Chocolate Drama

I found these cute little boxes of Mrs. Fields assorted chocolates on sale after Valentine's Day. They are $1.00 normally, I got them for a whopping 50 cents.

They contain chocolate chip cookie dough:

Butter caramel:

and dark coconut macaroon.

And they are all horrible. The caramel was the least horrible, but if you are a cookie maker and you screw up a chocolate chip cookie dough chocolate, you should consider sticking your head in your own oven.

Not one to give up easily, I bought these:

I mean, it says Peanut Butter Dream on the box. Ummmmm......peanut butter......

They too were horrible. They tasted like a butter cream - nothing like peanut butter. Mrs. Fields Chocolates were a terrible, terrible disappointment. And you all know I even give PALMER a chance! These should be avoided at all costs. Even if they are half price. Even if they are FREE!

While much better than the Mrs. Fields:

Jo's Peanut Butter Meltaways didn't rock my world either. I mean, for $11.00 a box, I want something pretty good. Reese's are better. I found the peanut butter smooth but somewhat dry and tasteless. Boo! What is going on? How can anyone ruin peanut butter - food of the Gods? Oh wait, that's chocolate. How can anyone ruin peanut butter - legume of the gods?

Well, since we're talking about ruining things, let's go back to my arch enemy, Russell Stover. RS seems to have a knack for ruining everything.

Now this is a cool looking box, given to me by my Sorbet Sistah, Sexy (aka Beth):

Looks good so far:

Before the autopsy:

Autopsy photo:

It's Russell Stover - we're doing a mass autopsy.


Okay - there is no damn label - a huge pet peeve of mine! I want to know what the flavors are! I want some guidance! Especially if your flavors are weak and unrecognizable! Russell Stover I hate you!!

Bear with me while I try to determine what the hell we have here:

the pink thing - cherry? strawberry? who the hell knows - was terrible. That pink stuff is hard as a rock. Yuck.

the white blob - maybe coconut cream? I'm not sure - it doesn't taste very coconutty, and it's not very creamy or very good. I don't even know what it is. Dark chocolate over some mystery cream. Boring!

directly above the white blob is a tan chocolate - this one was (GASP) actually good! Of course, I can't get it again because I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS IT!!! RS you suck!! Some kind of chocolate truffle? A nut might have been involved in a very, very small amount. WTF - even when I try to give RS some kudos they make it impossible.

The one at the top that looks like peanut butter tastes exactly like a chocolate covered Mary Jane. I don't think much of Mary Janes so this did not work for me. I was hoping for peanut butter. I hate RS more.

Next to the white blob is a caramel. This is just like the Mrs. Fields caramels - so boring. So bland you decide it's not even worth the work required to chew it. It is so sad when you screw up caramel. I love caramel. RS is a bastard.

Oh - here's the coconut in our final chocolate. Now I have even less idea what was in the other one - vanilla cream? This one is not horrifying. It's like a second rate Almond Joy - with the milk chocolate (not dark like Mounds) minus the almond.

Overall - RS makes crappy chocolate. But it was a gift, so I thought......maybe I'd give RS another chance.

These were half price:

Now, this is somewhat amazing. The caramel heart is actually good. I don't know how this has happened. This is a softer, richer caramel than the one in the assortment. This one is good. Russell Stover has made a good candy! OMG - how can it be? Ding dong, the witch is dead, the wicked witch of the west is dead - ding dong the wicked witch is dead!!!

This was half price too:

This too is not horrible. Tastes like coconut, thin enough so that the cream is balanced well with the dark chocolate. I liked it. What is going on??? How can this be? Who will I hate now? I guess there's always Mrs. Fields, but that just doesn't feel as righteous.

Will I have to let go of my hatred of Russell Stover?

Will my love of Mrs. Fields cookies offset my hatred of her heinous chocolates?

Should Mrs. Fields consider having an affair with Russell Stover?

And what about Harry & David?

Stay tuned for the next episode of Motivation by Chocolate!

Global Madness & Chocolate Chips

What the heck is going on in the world? Russia has completely lost it and invaded Georgia. Pakistan's President resigned before he could be impeached. And Mrs. Fields Cookies is filing for Chapter 11. When will the madness end?

Apparently we shouldn't be surprised about Mrs. Fields. The chain has been losing money for years. Too much debt. The interest payments were killing them. Of course, those of you who would like to start a franchise apparently can still do so:

Below is an itemized list of costs associated with establishing a franchise with Mrs. Fields Famous Brands:

Initial Franchise Fee:
$30,000*

Ongoing Royalties:
6% of Gross Sales

Advertising Fee:
1-3% of Gross Sales

Initial Training Fee:
No charge for first two individuals

Initial Term of Agreement:
7 years (7 year renewal)

Total Estimated Initial Investment:
$179,900-$252,100**

*For full service store.**A complete inventory of associated cost is disclosed in item 7 of the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular. These figures do not include real estate lease costs, and may vary with actual circumstances.

Call me crazy, but I think there may be better ways to make dough. (bwah, ha, ha!)

I think this may be a story of a company getting away from what made it successful. Great cookies and amazing service fell by the wayside as empire building took over. The company bought TCBY, a couple of pretzel companies it has since unloaded, and strayed from its core values. I also think there may have been a lack of trend spotting. As a yogurt lover, I know that TCBY has been slipping for years. The ice cream companies jumped on the yogurt bandwagon and scooped (I can't help it) up any advantage TCBY might have had. Hey, if the whole family can get what they want at Baskin Robbins, why go to TCBY? Who was asleep at the TCBY wheel? That dog hasn't been hunting for years.

Lessons?

Need we revisit chocolate Pez? Know what you're good at and make the most of it. Was Mrs. Fields good at making cookies or good at running food stalls in the mall? I think someone got confused.

Bigger isn't always better. I bet the company would now rather have just 50 successful cookie stores than 500 cookie stores, 50 TCBY stores, etc. Little and profitable is better than huge and in debt. You might keep that in mind when manging your own finances.

Final lesson? Don't trust the Russians.