Pretzels, Rice and England

You know life is good if we can all come together in pursuit of the best peanut butter and chocolate combinations. And let's thank the founders of this country for breaking away from England! Scones don't exactly rock my world. Although I do love shortbread......and all that pomp and circumstance! And Monty Python!

But I love freedom more! God Bless America!!! And God Save the Peanut!

Let's talk first about some more peanut butter and pretzel combos. The first is berkshire bark's pretzelogical bark described by the company as: Belgian dark and milk chocolate, pretzels, sea salt caramel, natural peanut butter.

This is the top of the bark, the next picture shows the bark flipped over and dissected. (But this was done with love - don't go all PETC on me.) That's People for the Ethical Treatment of Chocolate for those of you who didn't get that joke.

Looks great, right? The description sounds awesome! But something was wrong here - those big blobs - peanut butter? caramel? were as hard as rocks. This was no good. I'm sad about that.

Next up, a very familiar bar, I'm sure:

This is Hershey's Take 5. The wrapper says it's made with chocolate (I guess it's not Mockolate), pretzels, caramel, peanuts, and peanut butter. My girlfriend Missy loves these things. I think there is too much pretzel. It's okay, but why have this when you can have a Reese's? I like the use of the caramel here, so I like this combination the best off all the pretzel/peanut butter offerings reviewed so far. But I don't see that pretzel really brings anything to the party.

Let's move on to crisp rice or rice crisps or whatever the hell this stuff is. Hell, Hershey doesn't even know what it is - thus the name of this bar:

Whatchamacallit? I'm going out on a limb here and I'm going to call it crap. For 230 calories I want more than a squashed rice crispy treat - without the marshmallow. This bar is described as "made with chocolate, peanut flavored crisps and caramel." The caramel is the only thing that gives this any life. I find it bland and disappointing.

It looks as exciting as it tastes. ZZZZZZ........................

I'm not much on the Nestle Crunch bar either. Crisped rice just kind of seems like a cop out. Cheap filler. But I liked it in Jer's stuff. Hmmmm........ I'm sure we'll talk of this again.

If you like crispy and light and want something peanut buttery, a MUCH better choice is:

You can have one pack containing two wafer bars for only 100 calories. These are like Kit Kats with peanut butter but a little lighter. No caramel as in the Crap bar. But more peanut buttery. And I'm all about the peanut butter!!

I saved one of my favorite peanut butter bars for last:

From our friends at Lake Champlain chocolates. This bar is here because it contains: peanuts, peanut butter, CRISP RICE and milk chocolate.

Isn't it beautiful? Doesn't just looking at that make your mouth water? The Five Star bars are all amazing - the are small but really thick. And this one is packed with peanut butter. It's a blander peanut butter than Reese's but is still terrific. And the peanuts inside are delish.

So, dear readers, what have we learned so far in our exploration of this awesome combination of peanut butter and chocolate?

New isn't always best, but just because something has been around for a while doesn't mean it can't be improved on.

Expensive doesn't always mean it's the best, but sometimes it does (the Five Star bar is great and it's not cheap).

When it comes to chocolate, no rules apply.

Chocolate is like life - you have to jump in and taste it! I love Tootsie Rolls (talk about Mockolate), but I also love Guylian chocolate seashells. How do you know what you'll like the best? Try them!! How do you know who you are? Live!

You can learn from others and they can help you along the way, but if anyone tells you they have all the answers for you, run. You'll like things based on the flavors you grew up with and a million other experiences. Obviously a lot of people think the Whatchamacallit is a great candy bar or Hershey's would have quit making it. All you owe it to yourself to do is keep trying new things and keep learning and growing. You'll find the best life (and the best chocolate) for you.

And don't forget to celebrate your freedom this 4th of July by taking a few minutes to think of all the patriots through the years who have given their lives to keep us free.

God bless chocolate, peanut butter, and the United States of America!!!

Candy from Beyond the Grave

Can I just tell you - dating is so unbelievably time consuming! Talking on the phone, planning the date, getting ready for the date, going to the date, enduring the date. It is totally taking me away from my blogging, and I actually find blogging more rewarding. I think my relationship with chocolate, candy and you, my dear readers, may be better than what I can hope for with any mere man. The three of you have yet to cancel on me, give me an unwanted kiss, or talk so much about yourself that I considered slitting my own wrists. I'd say I am going to dating hell, but I think I am already there.

But enough about me - let's talk about chocolate!!

Thanks to Russell Duncan for reminding me about Mast General Store and their selection of nostalgic candy! When I was in Asheville, I stopped in. The place was crowded, with almost everyone jammed in the candy section. Maybe people did coke in the 80s, but they are mainlining sugar in 2009. Rock on, I say!! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Mast has one of those set-ups where you pick up a big basket and walk around all these barrels of candy and put what you want in the basket. Well - you know what happens - you get a couple of these and a few of those and pretty soon, you have an ungodly amount of candy. Nature abhors a vacuum and you fill that basket right on up.

To check out, they weigh it (some of the specialty items are priced individually) and you walk out having had a blast and paying way too much for a very customized and bizarre assortment of candy.

Here are some of the things I got:

Let's have a heart-to-to heart about these. See the hot Cinnamon Bear? That's a Sweet's Cinnamon Bear without the chocolate. MUCH better. Still a little too cinnamony for me. But very chewy and good. As hard as it is to believe, not everything is enhanced by adding chocolate.

I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE those brown striped peanut butter bars! I could eat them until I exploded. They are made by Atkinson's, another old American Candy Company. Around since 1932 and located in Lufkin, Texas: http://www.atkinsoncandy.com/about/

They also make Chick-O-Stick which has always creeped me out because of the chick reference. I mean what the hell is that? The web site should say where the name came from. It's peanut butter, but why chick? I don't like the name and want no chicks to have touched any candy bar I eat and no chick parts to be in any candy bar I eat.

They also make the Long Boys you can see below the Peanut Butter Bar. These are crappy versions of the Tootsie Roll. Very crappy versions. Coconut tastes nothing like coconut, maybe like a weird caramel. It has a gross coconut texture at the end of chewing it. Not sure what it tastes like, but it's really not of this earth. Don't get these.

Yuck - don't get the Slo Poke either. Bleech!!! Billed as "delicious caramel" it is pretty yucky. It is not delicious and is only vaguely caramel like. It's like a horrible Kraft caramel. And after some of the absolutely earth stopping caramels we've reviewed here, you should not waste your time with this.

Under the Slo Poke is the Squirrel Nut Zipper - the best thing about these is the name. Way cool. There is a great swing band called the Squirrel Nut Zippers. The candy is made by Necco and I can't see how Necco can sell all these really bad candies and still be solvent. When all the people who buy them for the sake of nostalgia die, Necco is going down. Note to Necco - invest in R & D before it's too late!!!

I tried one Squirrel Nut Zipper, considered spitting it out, and threw the rest away. Walnetto's are much better. And you know how I feel about them.

The last two candies here deserve a close-up:

These are by Goetze's. They have a cool website:

http://www.goetzecandy.com/index.cfm?page=caramel_creams

The website says:

A favorite of many generations, Goetze’s treats have always been made the same old-fashioned way with a low fat, low sodium, no cholesterol recipe. You’ll enjoy the same great taste that’s been loved for years. Made with wheat flour, milk and real cream, Caramel Creams® have a clean simple taste that doesn’t give you that sour stomach that many really sugary sweets give you.

AAIIEE!!! These are HORRIBLE!!!! I never was a big fan of the caramel creams - I'd get them at Halloween and never liked them. But when I saw strawberry and chocolate versions at Mast, I thought, "Cool - I can't wait to try these!" Maybe it is the wheat flour, but these have a weird mouth feel and a vile after taste. I've never gotten a "sour stomach" from sugary sweets but these......these are evil. They must be designed to give children a lifelong fear of candy. Goetze's backwards is Sezteog, surely the name of a lesser demon. And the chocolate ones are called Bull's Eyes to go with another of their candies, Cow Tales. Bovine parts. EVIL, EVIL, EVIL!

Maybe there is a reason these candies are no longer popular. Maybe it is because they are awful. We have such amazing candy makers working today, these relics can no longer compete. I love capitalism.

We're not done yet! Well, I'm done - after a coconut Long Boy, a Slo Poke and that god-awful devil's wheat flour strawberry cream, I'm feeling a little ill. We'll talk more about the past tomorrow. If I live that long.