Good News!

The other day I received an envelope in the mail from a fellow writer. Her name is Kris and she lives in Hawaii with her husband and sons. How cool is that? Anyhow, she sent a note saying, "Thought you could use a little good news," and in the package was a candy bar. It has the shiniest wrapper I've ever seen-- it practically blinded me when I opened it. In fact, it's so shiny that I couldn't even photograph it. It just came out as a white blur. It says "Hawaii's Favorite," which makes you think that it must contain coconut or macadamia nuts or something. But in fact, it's chocolate, peanuts and caramel, which gets one wondering how many ways can you do those three ingredients? Well, this was different than a Snickers or Baby Ruth or Reggie bar or any of those other bars with similar ingredients. It's pretty flat and mostly caramel with chopped peanuts. The thing is, it has a weird aftertaste, almost like a cherry cough medicine flavor. I checked the ingredients to see if there were any clues as to where the flavor came from, but the only unusual things were sweetened condensed milk and brown sugar. Although now that I think about it, it is a little surprising that there are no artificial colors or flavors other than artificial vanilla. The other ingredient that perplexed me was crisped rice. You can definitely taste it, although it's not like a Nestle Crunch or 100 Grand. It's very subtle. Just enough to give the bar some texture.