My kind of vote

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Vermont? On our last trip up there, we went to the charming (albeit overpriced) Vermont Country Store and what did we find? This.













A contest to vote on candy! Talk about being in the right place at the right time. When we stepped up to the table, this nice lady Bev said, "Looks like we have some candy experts here." I told her, "You have no idea!"

Some of the candies on the ballot were gummi butterflies, sour lips, green apple candies, sea salt and chocolate almonds, S'mores, and ZOTZ. The Sugar Baby sampled them all, of course, and voted for the butterflies. I thought I'd go gaga over the almonds, but the S'mores really won me over. I don't know which one won in the end, but it was a fun way to kill a few minutes before we went into the store and dropped a wad of cash on even more candy. (I had a salted caramel truffle that was excellent. No picture, though. I ate it too soon.)

Gummy Madness!!

It's hot and it's summer so that can only mean one thing: Extreme Gummy Invasion! I received lots of gummy samples lately, so No-Nuts and I got down to business. I'd like to say beforehand that I really do appreciate that more and more companies are trying to make better-for-you candy, particularly in the area of colors and flavors. Less artificial junk, more real stuff. That's a good thing. We took that into account when we taste-tested these gummies and gave extra points for healthiness, but flavor was definitely important.
On a side-note, I took the Sugar Baby to a little seaside candy shack a few weeks ago. I figured I'd let him pick out a few little pieces of candy. Holy cannoli, what a scam. The cheapest thing in the place was a regular-sized Hershey bar with Almonds for $1.50. The lady tried to sell me on a tiny bag of gummy worms for $4.95. She kept telling me they were made with 30% fruit juice. Apparently she didn't know who she was dealing with. Anyhow, enough of that. Onto the gummies.

Goody Good Stuff Tropical Gummies:
No picture available because we ate them without thinking. The gummies came in cute shapes, including a bunch of bananas and a palm tree. 

No-Nuts:

"The first one I tried was banana-flavored and good, especially because I don't like banana-flavored things
Raspberry/strawberry-flavored: Okay, but definitely not my first gummy choice
Palm tree: I don't know what flavor it was but I didn't like it. Too much tropical, but with no specific fruit flavor. Probably palm tree flavor."

Me:
"I was impressed with the banana ones, as banana is a difficult flavor to do well. I have to agree with No-Nuts about the Palm Tree. I'm thinking it was probably papaya or some other stinky tropical flavor like that." (Addendum: we finally figured out it was supposed to be coconut.)

Conclusion: These gummies are all-natural, dairy-free, gluten-free, gelatin-free and fat free. In addition, No-Nuts would only buy them if they were free.


Goody Good Stuff Sour Fruit Salad

These are fruit-shaped gummies with a sour citric acid dusting.

No-Nuts: "They reminded me of Peach-O's, but not anywhere near as good.
The pear flavor was different, and I liked it but ... you know."

Me: "The grapefruit was good, but I like grapefruit flavor in general. The thing with these is I was waiting to be hit with "SOUR," but they were really just like fruit slices that you'd buy at CVS for 2 for $1."

Conclusion: I was ready to give major points to these for their natural ingredients, in particular the spinach. The first ingredient is corn syrup, but it's candy for cryin' out loud. A little corn syrup never hurt anyone.
Overall, three stars out of five.

Surf Sweets Sour Berry Bears

These are little gummy bears, all red and orange. They're all-natural, made with organic fruit juice, no corn syrup, gluten-free, vegan. That covers a lot of bases.

No-Nuts: "They were pretty good."

Me: "I really liked these. They had the sour punch I was looking for."
Overall, four out of five stars.



Welch's Tangy Fruits
These are jam-packed with artificial colors, flavors and other suspicious ingredients.
No-Nuts: "I love these. Four stars."
Me: "I hate these. One star."










 Gimbal's Sour Lovers

A giant, 11-ounce bag of cute heart-shaped gummies in 12 (TWELVE!) flavors that are thoughtfully listed on the back.
No-Nuts:
    " Fuji apple :)
     Blueberry: very sour
     Watermelon: +++"
Me: These were yummy.
Four out of five stars. Would've been five out of five, but the artificial colors drop it down a notch.

Happy Easter!

I hope the Easter Bunny was good to everyone this year. In the House of Yum, the Easter Bunny went kind of easy on the candy since he knows that the Sugar Baby has a second appointment this week to get some cavities filled. Apparently he did a lot of shopping at Trader Joe's, too, as there were TJ's gummy bunnies, malted milk eggs, peanut butter eggs and jelly beans in the basket, along with some Lindt chocolate carrots. And with that, we say good-bye to candy season as things start to wind down. From here on out, our holidays are mostly candy-free and more focused on burgers and potato salad. It's the circle of life, folks.
But what about you? What was in your Easter basket?

Wonka Fruit Marvels and Fruit Jellies: a professional review from unprofessional testers

This weekend I had a reunion with all my taste tester buddies. They're a wild bunch. I suppose I could blame our trained palates as a reason that we all like to get sauced enjoy fine foods and beverages, as well as each others' company. As luck would have it, I received a box of samples from Wonka earlier in the day, so I thought, hey, why not have the Buds (as we were called) do the taste testing? I put out a notepad for comments since I knew I'd be lucky if I even remembered being there.
I put out three products: Wonka Exceptionals Fruit Marvels in Clementine Orange and Pomegranate flavors, and Wonka Exceptionals Fruit Jellies in Grapefruit.
Here's what the notes say:

• Pomegranate-- yummy!
• Surprise! The Marvel is soft inside.
• Orange: has a soft center. Pleasant surprise! Great!
• Reminiscent of early winter citrus with a hint of cooked orange, candy orange and fresh orange. (Okay, I made that last one up. But it certainly would've come up had the wine not started flowing.)

Here is Taste Tester Ginger with a Pomegranate Marvel in her hand. She took it out of her mouth because she suddenly remembered she gave up candy for Lent. Taste Tester Dawnie told her she could finish it if she said ten Novenas.

So here's the deal: the Marvels are "Hard candies with soft centers, delicately sugar dusted." I have to say, these are a unique candy. I can't think of anything to compare them to, except they're kind of like those little strawberry candies that are hard on the outside and soft on the inside. They're very tasty.
The Fruit Jellies are "Fantastically flavorful soft jellies dusted with sugar." In other words, top-shelf gumdrops in a cube shape.
I really like these products and here's why.
1) I like the packaging. This is how I always envisioned Wonka candies should look like, rather than the goofy Oompas packaging with the cartoon Willy Wonka. These definitely feel like something you could actually get at the Willy Wonka Factory Store, if he had one.
2) The flavors. They could've done plain old orange, but instead they did Clementine. I was thrilled to see they had grapefruit jellies, an under-utilized candy flavor. And of course, there's the sophistication factor of pomegranate and Goji berry. With flavors like these, Wonka/Nestle is obviously trying to appeal to candy lovers of a certain age.
3) They're made with natural ingredients. Yes, there's sugar and corn syrup and modified corn starch in these, so the whole "natural" label is kind of shifty. This ain't health food, folks. But the good news is, there's no artificial colors, which can be a big deal to some parents. The candies are colored with carmine and cochineal. It's probably best not to tell the kiddies that these colors come from ground-up beetles. (So if you're vegan, take note of that. No jellies or Marvels for you.)

Let the Easter Fun Begin!

Isn't it amazing how quickly all the Valentine's candy was cleared away and replaced by Easter candy? There was barely any time for the shelves to be empty before they were loaded up with jelly beans and chocolate bunnies.
My first official Easter purchase was a bag of Sour Patch Bunnies. It was a difficult choice between those or Swedish Fish Eggs.
If you didn't tell me these were bunnies, I'm not sure what I'd think they were. They sort of resemble a bottle of Aunt Jemima pancake syrup. I hadn't had any Sour Patch candies in a long time, so I'd forgotten how much I like them. These are one of the few sour candies that start off and stay sour. The flavors are bright, fresh and citrusy-- a nice juxtaposition to the usual super sweet Easter basket offerings.

Yummy Earth: Organic Candy That Tastes Good

One of the moms at the Sugar Baby's new school found out I had a blog. Not only does she have a 3-year-old, but she also just gave birth to a brand new baby just a few weeks ago. I figured if anyone needed a special treat, it was her. So I shared some of the candy love that was sent to me from Yummy Earth. I like this company, because it was created by two dads who wanted their kids to have a natural candy that tasted good. All of their products are USDA and EU Certified Organic and are gluten-free, peanut-free and tree-nut free and don't contain any type of corn syrup. And yet amazingly, their candy still tastes really, really good. Honestly!
While the gummy bears and worms may not be as bright and colorful as traditional brands, they taste really good. The other mom commented on how juicy they were. Yep, they have a nice, fresh fruit flavor with a good sweet/sour balance. What I particularly like is that these have the same dense chew as a regular gummy. Oftentimes, gummy products can be too soft or gumdrop-like. These were definitely chewy.
As for their hard candies, I tried the Roadside Root Beer drops which were just as tasty as an old-fashioned root beer barrel, only drop-shaped, which I like better since it didn't slice up my tongue. I plan on giving out their Organic Lollipops for Halloween, so if you're in the neighborhood, stop by!
I tip my hat to this company because I know a lot of parents out there who are concerned about artificial colors and flavors. These prove that you can make a great tasting candy from nature's own delicious sources.

QBZ: Candy With a Q!

This entry is a two-fer: a review and a candy ABC all in one! I was very perplexed about what I was going to do for the letter "Q" in my ABC paintings. If worse came to worse, I was going to do Quince Paste, a British treat. But then-- taa daa! Warheads candy came out with QBZ. These are little gummie squares that are rated as "Sour" on the Warheads Sour Meter.
The texture is more like a gumdrop than a gummie, and they're not as puckery as Sour Patch Kids. The flavors are Green Apple, Strawberry, Blue Raspberry and Watermelon. None of these are big on my list. It seems like these are the flavors of the generation after mine. My crowd was all about grape, orange and cherry. Not very exciting, but we Gen-Xers are into simplification. I'm sending the rest of the package back with No-Nuts. I'm sure they'll be a welcome addition to her communal candy jar.

Gummy Candy Corns

I took No-Nuts back to school this week and helped her move into her dorm. The first thing she wanted to do was move her bed around to face the opposite direction, so she got one of the R.A.'s on duty to do the heavy lifting while she crawled under the bed to set up the risers. Unfortunately, the bed landed on her finger instead of the riser, thus "breaking" her finger (she claimed), which meant that I got to put all of her stuff away--including all 35 bathing suits-- while she nursed her wound with a bag of frozen peas (which, by the way, she ate half of, even though they were frozen). Then I spent the night in her dorm room (yes, I really did), which I think pretty much absolves me of all Auntly duties for the rest of the year, at the very least. In any case, it turns out that her school is located near the Munson's Chocolate factory. I worked at one of their retail stores during college (best job ever!), so I thought I'd stop in to see what the factory digs were like.
They're very secretive over there; no tours, although they do show a video of life behind the scenes. I got all nostalgic and regaled No-Nuts with my stories of working at the chocolate shop: how the toilet got plugged when the night shift flushed a pound of fudge down it and I had to deal with the mess the next day; the time I was working alone and a mouse ran across the floor and I jumped on the counter; how we used to dare each other to eat the grossest stuff in the store (and that's how I discovered my love for dark chocolate orange jellies which they no longer make), and how one woman flipped out on me because she didn't like the way I wrapped her chocolate poker chips and said her five-year-old daughter could've done a better job, at which point I said, "Fine. Here's some wrapping paper. Let her do it."
Anyhow, to make a long story short, they had these gummy candy corns which I thought were so cute. They have the same bite as Wonka Puckerooms (not as soft as a gumdrop, not as hard as Dots), but the flavor is actually candy corn. That's what it's supposed to be anyway, although it almost tastes like buttered popcorn jelly beans. No-Nuts said she thought she liked them at first, but then realized that if she wanted candy corn, she'd just eat candy corn. Good point.
These aren't made at the factory; the label says Made in Spain, so I'm guessing you can get them at lots of specialty candy stores. They'd be really cute on cupcakes. And speaking of cupcakes, stay tuned ... the Sugar Baby went to his girlfriend's birthday party today where he got to decorate his own cupcake with candy. You won't want to miss this one.

Haribo Alphabet Letters: When Education Gets Tasty!

We were coming to the end of the bag of Dum Dums that I'd been using as incentive for the Sugar Baby's toilet training, so I needed something else. (Note to Spangler: the Cream Soda pops were the least desired, although no lollipop was ever refused.)
I spied these Haribo Alphabet Letters at the Dollar Store. I thought, "Perfect! An educational candy!"
I'm happy to report that they were quite a hit, not just with the Sugar Baby, but with No-Nuts and me, too. The flavors are just like the Haribo Gummi Bears: pineapple, lemon, orange, raspberry and the tasty (but disturbing) green strawberry. The Sugar Baby wanted all the red ones, of course, which worked to my advantage since I prefer the green and clear. It was a win-win situation! Except now the bag is gone.
I wasn't near the Dollar Store, but I was in Target, so I ended up buying a package of Puckerooms for the "incentive" closet. This decision was based entirely on the fact that there are no artificial colors or flavors, so kudos to Wonka. Your brilliant marketing idea worked on me!

Dollar Store Candy Review

Now that No-Nuts is here for the summer, I've been using her as my guinea pig for certain candies, such as these goodies I found at the dollar store. (As you may recall, I have issues with eating anything from a dollar store, or any non-food store in general.)
I bought the Haribo Peaches because I know she likes Peach Os, and the Goetze's Strawberri Cream "bullseyes" were something I'd never seen before.
The first sniff of the Peaches bag took me back to high school when we had a birthday party for my friend Kris and took all the alcohol in her parents' liquor cabinet--including a bottle of Peach Schnapps--and made a "punch." I've never been much for anything peach flavored since then. These, however, were surprisingly good. Of course, you can rarely go wrong with Haribo in my book.
The Strawberri Creams, however, were another story. First of all, the spelling of "Strawberri" should've tipped me off. There's not a single ounce of strawberry in these babies and you can tell by the God-awful fake berry flavor. They also had a dusty, chalky texture that made them inedible.
So it was a runaway win for the Peaches and a sad loss for the bulls' eyes.

New Wonka Gummies: No Artificial Colors or Flavors!

I was pretty psyched earlier this year when I found out that Wonka would be releasing two new products: Sour Puckerooms and Sluggles Gummies. These sounded like just the kind of fun candy the market has been lacking for a while, because, let's face it, gummie worms and bears can only excite and amuse for so long.
The Sour Puckerooms are little mushroom shaped gummies with a sour dusting, similar to Sour Patch Kids. The flavors are cherry, grape and lemon/orange.
In contrast, the Sluggles are sweet and come in bug shapes (but not gross bug shapes, thankfully). The flavors are orange, grape, lemon and strawberry. I found them at Target.
I tossed the bags to No-Nuts and she went for the Puckerooms first. "These are good!" she said. I agree. They are good. Not too sour, but just puckery enough to have you reaching for another one. I like the contrast of the rough sour stuff against the smooth, chewy gummy.
The Sluggles are good, too, although I always prefer sour. These have a dense chew and a slick surface.
My overall thinking was, these are good. But how are they any different than any other gummie candies? One look at the ingredients will tell you: no artificial colors or flavors. Very cool. This is a big deal for parents of kids who have sensitivities to artificial ingredients, so yay for Wonka!

Lamar Odom and No-Nuts: Candy Soulmates?

They say there's no such thing as coincidence, so what, dear Yumsters, does this mean?

The Ice Cube Queen sent me an article from some Florida newspaper about Lamar Odom's favorite candy. (In case you don't know--because I certainly didn't--he's a player for the Lakers.) Apparently he's a candy fiend and he's quoted as saying, "It's funny because the games I played well were the games where I ate candy for breakfast." Nice!

But here's the thing: his favorite candies are listed as Twizzlers, Gummi Bears, Hershey's Cookies & Cream, Life Savers and-- as he called them, "Peachy sugar-coated rings," (otherwise known as Peach O's). So, onto the freaky part:

Madame Yum Yum: "Hey No-Nuts, what's your favorite candy bar?"

No-Nuts: "Cookies & Cream."

MYY: "What's your favorite candy?"

No-Nuts: "Peach O's. Or Gummi Bears. And I like Twizzlers, too."

Dun-Dun-Dah! What could this mean? Does this mean that No-Nuts is really meant to be a professional basketball player? Or does it mean that Lamar Odom would make a successful college student majoring in math? What do you think?

Carpe Ursus

Chances are, if you get a message in your in-box with the subject: “Giant Gummy Bear on a Stick,” you’re gonna read it before the one that says “Good news from UK International Lottery!" Because really, how can you not be intrigued by a giant gummy bear -- on a stick, no less?!
So I quickly responded to the offer from Vat19 to sample their giant (“nearly 90 times larger than your average Gummy Bear!”) candy. Seems they did so well with their other flavors (cherry, blue raspberry and green apple), that they decided to add a new one: orange.
As you can see, it is quite large compared to the traditional gummy bear. (Well, fine, those actually aren't normal gummy bears; they're the Sugar Baby’s gummy bear vitamins. Knock on wood—he still thinks it’s candy, a “special treat,” not just a big old bunch of phenolic vitamins disguised as a chewy, glucosey animal.)
But back to the big bear. I will admit, the texture had me a little scared. It’s gooier and sticker than a regular gummy bear. Not as soft as a gumdrop, not as stiff as a Jujy fruit. Just kind of moist and goopy. I actually had to peel it off my counter and it did make a kind of sucking noise.
However! I was very impressed with the taste. Nice, clean orange taste. Sweet and sour, like an orange Life Saver. Even the texture was perfectly fine once I bit into it.
So there you have it. This would make a great gift for the gummy bear lover in your life. It retails for $9.99 and weighs a half pound, so it’s more expensive than just a big bag of gummies, but you can’t put a price on the fun factor. Or well, I guess you can, and that price is $9.99. Check it out at http://www.vat19.com/.

Addendum:

When I received the e-mail about the giant gummy bear, I posted a status on Facebook that said,

“Ya gotta love it when someone wants to send you a giant gummi bear on a stick. I wonder just how giant it is?”

An old friend replied,

“Always unsure about feet or ears first. If you go for the ears, then they can't hear you coming for more. However if you get the feet first, they can't run away. Since this one is on a stick, it ain't runnin' fast. Go for the ears.”

That was the last time I heard from him; he passed away just a few hours later. So B., this one’s for you. I took your advice and went for the ears. And I know wherever you are, there’s a solid white chocolate bunny that’s missing his ears and his feet, 'cause you're not letting him get away.

Nasty

So here I was a couple of weeks ago dragging my sorry sick butt to IKEA because the light in the Sugar Baby's room blew out and I couldn't stand listening to him say "Light's broken!" one more time and of course the lightbulb is some freaky design that (I thought) I could only get at IKEA. So I walked through that entire God-forsaken store, getting my month's worth of exercise, and bought two packages of lightbulbs.

At the checkout, they had some of their weird Swedish candies on display so I decided to splurge (for .97 cents) and bought a bag of "Godis Sweets-- Nuts and Bolts Mix."

I was pretty psyched for these, because the last gummies I had were the pomegranate gummy pandas that Mr. Goodbar devoured before I really had a chance to enjoy them.

And I thought the Tim Tams were disappointing. These were nasty. It was like chewing on a crumbly, flavorless candle from the dollar store. I actually spit them out, they were that bad. To make matters worse, the lightbulbs were the wrong ones, despite the fact that I asked two different sales people. IKEA owes me big time. We're talking, they need to be giving me some free Swedish meatballs and a Poang chair.

On the positive side, I finally found the mystery lightbulbs at Home Depot, so now the Sugar Baby's new mantra is, "Mommy fixed it!"

Pomegranate White Tea Gummy Pandas

Mr. "I Don't Like Candy" Goodbar ate this entire package of Pomegranate White Tea Gummy Pandas that Bazooka Betsy gave me for my birthday. I went to get one off the desk the other day and realized the package was empty. Nice guy.

The few I did get to taste were mucho yummy. They were really juicy, very satisfying. I generally shy away from green tea and white tea things because they tend to make my stomach hurt, but I'd definitely recommend these. Although I have to say, "Panda" is a bit of a stretch. These are gummy bears, plain and simple.

Guest Review: The Baroness Speaks!

Went to the wonderful Dollar Store yesterday, upon Gretl's request (Liesel stayed in the car, in hopes that no one would see her). We came upon these tasty treats and thought we'd tell you about them. Mr. Yummy Super Duper Gummy Worm has 6 big gummy worms that are individually packaged and very reasonably priced at $1.00, almost a steal! We opened these thinking that it wouldn't be any different then your normal gummy worms. Boy, were we surprised! The outside had a delicious crunchy candy coating and sweet strawberry gummy center. It was actually quite tasty. The Baron, being the romantic that he is, decided that they would be wonderful treats to share with his loved one. (This picture is the third that Liesel took for us, so the worm is about half the size it started at.) (Editor's note: I've positioned this picture at the end so you have the option of looking or not. You might want to skip it.) What fun!

Frankford Make Your Own Gummy Pizza was fun to make, but wasn't that great. The orange shape to the left of the picture is the very tough crust. A small spoon was provided to spread the red gel packet which was a very sour sauce, the cheese packet is the consistency of Pixy Sticks and the small toppings in various shapes were a small version of tastier gummies, that were pretty good if you ate them all by themselves. All put together, it was very nasty. We all took one bite and decided that it wasn't worth the calories to eat anymore.

(Editor's note: This is your last chance to shield your eyes.)

I can't decide if this is cute or freaky. Check it out at Moist Production Shop.

Great Jeff + Gummy Bears= Explosive Fun!

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce--
Great Jeff!

A little background: Mr. Goodbar has a humungo extended family. I haven't met everyone, but I pretty much know who's who in the scheme of things. Or so I thought.

When the Baroness said that Uncle Jeff was coming, I thought, okay, cool, I know him. Except I didn't. See, apparently in my own slightly mixed up crazy mind, I assumed that Uncle John and Uncle Jeff were the same person. I don't know why they'd have two different names, or why one would live in Maine and the other in New York, but for some reason, I had merged them in my mind. Whatever, okay? It happens. You try keeping track of 8 aunts and uncles and their spouses and kids and cousins.
So in walks this guy that I've never seen before, but instantly I know: he's going to be a font of wisdom. Turns out he teaches chemistry and something else-- home ec? yoga? I don't remember-- but he's definitely the kind of teacher that the kids must love. How do I know this? Because one night, during dinner, amidst all the noise from a zillion different conversations, I heard him say this: "Oh, you can do an experiment with gummy bears!"
My ears perked up and I grabbed a Sharpie and the nearest piece of paper (a recipe for "The Once and Future Beans"; sorry Carl, didn't mean to steal your stuff). This is where it gets kind of fuzzy, because I had been enjoying one or two of K.C.'s famous Manhattans at the time and I don't quite remember all the details. So this is what my notes say:

Pyrex test tube +sodium or potassium chlorate
wax burner, melt to almost a boil
Dunk in ice water: Twizzler, one gummy bear
Sacrifice!
Flame 10 feet
KABOOM! (with rough sketch of an erupting volcano)


(At this point let me just say, Candy Yum Yum and its owners and affiliates, as well as Uncle Jeff and the myriad uncles, aunts and cousins, are not responsible for anything you may do with the above information. The utmost caution should always be used when handling gummy bears and potassium chlorate.)

Good fun, good fun. As for the name The Great Jeff, we were trying to teach the Sugar Baby to say "Uncle Jeff," when we realized that he would in fact be his great uncle. Jeff decided that the "uncle" part was unnecessary. Great would suffice.

A Shocking Revelation

Dear friends,
Yesterday I learned something so shocking, so earth-shattering that I had to take 24 hours to digest the information before passing it along to you. Prepare yourself, this is a big one.
The subject is gummi bears. Those little colorful German candies that come in red, orange, yellow, clear and green. As I've mentioned before, my favorite ones are the green and clear. I've always known the clear were pineapple, just like the clearish-yellow Life Savers. Yum! But the green ... I never knew what flavor they were. They certainly weren't lime or even green apple. They were different, but I just figured they weren't a specific taste, just a generic gummi-bear-only flavor. And then I found out the truth. Hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen, because here it comes: Green Gummi Bears are Strawberry Flavored!
What the heck? Green for strawberry? What's that about? And furthermore, I usually don't like strawberry. I'm still in shock. I know you are too.

Harry Potter and the Mystery of the Red Raspberry Dollars

After an exhausting day of chasing the H-man around the house (note to self: no more sugar cereal for the boy!) I was able to extricate myself and spend a blissful three hours at the movies. Sue, my kick-ass firefighter, garden guru friend picked me up and we went to see Harry Potter. I, of course, had the diaper bag stocked with Dark Raisinettes, Sno-Caps, Red Raspberry Dollars and a seltzer bottle filled with Tom Collinses. Like most people, I don't usually pay too much attention to what I'm eating during the movies, instead preferring to just shove goodies into my gaping maw. But when I took the first bite of a Raspberry Dollar, I thought, "Whoa, now. What's going on here?" The chew was softer than I remembered and the flavor was not as berry. I tried another one. Yep, there's definitely something different about these. I can only assume that the recipe has changed to make way for cheaper ingredients. Very sad.

In other news, I finally got to the Newtown Chocolatier this weekend. I took a photo of my selections, but I can't seem to access it. The store is a cute little jewelbox in a strip mall. The windows are covered with black curtains to protect the chocolate, but frankly, it feels like you're walking into a less-than-reputable house of business. The selection is small-- just one case of chocolates-- but they're all handmade and delicious looking. I got a dark chocolate covered orange peel cluster that was lovely: fresh and fruity; a dark vanilla cream: again, very fresh and a very distinct vanilla taste; an espresso truffle-- strong and dark; a champagne truffle-- yum!; and an almond caramel cluster which was divine. So good in fact, that I'm about to make a Candy Yum Yum! pronouncement:

Almonds are the ultimate candy nut

Everything about them is perfect for combining with chocolate. They're smoky and flavorful. They have great texture and crunch. They go well with milk or dark. I heart almonds.