next year, but they'll get two thumbs up and about four Christmas stars a piece from Sonia and me.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Salty Honey Toffee Milk Chocolate Covered Crackers

Really when it comes to it, whoever came up with the idea of chocolate covered saltines is a genius.

Saltines aren't sexy. No way. Versatile? Sure. But...boring. A little chocolate always spices things a bit, but the concept of chocolate covered pretzels or even potato chips is about ten times more exciting than the averagest of crackers out there. 

But if you're supposed to pile stuff on saltines to make them a tasty treat...why stop with just chocolate? Genius. 

Here we are with Trader Joe's Salty Honey Toffee Milk Chocolate Crackers. That's quite a mouthful to say right there. 

And to eat! Wow. It's almost hard to find the cracker in there, it's enrobed in so many layers of silky milky chocolate. TJ's really has it down on its chocolate game - across the board it's much higher quality and tastier than the usual Hershey's fare. There's no exception here. Usually I'm a dark chocolate guy, the darker the better, but I could nosh on this milk chocolate all day, it's so good. 

And then uptop of course is the salty honey toffee bits. There's not so much honey except maybe a small twinge of sweetness, as mostly it tastes of salt and toffee. That's not bad thing. Tastes rich and somewaht decadent, and gets amplified even more by a little choco-drizzle atop. It's quite good. 

And yeah, there's a saltine in there...somewhere...serving as a base and actually helping keep everything in check. If this were fall on chocolate and toffee, it'd probably stray towards too much, too rich, too whatever. That's the not the case as just little taste of plain ol' boring cracker  somehow helps rein it all in. 

The package says there's a little touch of coffee in there too. I couldn't detect it, but I'm also getting over a cold so my tasters aren't 100%. 

The package comes as a sleeve of eight of these treats that won't be the star of any holiday cookie plate, but would make a nice, somewhat fancy addition for only a few bucks. It's not bad deal, and not an all the time purchase, but I can appreciate them for what they all, a humble saltine all dressed to the nines for the holidays. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Salty Honey Toffee Milk Chocolate Covered Crackers: 9 out of 10 Golden Spoons