Christmas Eve Peanut Butter

In honor of Christmas Eve, I am reviewing the holy combination of peanut butter and chocolate. And my favorite holiday representative is Hershey's Reese's (which has been running some great full page ads in USA Today - saying things like "And visions of sugarplums danced in their heads. Sugar plums? Seriously?" surrounded by Reese's bells). YUM!!


Let's start with the trees:


This great box was filled with 6 of the standard size trees. Love the Christmas tree cutout on top. Great new packaging. Here's the standard size dressed for the season:



The mini trees were in these assortments:






The first one we covered earlier when I reviewed the York Peppermint Snowflake. The second one has white chocolate trees in addition to the milk chocolate ones.


I like that the white tree wrapper has such a different look - nice touch.


And then there's the Big Daddy:




Family portrait in their Christmas best:


The whole group naked:




Okay, the artistry isn't so good. But, honestly, who cares? They are sooooo damn good they can get away with it. Man, I love these!! The minis are the perfect size to just pop in your mouth. All that peanut butter - ooooh weee! But I do have to say that I prefer the milk chocolate to the white chocolate trees. The white chocolate is too sweet, doesn't offset the peanut butter as well. Pass on these.


Don't forget the Reese's Bells:







I can't believe I'm going to say this, but there's too much chocolate. I guess it has to be thicker to hold the nice bell shape. I'll take the blob tree instead. Don't get me wrong, these are good, but the trees are GREAT!!


Palmer has some entries:

Okay, Palmer has the artistry going on!! Look at all those different colors of foil wrapping! Even when unwrapped you have different colored bows on the presents. Fancy!

However, these are not so good. Too much chocolate, too little peanut butter, and the chocolate isn't that good. Bells are better. But outstanding artistry.

There are also Palmer peanut butter Santas:

Okay the naked Santa seems to have lost his glasses and his list, and he looks pretty shocked that I'm shooting him in the nude, but he's pretty detailed. Good for Palmer! Should we cut up Claus? Is autopsying Santa on Christmas Eve appropriate?

Of course not! Let's do it!!

These guys are better than the presents - more peanut butter. Better than the trees? HA! Not possible. But strangely likeable. I can't stop eating them. I scare myself.

Speaking of peanut butter and Santa, check this out:

I love peanut butter. I love Snickers. I thought this would be great. (And isn't he the cutest Santa evah?) But cute won't fool me - he wasn't that good. Look how thin that layer of peanut butter is - I mean, why bother?

Even Palmer has more PB:

Now this guy brings it:

If you like Snickers, go with the nutcracker. Love the detail (loved it in their Santa too) and this guy is delish - loaded with peanuts and caramel and a thin layer of chocolate - YUM!! No peanut butter, but that's okay. Everybody can't be a Reese's tree. Variety is the spice of Christmas. Or maybe that's cinnamon. Who the hell knows?

Wait, let's ask Martha!

Martha says "Many spices work at the holidays - cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger. Wrap spice bottles in old maps for a lovely Christmas gift."

And here's something Martha would never do:

Decapitate Santa.

It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.

Hope your Christmas is fun and just a little bit crazy.

Make sure you:
1.) Do something no one expects.
2.) Laugh - a lot.
3.) Look at some lights.
4.) Burn all your old maps.
and finally
5.) Eat some chocolate - life is short - live it!!!

Deep Fried at the NC State Fair

I want to warn you readers that this entry is not for the faint of heart. Small children should not be exposed to these images. Stop now!!

The Sorbet Sistahs went to the absolute opposite of sorbet by visiting the N.C. State Fair. Most of our time was spent at this booth:










Would there really be any point to going anywhere else?


We lucked out in that it was a fabulous day - gorgeous blue skies, great temps - the perfect fall day. Ah, but where to start! We decided to get a fried Ho Ho and fried Oreos:

Tracy and I liked the Ho Ho better than the Oreos, Beth preferred the Oreos. We think the Oreos might have been better if they used the double stuffed Oreos. I think maybe if they had used Cakesters - that would have rocked! But neither of these REALLY blew us away.

So we decided to try the fried Reese's:

OMG - these were pretty damn amazing. I would like to try these again. What a great idea!!! And how insane! Only in the south, right? Hell yeah!!

We decided we should walk around a bit before we struck again. These looked too outrageous even for us:

These things are huge - about the size of a dinner plate. They are thick fried dough bases loaded with chocolate, custard, cherries, and cinnamon apples which you can get in any combo you can dream up. Yehaw!!

We saw the N.C. Fudge booth - look at these flavors:

And look at the man in the booth. What a sad sack. I asked him if he was the King of Fudge, but he only sighed and said "No, I just work here." I guess that means that there is a King of Fudge somewhere that he reports to. They had pumpkin fudge which I had to try - it was great!!! They also had Cheerwine which Beth tried - maybe not so good. But VERY creative! No fried fudge. Yet!

There was an ice cream booth that had PUMPKIN ice cream! YAHOO! Had to try it:

Fabulous!!!!! This I want some more of - it was soooo good!!!

Are you starting to be scared by everything we ate? Keep reading!!!!

Beth introduced us to these babies:

Little fried doughnuts they make right there. They were mouthwateringly good! I couldn't buy my own bag because I knew I would eat every one immediately and I still had things to try.

I could not leave the fair without trying fried pecan pie and... drum roll please...fried peanut butter and jelly:

Pecan Pie - good, but really too rich. Would have been better if it were pecan pie nuggets. But peanut butter and jelly - whoa!!!! This was great!! If there were a little less breading, it would have beaten the Reese's, but as it is, I have to call a tie. But maybe I should try them again.....

Here's the take away - it was a crazy, fun adventure on a gorgeous day. We broke all the "rules" - we took off in the middle of the day, we ate "forbidden" food, and we had a blast!! This is the stuff memories are made of. Make sure you take some time to break some rules and enjoy the season. Spend time with your good buddies. Life is way, way too short not to.

And don't let it end without having tried a fried Reese's Cup!!