More Sweets and Snacks Expo 2010

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day holiday!  It was hot as Hades in South Carolina - I bought some chocolate (shocker!) and keeping it from melting was a struggle.  But always worth it, my friends, always worth it!

I spoke with the Chicago Transit Authority today about my run in with their bus.  I'll let you know what happens.  They had an accident specialist call and interview me.  A claims specialist will call me next.  My arm still has a weird lump and some very festive bruises.  I told the accident specialist about my macaroons.  She was unmoved.

Back to Candy Expo!!!  I hunted down and tried the Chocolate Pop Rocks.  This was their booth display:

And here are the Pop Rocks:

Now the first thing I have to tell you - is that they were WAY better than I thought they would be.  They are actually covered in a pretty decent chocolate.  I thought they would just be "chocolate flavored."  But they truth is, I don't really want things popping in my mouth.  Yes, it's festive, yes it's interactive.  But I don't want my food to interact with me. 

This was another offering I simply had to try - Elmer's Tabasco Chocolate Truffles:

No picture because they only gave me one to try at the show.  And again, all I can say is - it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Not exactly a rousing endorsement.  Only a hint of Tabasco.  This is a great novelty item - Elmer Chocolate is based in Louisiana - but I don't need to eat another one.  But creative!  And less interactive than the Pop Rocks!

I didn't get to sample these, but check out the new Tootsie Pop flavors!

Wild Mango Berry?  Didn't know the mango was a berry, but Rock on!  I'd like to try it!  I'd like to try all these flavors.  I did get a sample of this one:

Hmmmm........the green apple is strong as heck and I guess the center was caramel.  It looked lighter than the standard Tootsie Roll center, but didn't taste really caramelly.  But my taste buds were pretty overwhelmed by green apple.  I wonder if this would have been better with a red apple Tootsie Pop?

No samples of these, but I really want to try them - Andes toffee crunch and cherries jubilee (also by the makers of Tootsie Roll):

I'd never seen these before (also by Tootsie Roll) and I wheedled my way into a whole box of them on the last day:

See the bloom?  I'm telling you - it was HOT!  I like the JM monogram on the top:

Wow - look at all that creamy Junior Mint mint!

These are WAYYYY  too minty for me - I'd like more chocolate.  But mint is not my fav, so you mint lovers will probably adore these.  Well worth trying if you're a mint fan.

Ritter Sport was showing a Limited Edition Dark Chocolate with peppermint bar:

This one also has a strong mint flavor (too much for me) but the dark chocolate here is absolutely fabulous.  Mint and dark chocolate lovers - look for these around Christmas time:

This was a giant display for their new milk chocolate with strawberry creme bar:

A portion of the profits (Ritter is donating $100,000) go to help fight breast cancer and the sample was amazing!!  I can't wait till this one comes out.  Look for it in the fall.  And let me know when you find it!!  Delish!

Speaking of strawberry - look at this from Guylian!  Strawberry filled seashells!  Didn't get to sample any - but want to!

The bad next to the strawberry box is their new Temptation - an assortment of individually wrapped seashells.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Guylians seashells.  They were also debuting dark chocolate ones!

Here's my whopping sample from Guylian (cheapskates!):

I am so crazy about he standard seashell - this one is filled with original praline - so creamy, so sweet and delicious - if you haven't had these - you have to - they are sooooo good!  The Extra Dark was pretty damn amazing as well - you dark chocolate fans are in for a serious treat.  They are a little too dark for me at 74% cocoa, but they are very, very good.

Whoohoo!  What a great assortment of new and exciting candy and more to come!  It was so worth getting hit by that bus!  ; )

Tootsie Pops and Glue

I am so sorry I haven't been blogging! The past few weeks have been nuts! After Candy Expo in Chicago I went to Birmingham, Alabama. Then I was in DC for the American Society of Training and Development Conference. The next weekend was a conference in Asheville. When I got back from that, I had to go to Atlanta. I flew in that day, spoke and tried to fly out. I say tried because the flight was over two hours late. By the time I got home, I was able to get a whopping three hours of sleep and had to drive out to the western part of NC to give a training program. Then to Charlotte for an event with the boyfriend (still seems to be going well).

It's great to be busy in this economy, so I am not complaining. Well, maybe about the flight, but overall I'm damn lucky. There is some white space on my calendar coming up, so you all may be sick of me soon!

I do, however, have a serious blogging backlog. So much to share with you all!!

First I have to share with you my favorite recent completely random chocolate quote. It was said by CBS golf analyst David Feherty in reference to John Daly's golf clothing (which was God awful and WAY colorful):

"...looks like he put glue on his body and ran through Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory."

They PAY this man for this??? I'm a little scared he was thinking about John Daly putting glue on his body and running through anything, but we all have our fantasies.

Here's another new product from Candy Expo:

These are good. Are they extraordinary? Nah. I like regular Raisinets better. The raisins just taste better with chocolate than the cranberries. And these bother me. Why are they called Raisinets? They are not raisins, they are cranberries. I mean the whole point of RAISINets is that they are RAISINS. Right? At least they could have done Craisinets.

A trendy tip of the hat to the cranberry. I predict these will not stand the test of time.

When I went by the Tootsie Roll booth and asked what was new, they gave me these:

Now, these really aren't new. I found some in Cracker Barrel well before Candy Expo and I remember having them as a kid. Maybe the blue raspberry is a new flavor, but these are just a re-release. I'd rather have regular ol' Tootsie Rolls. There isn't enough Tootsie Roll here - too much boring hard candy. ZZZZZZZ...........

Now this was really new for me - a new flavor of Tootsie Pop - banana:

GLAACK! I thought this was awful. The banana flavor was no good. A waste of a Tootsie Roll center. But, hey, finding a dog every once in a while makes things exciting! Bow Wow!

And here's a tip - all that cool chocolate stuff Cracker Barrel had is on sale for half price!! It's great stuff, so you might want to run in. Just don't cover your body with glue first.

So Much Candy, So Little Time

Geez - Easter is here and there's so much more candy to review! (Hey, if that's the biggest problem I have, I'm pretty darn lucky, huh? It's all about perspective.) Things are still on track with the guy I like - I hate to talk too much about it - afraid I'll jinx it. Suffice it to say, if I go down in flames, I'll let you know.

We've seen in past holidays that some candy makers just throw out the same old stuff in a different package. Well, we have some of that with Easter. The Least Possible Holiday Effort award goes to Tootsie Roll:

Okay - could this packaging be any uglier? This is the most depressing Spring packaging EVER. Boo!!!

Now Tootsie did better with the Pops:

They have an egg shape! Creative! Not the world's most festive wrapper - how about a chick or a bunny? But at least not so suicidal. Look at the egg pops:



That blue thing is raspberry (NOT my fav), pink (cherry) was good. I don't know why these are colored so differently than the regular Tootsie Pops. I mean, it's not like these are some crazy spring colors. But I like the idea and it is a different candy for the season. I also think these have a better Tootsie to Pop ratio than the regular pops. But it's possible that's my imagination. I honestly don't care enough to really try and figure that out. It hurts my brain to think about actually (weights, ratios, ugh).

These are all solid entries - you already know what you're going to get. Kissables (which I like) has some great Easter colors and a rabbit. I like chicks and rabbits and think they should be on all Easter candy wrappers.

When I was a kid we used to get malted milk eggs (robin eggs) in our Easter baskets. I remember my little brother getting all pastel coloring all over his mouth. Or maybe he would just chew one up and get me to look at his as he opened his mouth. Little brothers are experts in gross. But I don't think they make these like they used to. Here's what I could find:

Okay - there's a robin CARRYING an egg! (Do you think that's an African or a European robin?)Whoppers remind me the most of the taste of the eggs I remember, but the colors are too garish:

Of course, after those Tootsie Roll wrappers, these are a Godsend.

These fancy-schmancy ones are from Williams-Sonoma. More florescent than the ones I remember and (trust me) WAY more expensive, but these are the best of the malted milk eggs. The only thing I didn't like about them is that the green ones actually have a little lime flavor to the candy coating. I wasn't too keen on that. But the chocolate layer is definitely of a high quality. And they are pretty. I like pretty.









NECCO rejoins the candy party with PAAS splashed malted milk eggs in ice cream flavors:

Okay - let's just slow down here. PAAS makes Easter egg dye, right? I mean, the name is synonymous with Easter, but.....on candy? And do we really need ice cream flavors? And when the hell did orange become an ice cream flavor? Aren't we talking sherbet here? What the hell is going on?





Look at that purple and orange monstrosity! GLAACK! YUCK! Too orange, too ugly. Strawberry tastes like the crunch berries in Captain Crunch coated with some waxy strawberry stuff. Vanilla is okay as is chocolate, but there's no malt here. All taste like some kind of bad cereal. These have the feel of a candy made in a third world country. But on a good note, they do have both a rabbit and a duck on the package.

Look at this confectionery artistry from Germany for Williams-Sonoma:




These are chocolate truffle eggs and they are gorgeous as well as delicious:

From the horrifying to the sublime, Easter candy offers something for everyone. It's all there for you to enjoy! (And on Monday it will be half price!)

And remember in the great Easter Egg hunt of life:

1.) Sometimes what you're looking for is right under your nose.

2.) The early bird gets the most eggs.

3.) The real winner is the one who had the most fun.

4.) You are grown up when you have more fun helping the other kids find the eggs.

5.) If the Easter bunny doesn't make you smile, you need to loosen up.

6.) The only things you'll find in the hunt that you can take with you are your memories. Fill your days with good ones.

So wear the biggest Easter bonnet you can find, share your candy, and stop and smell the flowers. Life is sweet and all too short - savor every second.

More on Valentine's Day

Ah - after my rant on excellence, I feel compelled to share a little Valentine's Day love. The candy is FINALLY out in full force - yahoo!! Just a quick post tonight to share a few of the love offerings from our favorite mass producers of chocolate.

As to the excellence of these products, most food critics would not say they are excellent - they do not challenge the palate, etc. etc. BUT I think we have to use a different measure for them. These are produced in mass quantities - they are inexpensive, easy for most people to get their hands on, and consistent. They are the fast food of chocolate. And, hey, I like them just fine. Let's see what they are doing for the holiday:

These are cute - Kissables in Valentine's Day colors. And they taste pretty good. I think they would be perfect for trail mix, on ice cream, in cookies - maybe even tossed in the kids' oatmeal - wheee!

I actually like Hershey's Miniatures, especially Mr. Goodbar - it really is packed with peanuts. And sometimes this is all the chocolate I want. (Now I know this can't even come close to competing with fine Swiss chocolate, remember - fast food.) What I really like about these are the VERY cute Valentine's Day wrappers - adorable!

Tootsie Pops has a Valetine's Day entry - all cherry pops...

with cute Valentine's Day wrappers - this one says "Sweetie Pie!" "Love Me!" and "You're Mine!" Exclamation points by Tootsie.

Now I haven't looked very closely at a Tootsie Pop wrapper in a VERY long time, so I don't know when they changed the artwork. It still has the Indian, the football player, and kids engaged in various other activities, but they are more stylized than they used to be. And some have giant heads, out of scale with their bodies. I don't know what it all means.

But they are good, although it seems there is less Tootsie Roll and more Pop than there used to be. But sometimes I think my childhood candy memories are distorted, so I cannot be sure.

This is a great Valetine's Day assortment - what could be better than Snickers, M & M's and Twix?

These are some pretty small Snickers, but they are good. The Twix bars have some sayings on them - pretty lame ones I might add - "It's not a mix up... You're my Valentine!" and "Let's mix it up!!" Apparently the writers felt it was important to use the word mix in all of them. I have no idea why.

Overall, I say this is a good batch of Valentine's Day candies. All that is really happening here is new packaging, but I like it! Mars, Hershey, and Cupid - what a trio!!!