Trader Joe's Egg Salad

Sonia loves eggs. Maybe not every morning, but most mornings, the first things she'll do after getting up is fire up the coffee maker and grab a few eggs from the fridge. Within minutes she's sipping java and making an egg sandwich with cheese or some sort of omelette.

Me? I like eggs, but I kinda have to be in a certain mood. If I force myself to eat eggs when I'm not hungry for them, I get a little nauseous. But every once in a while I get a specific hankering, and in those instances only eggs will hit the spot. I'm weird like that.

It's a similar situation with egg salad and egg salad sandwiches. If we're traveling and we stop for gas at any random convenience store, Sonia will gravitate toward an egg salad sandwich, if available, more often than not. But it's usually pretty low on my list of preferences...unless I've got that craving.

One thing we do agree upon: this egg salad is not very good. It's bland. It lacks richness, creaminess, and flavor. It tastes and feels watery. Things like mayonnaise and mustard are listed in the ingredients, but they simply don't show up in the flavor of the product, so we wound up adding our own. We both tasted something similar to dill in the egg salad, but there's no "dill" mentioned on the packaging. We're perplexed on that one.

This isn't the first sub-par egg salad we've seen from TJ's. The Spicy Ranchero Egg White Salad comes to mind. I thought maybe egg yolks would help but apparently not. They're 0-2 as far as egg salad is concerned.

Now chicken salad, on the other hand, is a different story entirely.

If we lived any closer to a Trader Joe's, I think this might have been a "no-hassle refund" type situation. As it stands, we'll probably just force ourselves to finish this tub. I mean, it's edible, but this is most definitely not a repeat purchase. Sonia's score: 5/10. Nathan's score: 4/10

Bottom line: 4.5 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Cinnamon Sugar Almonds

AI is scary. I asked perchance.org for "the latest Trader Joe's food product" and within a couple seconds, it had formulated Trader Joe's Chicken & Waffle Flavored Potato Chips, complete with an enticing product description and images of said fictitious food product. Of course the writing on the packaging is all gibberish and the description doesn't provide actual ingredients, but heck, I'm starting to wonder if Trader Joe's hasn't been doing this all along. I mean they do have some pretty tasty stuffing flavored chips, at least around Thanksgiving time.

What other ideas did artificial intelligence come up with? Products like Trader Joe's Mini Gummy Bears on a Chocolate Pool Day come to mind. I mean, whose brain thinks like that? WTF is a "chocolate pool day"?

All that to say that this isn't really all that weird an idea. I'm glad the guy who wants to dip everything in dark chocolate was absent at the product development meeting that day. Because these things are perfect just the way they are. They're delectable little bite-size candies with a whole almond and plenty of cinnamon and sugar.

In fact, if I had to complain about anything, I might want a little less cinnamon, sugar, and confectionery coating and more nut flavor. These little treats are creamy, sweet, and they have enough real cinnamon that you might start coughing if you eat them too fast.

Some of the spheres are bordering on being too big to eat in one bite. When you break them in half, you can see more than 50% of the product is that vanilla candy coating, so these are definitely heading in the direction of indulgent dessert rather than salty, nut-based snack. Sonia agrees, but she's definitely a big fan of these almonds.

$3.99 for the eight serving resealable bag. Would buy again. 9/10 stars from Sonia. 8/10 stars from me for Trader Joe's Cinnamon Sugar Almonds.

Bottom line: 8.5 out of 10.