Easter Candies I Wouldn't Eat Even If I Did (Which I Don't)

 Yesterday on "Good Mythical Morning," Rhett and Link did a bracket to determine the worst kind of Easter candy.

Here's the episode:

I'm a huge fan of "GMM," especially the earlier shows when Link looked like his mom still gave him money to get a haircut once a month and he spent $10 to go to Fantastic Sam's and spent the rest on White Claw. Mostly whenever I need to remind myself that all Millennials aren't wannabe hipsters who drink Starbucks six times a week bur can't save up the down payment on a house, I watch these two 40-something dorks who make six figures annually by filming themselves putting Transformers in battery acid to see what happens.

Seriously, though, I love these guys. GMM marathons helped me get through the loneliest days of pandemic lockdown with my sanity battered but intact

Anyway, the topic at hand yesterday was Easter candy, and the boys determined that these are the absolutely worst things you can inflict on an Easter basket.

Nowadays these apparently are known as "Brach's Easter Hunt Eggs" or "Hiding Eggs." They're also described as a "candy-coated marshmallow." These monikers are total nonsense. When I was a kid, these things didn't even have a name. And they are not now, nor have they ever been, marshmallows. 

Basically, these "eggs" are pure sugar, compressed to a consistency that, whatever the candymaker's intention, come off as having gone stale about 12 hours before you put them in your mouth. They're coated in sugar of an even harder texture - if you squeeze one lightly, the coating will crack into jagged shards of incipient tooth decay. And the different colors (all the colors of the rainbow, if the rainbow developed a drug habit) supposedly had different flavors...? More nonsense. Purple sugar tastes like pink sugar tastes like fluorescent green sugar.

In a nutshell, "Hiding Eggs" are the Easter candy you eat after you decide that Pixy Stix aren't an efficient enough vehicle for delivering uncut sucrose into your system.

Now, I don't necessarily disagree with their being crowned the worst Easter candy. But I will say that Rhett and Link's bad-candy bracket was flawed from the outset. I think they said that GMM viewers voted on the candies to be included.  I'm usually three or four minutes deep into an episode before I actually start paying attention, mostly because I'm focusing on whether I love or hate what they're wearing that day. Anyway, whoever voted for some of the contenders were bad actors and definitely should not be given water the next time they line up to cast their ballot.

Aside: Seriously, Georgia, WTF is wrong with you?

One of the most problematic inclusions in the bad-candy bracket is the Cadbury Creme Egg. Look, I am a reformed sugar fiend (and as an aside, I can't believe that it's been more than seven years and my sweet tooth NEVER returned), so it's been a few years since I routinely sampled new releases of candy and other sweet treats. But the Cadbury Creme Egg is a Hall of Fame candy, period. 

With an annual commercial right up there
with the jingling Hershey's Kisses at Christmas.

These first came out in America when I was a kid, and one egg cost as much as a whole candy bar, but biting off the tip and sticking your tongue in that sticky white creamy goodness was totally worth it. And until I wrote that sentence, I didn't realize how closely the experience bordered on sexual awakening, but that undoubtedly was part of the appeal even to an ignorant 10-year-old naif like myself.

Ahem.

To me, the Cadbury Creme Egg has no place in any ranking of worst Easter candy, as it is clearly the second-best Easter candy of all time, right behind the Reese's Pieces Carrot.

Is there a Nobel Prize for 
candy packaging?

Items that would make my personal bracket for leave-it-in-the-basket-or-hope-your-siblings-are-willing-to-trade candy include the following.

Palmer Chocolate Eggs

Obviously, it's not an Easter basket without a pile of these shiny bits of extraordinarily cheap chocolate. I would go so far as to say that the R.M. Palmer Company gave me a permanently skewed opinion of what holiday chocolate should taste like. Who knew that in some parts of the world chocolate is actually supposed to be flavorful and even sophisticated? These things are truly terrible, and the crunchy version filled with semi-stale crisped rice may actually be a little bit worse.

Russell Stover Maple Cream Egg

These were the most tradable of all Easter basket candies. The Easter Bunny would poop out an assortment (or buy them at Walgreen's, whatever), and each kid in the house got a few different varieties, and you would wheel and deal like a Boomer at a swap meet to get your favorites while unloading the ones you hated. There are so many delightful flavors of Russell Stover Cream Eggs - vanilla, coconut, the coveted raspberry. But it seems I always ended up with maple - the "I got a rock" of Easter candy. 

One Chuck to another, I feel you.

Disclaimer: I hate most things that are maple-flavored, so this is purely subjective on my part. However, if you disagree, you're wrong and I hope you get nothing but Palmer chocolate in your Easter basket and Christmas stocking this year.

Black Jelly Beans

Who is the fiend who would eat even one of these, let alone buy an entire bag of them? For that matter, who is the utter psychopath at Brach's who decided the world needed a bag of isolated licorice-flavored jelly beans? GMM did include Brach's jelly beans - or jelly bird eggs, as literally no one in history has ever called them - in their bad-candy bracket. I support this entry. Jelly beans are wonderful, but Brach's jelly beans are the bottom of the barrel. Except for the white ones with pink speckles, which maybe weren't even Brach's but who knows? Again, these putatively have different flavors that go with their colors, but apart from the disgusting taste of black licorice, no one can tell. And God forbid some well-meaning relative added spiced jelly beans to the mix. Spiced candy was invented by Communists to turn Western youth into goose-stepping automatons, and you can't make me believe otherwise. But even they were preferable to black jelly beans, which were always, always the very last thing left at the bottom of my basket a week after Easter.

Reese's White Peanut Butter Egg

Chocolate and peanut butter is the finest, purest flavor combination in the world. Don't go replacing half of it with a gaggingly sweet coating that can legally only be called "white." These can go fuck right off. 

M&Ms

Don't get me wrong: M&Ms are great. They melt in your goddam mouth, after all. Nowadays they even come in Easter-ready pastels. But that's just a disguise to fool unsuspecting children into thinking that M&Ms are remotely an Easter candy. This is a con the brand began to perpetuate in the 1980s with its "Thank you, Easter Bunny" commercials.

Bawk bawk, my ass.

I have to tell you, as the parent of a young child even I was guilty of filling plastic eggs with a handful of M&Ms and hiding them around the house. You know, something to break the monotony of eggs filled with jelly beans or spare change. 

Aside: Do little kids still get excited to find a quarter in a plastic egg? Or are they just expecting the Easter Bunny to Venmo them funds these days?

In any event, M&Ms as an Easter candy are a cop-out. A pure canard, as Wilford Brimley said in The Natural. Easter candy should take the form of something justifiably spring-themed like a chick or an egg or a bunny, and ideally should be something you can't just walk into Target and buy in a five-pound bag every freaking day of the year. Them's the rules that I just now made up for this post.

 Those, then, are my choices for worst Easter candy. Your mileage may vary. But as always, a) you're entitled to your opinion and b) you must be out of your goddamn mind.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate the holiday in either the dead-savior or cheap-chocolate format. 

P.S. I now think the white-with-pink-speckles variety of jelly bean was definitely a brand other than Brach's, but I don't remember it and can't find it online. I'm pretty sure it also began with a B, though. Any ideas?

The Scariest Halloween Ever - A True Story

(Settle in, you guys. This shit is scary.)

Once there was a blogger.

She was adorable.

She blogged about drinking, and not drinking, and politics, and monkeys wearing clothes. And CANDY. Oh, she loved to write about candy, because she loved to eat candy. Also cake, pie, cookies, ice cream, donuts...if it was loaded with sugar and calories, the cute li'l blogger nommed it.

And you could tell. By the fat.

Huh?

Then one day, about a month before Halloween, she woke up and her love of sugary foods was gone.

Just like that. She didn't want to eat sweets any more. When she got hungry, she craved things that were savory, salty, or starchy. She didn't want to taste anything sweet.

Noooooo!

She tried. She tried and tried to get worked up about eating sugar. She thought about the creamy filling of Twinkies, about the chocolatey goodness of candy bars. She thought about Snickers Peanut Butter Squared, which was just about her favorite thing in the world behind vodka and the White Album.

But it was no use. Intellectually, she appreciated the remembered flavor of her favorite sweet treats. But her taste buds politely declined to sample them. No matter what she did, the sugar center of her brain remained stubbornly switched off.

No, Pinky.

And then it was Halloween. The stores were full of candy - acres and acres of fun-size candy bars and candy corn, not to mention 300 different pumpkin spice-flavored things. The blogger's co-workers brought treats to the office. A huge bowl of candy stood by the front door of her house, ready to be distributed to the costumed little shits tykes in the neighborhood. Her own Precocious Daughter would be bringing home a huge sack of bounty from trick-or-treating.

And she wouldn't - couldn't - didn't want to eat any of it.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

And now the blogger roams the land with no sugar in her veins. Maybe one day her sweet tooth will return. Until then, she snacks upon cheese and nuts and crackers. And she doesn't miss the taste of chocolate...AT ALL.

I told you it was scary.

Out of (Self, and Also Portion) Control

Beloved Spouse brought home two Snickers Peanut Butter Squareds Sunday night. Because he had been such a jerk on Sunday afternoon that one Snickers PBS was not going to get him back in my good graces the house.

Actually, I was asleep when he got home, so he would have gotten in, even without candy bar tribute. But he didn’t know I would be asleep, so he is awarded the points.

Anyway, I was eating one of my lovely Snickers PBS, and my eye fell on something printed on the wrapper.

Hmmm...

 

And I thought it was quite perceptive of the Snickers people to understand that their candy bars were likely to be bought in pairs as peace offerings to long-suffering wives from their jerky husbands. Although, while I appreciate the admonishment against gluttony, it’s not as if I were going to eat both of them at once. Snickers PBS are to be savored.

Then I realized the wrapper was suggesting that I should save one square of one candy bar for later.

I nearly snorted peanut butter out of my nose, I laughed so hard.

No pun intended, but are you nuts, Snickers? Surely the only reason you made your PBS (which obviously stands for Perfectly Bitchin’ Snack) in two pieces was to maximize the surface area covered by chocolate. Surely you didn’t actually expect anyone, having eaten one, to not eat the other – or, even more ridiculously, to offer it to someone else?

That’s a good one, Snickers. What’s next?



Call Ripley's.

Yeah, right. Next you'll be telling me pints of Ben & Jerry's aren't single serving, either.

Sheesh.

Wikipedia Worldwide Candy Marketing Juggernaut Thing

Last night I had occasion to look up Smarties on Wikipedia.

If they actually made you smart, I'd be a freaking genius by now.

Does that picture surprise you? It might, if you don't live in the U.S. of A. If you live in Canada, Europe, or the Middle East, you might have been expecting a picture like this:

Perhaps without the watermark, however.

They stole our candy name! OK, actually the American candy-tablet version came out several years after the European sort-of-like-big-M&M's version. So really, the chocolate Smarties are ripping off M&M's...which also, as it turns out, originated after them. Fine.

Uh...USA! USA!

But this post isn't about Smarties, strictly speaking. (Or about the difference between Canadian vs. New Jersey-produced Smarties...you know who you are.)  It's about how you can find wonderful things on Wikipedia. Wonderful, inexplicable, crazed things.

Exhibit A.
Hey, want to use up an entire evening? Click here.

In reading about the differing international versions of Smarties, I came upon what might be the most delightful descriptive sentence about a beloved mass-produced candy ever written:

"Smarties are oblate spheroids with a minor axis of about 5 mm (0.2 in) and a major axis of about 15 mm (0.6 in)."

Does that capture the joy and deliciousness of candy like nothing else, or what? The next time I'm in Europea, I want to hear a catchy Smarties jingle based on this Wikipedia description.

Smarties
They're oblate spheroids
Smarties
One of life's little rewards

5x15 millimeters of fun
Betcha can't stop at only one
Forget about death and work and taxes
Just bite into the candy-coated major axis
(Bass singer: Bite into the candy-coated major axis...)

Smarties
We sell 'em in Norway
Smarties
Eat 'em in a doorway
Smarties
I hope it's not too late
But Smarties,
What the hell is "oblate"?

Smarties
La-la la-la la-la-la
Smarties
La-la la-la la-la-la
(Repeat until sugar rush wears off)

Seriously, advertising guys on the other side of the world. You can use this. Just pay me in oblate spheroids. And cash.

Delicious Balls (Malted Milk, You Sickos)

Precocious Daughter was eating Whoppers today and wondered aloud how they were made. And I really had no clue.


This was my first thought.

So I Googled it. And I discovered a delightful fact: Malted milk balls are nothing but malted milk powder mixed with melted white chocolate. Holy cow! I can make that!

And I'm totally going to. I'm going to make homemade malted milk balls. Hundreds of them. And take pictures. And then I'm going let you know how it went.

If my homemade malted milk balls turn out great, I'll be very happy. On the other hand, if they turn out crappy, it might make a better story.

Everybody wins.

Sweet Spot

Today is not turning out the way I hoped.

Bascially all it's missing is is a hot naked guy.
And a beach. And a sunset.
And me looking good in shorts.

Work is too work-y today. And lunch wasn't nearly lunch-y enough. And the gaggle of hot young technicians who occupied my office for much of this week is gone - which is just as well because I realized I'm old enough to be their mom. And they were all looking at me as if I were old enough to be their mom.

I hate when that happens.

I am one pissed-off cougar.

Anyway, there was one bright spot in all this mess. I had a Crunchie.

Sounds vaguely naughty, but it's not.

I love these things. They come from the United Kingdom, where they know how to make weird and wonderful confectionaries.

"If we took out the bones, it wouldn't be crunchy!"

Crunchie bars are chocolate-covered honeycomb candy. Basically, sugar and corn syrup cooked until it's crispy and filled with little air bubbles. On this side of the pond, it's often called "fairy food."

Doesn't look like any fairy I ever saw.
Maybe it's named for the tooth fairy, who does bang-up
business when this stuff makes all your teeth fall out of your head.

Anyway, having a bite of Crunchie bar today went a long way toward salvaging a kind of crappy day. In fact, I may need to make my own batch of fairy food just to make sure the day ends on a high note. Because I will say anything to justify eating candy.

Here's a recipe for homemade Crunchie/fairy food, in case your own gaggle of hot young studs left you high and dry and the stupid sign vendor messed up your order yet again and there's a stack of paperwork on your desk that you didn't create but have to deal with anyway. It makes enough to share. Or not. Depending on how your day is going.

Fairy Food aka Crunchie Bar Candy (from allrecipes.com)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup dark corn syrup

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 pound chocolate confectioners' coating

Directions

1. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, corn syrup and vinegar. Cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Heat, without stirring, to 300 to 310 degrees F (149 to 154 degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms hard, brittle threads. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda. Pour into prepared pan; do not spread. Mixture will not fill pan. Allow to cool completely.
3. In the microwave or over a double boiler, melt coating chocolate, stirring frequently until smooth. Break cooled candy into bite sized pieces and dip into melted candy coating. Let set on waxed paper. Store tightly covered.

One o' Them Psychomalogical Tests

Pop quiz, Drunkards. Identify the subject of this photograph:

Did you say:

a) Two chocolate truffles
b) Googly Muppet eyes
c) Tits

Every single guy: You said tits, didn't you?

Really, dudes?

Because I said googly Muppet eyes. Like a decent human being.

Viz.

Of course, the correct answer is chocolate truffles. The one on the left is Irish cream, and the one on the right is raspberry. They were delicious.

Tits? Really? What is wrong with men? Not every pair of vaguely round objects looks like breasts, guys. Sheesh.

Those totally look like gonads. Or an extremely hungover Muppet.

But for goodness' sake, sometimes a chocolate is just a chocolate.

Hey, guys? Stop motorboating my truffles. I'm gonna eat those.

Eating Chocolates with the Baudelaire Family

The scene: Chuck Baudelaire, Beloved Spouse, and Precocious Daughter are gathered around a heart-shaped box of chocolates that is their communal Valentine's Day gift. Let's listen in on the loving conversation that marks the family's enjoyment of this tender, bonding moment.

BS (tearing into wrapping): I'm eating this bad boy right now!

CB: I'm about to make dinner. Can't you wait?

BS: It's my candy, and I'm gonna eat it.

PD: Well, since you didn't get me or Mommy anything, it's our candy. Don't hog it.

BS (still tearing into wrapping): I got Mommy flowers.

PD: Well, you didn't get me anything.

BS: What? I didn't? Then why did you write "Thanks for the Valentine's stuff" on my card?

PD (eyes rolling wildly in their pre-teen sockets): That was sarcasm. Duh.

BS: Uh-oh, there's no key on the lid of the box. How do we know what these are? I don't want to bite into a coconut.


CB: If you get a coconut, just give it to me. (Aside: This will be carved into my tombstone.)

BS: OK, but that doesn't count as one of mine.

PD: Is this nougat? I can't eat nougat.

CB: The rectangles are usually nougat.

PD: If I get a nougat, or a caramel, or something with nuts, or something I don't like, I'll just give it to you.

BS: What the hell is this? It tastes like maple.

CB: Do you like maple?

BS: Not really. Do you want it?

CB: Do I get to pick any of my own chocolates?

BS (sighing dramatically): Fine.

PD: The coconut ones are usually wrinkly on top.


BS: Is this one wrinkly?

PD: No, it's kind of bulby.

CB: Bulby? What's bulby?

BS (to PD): This flat one is toffee. You can't have that, either. HA!

PD: Daaaaddyyyyyy!

CB: Find her a vanilla cream.

BS: But I like those.

CB: You don't have $5,000 worth of fragile metal in your mouth. Find her a cream.

BS (to CB): Here, eat this. It looks like nougat.


CB: Mmmm, it tastes like Bit-o-Honey.

PD: Like what?

CB: Bit-o-Honey. A candy bar from my childhood.

PD (after long pause): OK. I can't eat that.

CB: Tough luck.

PD: Meanie.

BS: There, we've each had two. That's enough.

CB: There are five empty spaces.

BS: What?

CB: There are five empty spaces. We didn't each have two.

BS (to PD): You mean, you had three? That's it, I'm having another one.


CB: Hey! There are five empty spaces. You two had two apiece. I had one. That's five.

BS: *stares blankly, then reaches in for another piece*

CB: Hey. You've already had two, and I'm about to make dinner. Put the lid back on.


BS (making spitting-out noises): Ugh, this one is coconut.

CB (sighing): Give it to me.

PD: No, give it to me.

CB: You've already had two pieces. Am I talking to myself?

PD (eyes rolling again, or maybe still in motion from the first time): I just want a bite. Geez. Here.

CB: Mmmm, coconut. There, now I've spoiled my dinner. I hope you're happy.


BS: What do you think this one is?

CB: Are you serious? Am I talking in the vacuum of space? Put the damn lid on the box. We're about to have dinner.

BS: Oooh, that's really good. I wonder what it is.

PD: Is it nougat?

BS: No, it's the bulby one.

PD: Is it truffle?

BS: No, I hate truffle.

PD: Who hates truffle?

BS: Truffle, gross.

PD: Can I have another one, since you did?

CB: NO. No one gets any more chocolate until after dinner. Give me the box.

BS: You don't have to make dinner right away. My stomach kind of hurts now.

***
Life is like a box of chocolates. There's a lot of stuff you don't like, and you have to fight for the good bits. And it's full of nuts. And sometimes you don't get what you want. But when you share it with people you love, it's oh so sweet.

Auntie Chuck's Tips for Romance

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.

This is how I usually spend it. No, really. Really.

Valentine's Day, like all good holidays, is an excuse to eat too much, drink too much, and spend too much money for reasons only vaguely defined by the holiday itself.

And you were wondering why Columbus Day sucked so much.
When's the last time you got loaded and slept with someone
you barely knew on the 12th of October?

Unlike Columbus Day, however - which is recognized as an official holiday by the United States government - Valentine's Day is mostly recognized as a way for drugstores to boost their candy sales between Christmas and Easter. I mean, by almost any definition of the term, it's not really even a holiday. It doesn't commemorate an historical event or a religious observance, or honor a group of ragtag heroes battling incredible odds, like Alamo Day or Mother's Day. It just costs money, makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and actually benefits only a few. They may as well call it Colonoscopy Day.

Oh, like a picture of a heart is any less gross.

The best advice I can give as we approach Valentine's Day is this: Don't sweat it. If you're not romantically involved with someone, you're not "missing" Valentine's Day any more than Jews are "missing" Mardi Gras. When you find that special someone, you're not going to know it because s/he gives you a box of cheap chocolates wrapped in red cellophane. And if you are romantically involved with someone, the worst thing that person can do is try to demonstrate that his/her love for you is somehow more significant on February 14. If your relationship is awesome, it will be just as awesome on February 15. And if it's not, who needs a day of pretending it is so that all the other days suffer even more in comparison?

Here. Now shut up about how I'm not romantical.
And bring me a beer.

But if you really want to celebrate the day, Auntie Chuck has some words of wisdom. I admit, these are mostly for ladies in relationships with men. That's what I know. But guys, it won't hurt you to see things from her side for once. And same-sex couples...hell, most of you look like you're having a way better time than I am. I think you're good. Unless you're not. And then, you know, maybe we can have a nice platonic drink and moan about our lame romantic lives. Which - admit it - is what most of us, gay or straight, couple or single, spend Valentine's Day doing anyway.

Auntie Chuck's Tips for Surviving Valentine's Day (Or Any Other Day with Your Significant Other, Really)

1. Before you spend hours/days/weeks assembling a playlist of love songs that perfectly express your deep and complex feelings toward him, make sure he's not one of those guys who "don't pay any attention to the words."

2. If he's staring at you with a pensive look on his face, don't coo "What are you thinking about?" unless you're prepared to hear an answer like "tacos" or "engine additives."

3. The only romantic movie he will enjoy watching with you is Truly, Madly, Deeply. This is a fact. (Seriously, try it. You'll see.)

4. Your definition of "romantic" may not be the same as his. When you feel like responding to his feeble attempts at wooing with "Who on earth thinks this is romantic?" stop and remember that yeah, actually, he does. Even if it involves wearing beef-jerky underwear or shopping for D&D figures.

5. Valentine's Day is a horrible day to try anything new. No one wants to remember February 14th as "the day his parachute failed to open on his first jump."

6. Don't be offended if he treats Valentine's Day as the day he's definitely going to get laid. Most likely he treats every day of his life the same way.

7. If you really want sincere appreciation for your thoughtfulness and generosity, give a rose to the person in front of you at the grocery store, the crossing guard at your kid's school, or the server who has to work on Valentine's Day instead of being home with his/her signficant other.

8. Don't drink two entire bottles of champagne with dinner. Don't ask me how I know. Just don't do it, OK?

9. If you just can't have an enjoyable Valentine's Day without Godiva chocolates or live orchids, then buy yourself the goddamn things instead of expecting him to do it. You'll both be much happier.

10. Years from now (hell, days from now), you won't remember how romantic Valentine's Day was anywhere near as much as you'll remember how much fun you had. Try to have some laughs.

Oh, and one other thing...the candy you get on the day after Valentine's Day for half price tastes just as sweet. Trust me.