Candy Yum Yum in the news!

Here's a fun little piece from the folks over at Women's World magazine. Candy Yum Yum weighed in with Halloween Ghost Dots. I keep reading about Candy Corn-flavored and Pumpkin Spice-flavored M&M's (at Walmart and Target, respectively), but I haven't actually seen them yet. Have you tried them? Send me a note and let me know what you think!

Halloween 2010: WE WERE TRICKED!

Okay, first of all, Halloween on a Sunday: bad idea. There was just something wrong, something off about the whole evening.
Here's how it went down for us. In the afternoon, I took the Sugar Baby to the local farm where they were supposedly having some sort of Halloween celebration. "Bring a canned good for the local food bank!" it said in the paper. I went into my pantry and oddly, had nary a canned good, so I packed up the ten thousand individual packets of Annie's Cheddar Bunny crackers I had that the Sugar Baby won't eat. It was the best I could. We got to the farm and basically it was a "buy a raffle ticket to win a pumpkin" and "listen to loud, annoying spooky music" festival. Boo.
We started off trick-or-treating in my parents' neighborhood. It was oddly quiet. It seemed as if more people had their lights off than on. And, a new thing this year, quite a few houses actually left out buckets of candy. This was my dream when I was little. I'd heard of people doing it, but never experienced it. Well, this year, the Sugar Baby got plenty of opportunities to paw through bowls of candy.
After doing that circuit, we went to see Fr. John who was rocking Halloween. Then, onto our neighborhood. Again, fewer houses were giving out candy. What gives?
In any case, here's the haul: one full-sized Snickers and Skittles. Lots of mini Milky Ways, Snickers, Twizzlers, Sweettarts, etc. But enough of that. Let's look at the freaks.
Example one: a mini candy cane. You cannot fool me, Candy Cane person. I know this is leftover from last year's Christmas.
Example two: A Clark Teaberry Gum Ball. Where did this even come from? I've never seen these and who on earth would buy them. (I mean, I totally would, but that's just me.)
Example three: Butterfinger Snackerz. I couldn't wait to try these bad boys. They were strange. The first taste was really good. They're just like Butterfingers, except they're small squares and the center is hollow so they're not as dense. But then they got this weird butteriness to them that I wasn't sure I liked. Although to be fair, my teeth are not in great shape these days and I found crunching to be difficult.
And then, dear Yumsters, I give you our two tricks.
For tonight's after-dinner treat, the Sugar Baby chose the Cow Tail. "Good choice," I said. "You'll like that." I opened it for him and found that it was broken. I gave him the first piece, then the second, then I said, "Wait a minute. These aren't supposed to break. These are supposed to be chewy." I looked at the wrapper. It had expired in 2009! So gross.
I suggested the Sugar Baby take something similar, like perhaps that Chick-o-Stick. I unwrapped it, he took a bite and then this cloud came over his face. I knew that cloud. I had experienced it myself this summer when I bit into a cracker from 2000. I grabbed the Chick-o-Stick wrapper and wouldn't you know it? Expired in 2008. Someone's trying to poison us! Naturally I then put it in my mouth to see if it truly was bad. O.M.G. The Sugar Baby took it all with aplomb (and cleansed his taste buds with Dots), but I can still taste the bitter sawdust in my mouth. A pox upon those who distribute expired candy! Raisins and pennies are one thing, but bad candy is a whole 'nother ball game.

The Inside Scoop (From the Outside)

While I sit here with the world’s neediest cat tucked under my elbow, hundreds of candy manufacturers and buyers are partying their lights out working hard at the All Candy Expo. I’m not there because 1) I’m broke; 2) I don’t have coverage for the Sugar Baby and 3) I’m too tired to even return my library books, let alone haul my sorry butt to the airport. In any case, the kind press folks at the Expo are keeping candy bloggers in the know with daily info. So dear Yumsters, want a sneak peek into what’s coming up around the bend? Here are a few I thought were interesting.

• Jelly Belly® will have two new super fruit flavors: Barbados Cherry, an emerging super fruit high in Vitamin C, and Acai (ah-sigh-ee) Berry, an exotic Amazon rainforest fruit, in their new Superfruit Mix, which also includes other super fruits of pomegranate, blueberry and cranberry flavors. Another new flavor will be Chili Mango Jelly Belly® jelly beans which will “offer an exotic fusion of heat and sweet.” I’m not so sure about those, but then again, I don’t like mango.


• MARS Snackfood US is introducing another flavor in its PROMISES line: DOVE® Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate with Peanut Butter PROMISES®. These individually wrapped chocolates include eloquent "promise" captions inside each wrapper. (NOTE: One lucky Yumster just might find some of these in the Great Anniversary Candy Giveaway!)


• For Halloween, DOTS® Halloween Mix will include Candy Corn DOTS®, Blood Orange flavored Bat DOTS® and haunting Ghost DOTS® (Tootsie® Roll Industries). I’m psyched about these!


• And finally, DAS® Lolli lollipops have new flavor pairings: Naughty Ginger is a ginger and lemon flavored pop, Caramelini Me Happy is a salty caramel lollipop, Fab-O-Pom blends orange and pomegranate, and Man Bait is a maple bacon flavored lollipop. As I’m writing this, I’m eating one of the Fab-O-Poms. It’s got a nice balance of sweet and sour, although now that I’m getting down to the end of it, there are little pieces of fruit in it, and I’m not digging that. I prefer a totally smooth lollipop—no chunks. We’ll see how the others fare.

I Can't Even Come Up With a Clever Title, It's That Bad

Dear Reader,
I'm completely humorless at this point. For the third day in a row, it's been oppressively hot and humid. They even closed the schools early! The anti-snow day. I have no desire to do anything, even eat candy, believe it or not. In fact, I think yesterday was the first time in who-knows-how-long that I didn't have a single nibble of candy. Seriously. That's cause for concern.
The only saving grace of this weather is that it lulls the Sugar Baby into a very sleepy state. Unfortunately, it does the same for me. So I have lots to write about, I really do, but I just can't even muster up the energy.
Thank goodness for the correspondents out in the field. Alexandra sent me this exciting news of what she found at the drugstore:

"DOTS Elements Earth (Pomegranate). According to the box there is also Fire - Cinnamon, Water - Green Tea and Air - Wintergreen." She gave the Earth Dots to her parents and apparently they've said they're flavorless. I'm just not so sure about that package. It looks a little creepy/alienesque to me.

And speaking of news from the field, I sent the von Schokolats out on a road trip this weekend. More to come! (If it ever cools down. If it doesn't, this might just become Watermelon Yum Yum.)

Candy Freak Show

I did it all for you, dear reader.
First, I bought candy at the Christmas Tree Shoppe, thereby breaking my own rule about not buying edible stuff from non-food stores and--
Second, I bought quite possibly the freakiest assortment of candy ever.
Where do I even start? Well, I'd heard of the Yogurt Dots and the Chewy Atomic FireBalls and I have to say, they sounded intriguing. Disgusting, but intriguing. The Dots came wrapped in cellophane and when I tore it off there was a subtle, icky odor. Definitely not a sweet, candy aroma. I opened the box and took a good whiff. Ooooh. So not good. Kind of like a cross between sour dairy and an old spice cabinet. The first one I tried was orange. Actually, it wasn't bad. It was very similar to a Creamsicle. Then I moved on to lime. Egads. What a mistake. This is what I imagine Pledge would taste like. I vowed to stop there, but as I'm writing this, I see the flavors on the side and the others include strawberry, banana and blackberry. I think I have to try the banana. Oh. Imagine chewy banana babyfood with a medicinal kick at the end.
Moving on. The Chewy Atomic Fireballs are smaller than I thought they'd be. For some reason, I envisioned them having almost a white marshmallow kind of center, but thankfully they don't. These are like bigger, round versions of Red Hots. Not bad, actually. These I might actually eat.
So I thought I had scored the ultimate candy mix when there, at the checkout, were these "Limited Edition! Junior Fruit Cremes" in black cherry, orange and raspberry. On the package, the drawings of the cremes look all bright and shiny and oozy in the center. In reality, they're grayish, and the centers are dry, like a thin mint patty. I can't even describe the taste. Gross, like a bad grammar school fruit dessert. I'm not even sure what that means, but it's what comes to mind. I can't imagine how these passed through a taste test. Maybe they didn't. (Note to Junior Mints people: next time you have a new product, give me a shout. We'll talk.) So that was my fun for the day. But it wasn't a total waste because it turns out that the Dots make for a great cat toy. Now they're all over my floor.

Notes from the Field: Ghost Dots

While I was busy carting a kicking and screaming Henri out of the library today, Alexandra was out in the field doing some research. She went to Target in search of Candy Corn Kisses and came back with the following info on Ghost Dots:

1) Apparently they look glow-in-the-dark but don't really glow
2) There are three flavors and you have to guess which is which
3) They're supposedly shaped like ghosts (which I guess is just a longer Dot)

She didn't buy any, but now of course, I'm intrigued. I don't really dig the idea of eating something that glows or even just looks like it does, but I suppose I can just try one and give the rest out at Halloween. Guess I'll be going to Target this week.

Update on Candy Corn Kisses

I was flipping through the Target flyer this weekend when I saw an ad for the Candy Corn Hershey Kisses, and it said "Exclusive to Target!" So if you're looking for them, apparently there's only one place to go. In the same circular, there was an ad for "Ghost Dots." It was hard to tell from the picture, but these look like little boxes of Dots that glow in the dark-- the Dots themselves, not the box. Weird. I don't know how I feel about glow in the dark candy. Seems kind of like Homer Simpson swallowing nuclear waste.