Sweets and Snack Expo 2010 Begins!

Hi Gang!  I'm back from the whole bus incident and ready to rumble!!!  Look at the load of candy I got today (this is my bed at the Hilton COVERED in candy!):

I took a bunch of pictures so you all could get a feel for what the Expo looks like:

It's so bright and vibrant and amazing - these really don't do it justice. 

There were some new products I got to try, but they didn't have takeaway samples. So no autopsy or other photos.  These are new - coming out in the fall:

Milk chocolate covered blueberries by the maker of those crazy Queen Anne Cherries.  These are pretty darn good - I really liked the tartness of the blueberries.  They are still pretty sweet, but well worth trying!

Ghirardelli didn't have anything new, but how cool is this display?  This would be a cool sculpture for my house!

Asher's debuted their new dark and milk sea salt caramels.  Very, very good.  Not too soft and not too chewy - perfect consistency:

Peeps is going full bore with the chocolate covered goodies:

There are going to be milk and dark chocolate covered pumpkins, chocolate covered mint flavored trees, and chocolate covered raspberry flavored hearts.  Mark Summers from the Food Network (he did a late session just for us media folks today) loves the dark chocolate Peeps just like I do!  Yay!!

I didn't get to sample any of these, so I can only refer you to my review of the chocolate covered Peeps for Easter.  (YUM!)

Okay - how damn amazing and cool is this???

The Mona Lisa out of Jelly Bellies.  I would like this to go with my Ghirardelli sculpture please.

The Hershey's booth is impressive:

But no samples of the new candies - Hershey's Drops and Reese's Minis.  I have to say, I thought Hershey could have done way more in the samples department.  No samples of the new dark Kit Kat either. Teases.

Good grief, does Ed Hardy have NO shame?

On more popcorn?  Puleeze!  I'd say he's gone from cool to tool.

These were an interesting idea - a marshmallow with some dark chocolate drizzle:

I wanted to like these - the guys in the booth were really nice.  But these just didn't work.  There wasn't enough chocolate to really taste.  Maybe if they were completely coated?

This is Bubble Chocolate (http://www.bubblechocolate.com/) it's aerated chocolate (basically chocolate with a bunch of bubbles in it):

It comes in dark and milk, and quite honestly, I didn't like it.  Maybe if the chocolate were better?  I dunno - it just didn't work for me.  The people in the booth said it's really popular in other countries.  Nevertheless, I didn't like it.

I got to see a great opening session this morning with Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi.  He showed some fantastic ads and his big message is stop planning, start acting.  The world today is all about speed.  Of course, if you're not careful, that kind of thinking can get you hit by a bus. 

Chocolate, Cherries and The Wolfman

Let me warn you all right now that this blog posting is not for the faint of heart. The autopsy photos are extremely gruesome. Please beware!

My buddy Chris and I went to see the perfect Valentine's Day movie yesterday - The Wolfman. Hearts (and other internal organs) were ripped out. Gypsies made wild predictions about love and being doomed. And the heroine tried to save the beast (also known as the bad boy) with her love. The outcome was the same as it is in real life, but for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet (or for those of you still in denial about your own relationships), I won't spoil it for you.

Let's just say we had a great time AND helped out a good cause. We smuggled in a box of Peanut Butter Patties Girl Scout cookies. YUM!

They were gone by the time the movie started, but what the hell. Hey - I TOLD you this was going to be gruesome!

Of course, the dreaded Valentine's Day is over and I still have candy to review. There is just too much candy and too little time. For the next couple of days, we're talking cherries. That kind of goes with President's Day (George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and all). I see chocolate covered cherries at Christmas too, but Valentine's Day seems to be their big holiday. Never have I seen so many displays of cherries. So here we go!

These are all cherry cordials. From Wikipedia: a cordial is a type of candy in which a fruit filling is placed within a chocolate shell. Wise Geek says there actually has to be a cherry in there (or I guess a blueberry if we were talking about blueberry cordials) which is preserved in cordial, a sweet liqueur or sugar syrup for the nonalcoholic version. Who am I to say which definition is right? All these seem to fit one of the definitions, so I'm going for it.

Let's start with Cella's. The box says that since 1864 Cella's has been devoted to only one thing - producing the very best quality chocolate covered cherries. They go on to say that their creation is unique - "selected cherries are surrounded by a delicious 100% clear liquid". Woohoo! 100% clear! I just love the taste of clear!

Yikes! This autopsy was messy! My subject kept bleeding out. There's the infamous 100% clear liquid. All I could think when I ate this was, "Good God, these are sweet!" I have to confess, they are way too sweet for me. One every 10 years or so would last me.

If I thought Cella's were sweet.....it was only because I hadn't yet had a Queen Anne cherry:

AAIIEEE! What a mess! We've got clear liquid, pink goo, some cherry guts - this looks like something out of The Wolfman. And that pink goo is the sweetest stuff on the planet. I am so going into a diabetic coma. Are these made for 12 year old boys? Surely these are too sweet for adults! I'm freaking out at their sweetness and I'll eat frosting out of the can! Get some silver bullets and kill these things!

Now for the sake of this blog, I had to try one of each of the "flavors." Dark chocolate was the best only because it offset some of the sweetness. I couldn't tell the difference between burgundy and milk chocolate - they tasted exactly the same. The ingredient list is exactly the same. I have no idea. Maybe there's a burgundy cherry? I think my heart rate is through the roof with all this sugar. Dear God.

Now look at these babies! From one of my favorite chocolate makers, Perugina:

Not so messy. Simple. All about the cherry. These absolutely destroyed the other two. These tasted like cherries and delicious chocolate. These are what a chocolate covered cherry should be. These were amazing.

Okay, Chicago (both Cella and Queen Anne cherries are made in Chitown) - you might need to step it up just a bit. Maybe create a less horrifying line for heath nuts or foodies? I mean once you've tried Perugina, these two are an embarrassment.

If you want to try Perugina, I found them in World Market. They are fabulous!!

These came out at Christmas in a different bag - red with white snowflakes:

But they are exactly the same on the inside:

And I have to tell you, I like these! I mean there are no real cherries involved and they are light years from the Perugina cherries, but for 20 calories each, I think they blow those real chocolate covered cherry death bombs away! Those are 70 calories each and they make me feel kind of ill they are so sweet.

I am proud of Little George Washington for manning up and admitting he chopped down the cherry tree. I think our lesson for the day is to take responsibility for your actions. And along with that theme, I am going to take responsibility for eating all these chocolate covered cherries and hit the gym.

In fact, I think if everyone in American could man (or woman) up and take responsibility for themselves, we'd be in a much better place. That's my political message in honor of the day. That and eat more chocolate!

More cherries are coming!! More cherries are coming!! (No George, not the British. Maybe the Chinese, but not the British.)