San Francisco

So Grace and I just got back from San Francisco, where we made a point to have lots of candy.

First, there were the 4 Ben & Jerry's we got our free cones.
We found it was a quite effective way to tour San Francisco. We visited one in the Haight, one in the basement of a Macy's near Union Square, one at Pier 29 and another near Fisherman's Wharf. We also went to the Castro and up Columbus and to a mall in North Beach, where Google Maps indicated there were Ben & Jerry's, but there weren't. Boo. Although really, 4 was about all we could have handled anyways.


We also visited many candy stores (let's see if I can remember them all):

• CocoaBella
• Recchuiti in the Ferry Building
• Scharffen Berger in the Ferry Building
• Munchies Candies in Sausolito
• Z. Cioccolato in North Beach
• Jelly Belly Factory
• and 3 See's Candies

We got lots of truffles, caramels and chocolates from various places. (Sorry it's not prettier, but I'm feeling lazy.) Some of these are for us, and some are for friends. Because we are really nice. I mean REALLY nice. At Scharffen Berger we got Chocolate Covered Champagne Grapes, a Milk Nibby bar, and a 68% cacao Kumasi Sambirano bar. We also got some Taffy in Sausolito.

We also got 8 lbs of Belly Flops at the Jelly Belly factory (SALE!) as well as a few selective bags of jelly beans for ourselves and friends. And, of course, boxes of See's for the family and coworkers.

Cadbury Royal Dark Mini Eggs

After reading about these here, I was determined to find some to try since I really love CadburyMini Eggs. I finally found them at a local supermarket that, unbeknownst to me until today, has a rather large seasonal candy section. (Insert happy dance here!)

They have the same candy shell as the original mini eggs, just in slightly darker colors. At first I thought they were kind of strange. I think this is because I was expecting regular mini eggs. See...I tend to eat these by sucking on them until the candy shell breaks through, at which point my tongue has grown to expect the milk chocolate that usually follows. So they kind of caught me off guard, even though I knew they were dark chocolate. Perhaps my taste buds didn't get the message.

But as I eat more of them, I am enjoying them more and more. I think the darker chocolate offsets the super sweet shell quite nicely. I think Cybele was right when she described them as reminiscent of a good cup of hot chocolate.

Pure Icelandic Chocolate

We found Pure Icelandic Chocolate NÓI SÍRÍUS - 56% Bitter-sweet at Whole Foods. We were intrigued, so I bought it. And boy is it good. It's very smooth and just sweet enough. I'm not sophisticated enough to identify tasting notes and things like that. All I know is that it was great. And it basically tasted like I expect good chocolate to taste. Not bitter. But not overly sweet. A slight hint of smokiness. Just unmessed with perfect chocolate.

Smoothie Mix Skittles

I also found these in my bag of candy I have at my desk. Overall, I quite enjoyed them. Maybe not as much as regular skittles but they were pretty good.

Strawberry Banana
I fully expected to hate this one, since I kind of despise artificial banana flavoring. However, strawberry is usually one of my favorites, and in this case the strawberry overpowers the banana and it is quite enjoyable in that over-sweet way. It ended up being my favorite of the bunch.

Mixed Berry
This one started out okay, but then went to a weird chemically taste kind of like I would expect a flowery soap to taste like. But as I ate more of them, I didn't notice the chemical flavor as much. So either I got used to it, or my tastebuds have become damaged.

Orange Mango
Starts out strong orange, with maybe a hint of mango later on. It was okay, and I liked it better than the plain orange skittle, but I would prefer more mango.

Peach Pear
I liked this one, but it didn’t really taste like a peach or a pear to me. It’s very sweet with a fairly mild flavor.

Lemon Berry
This just tasted like a not-so-tart lemon and I didn’t get much berry from it at all. It kind of reminded me of a lemonhead. But I liked it, since I'm all about the pure sugar flavors.

Reeses Peanut Butter Cups with Marshmallow

I have a bag of candy, mostly limited editions or hard to find goodies, that I had forgotten about. When a coworker needed a sweet fix, I rediscovered it. So now I have decided I should try these items.

I selected the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups with Marshmallow from the bag. Now usually, I LOVE Reeses Peanut Butter Cups in kind of an unhealthy way. And I also enjoy me some fluffernutters. So chocolate covered fluffernutter should be awesome. However this was kind of disappointing to me. The marshmallow was almost chemical tasting to me and just kind of ruined the whole thing. I haven't even been able to make myself eat the 2nd cup because it just doesn't seem worth it. I thought maybe it's because they're old, but from what I can make of the code on the package (as described here), they don't expire until April 2007. And they've been stored in my office, so haven't been exposed to huge temperature extremes or anything.

And having let 2 other people sample these, apparently it's not just me. We all think there's just something a bit off with the marshmallow. Which is sad, since it really is a brilliant idea.

Conversation hearts

As I sit here drinking Mountain Dew and eating conversation hearts, in an apparent attempt to send my blood sugars to astronomical heights never seen before, I thought to myself that I hadn't written anything here in a while. So now I'm back. With nothing to interesting to say, but I'll say it anyways....

So 'tis the season for conversation hearts. And I don't mean those silly imposters. I mean the honest to goodness true Necco conversation hearts. The ONLY conversation hearts that should exist.

I purchased these to snack on while in class (not that I needed any help staying awake or anything). And the first one I popped was yellow. Ack! Banana flavor. I despise artificial banana flavor. And there was no way for me to dispose of this without disrupting at least 4 people in the class. Well, let's put another one in hoping to get rid of the nasty fake banana....white. Crap. I forgot white was wintergreen. I also hate wintergreen. I think it stems from my mom insisting it would make a stomach ache go away, so now I just associate with having a stomach ache. I can't even stand the smell of wintergreen. And now I've got banana + wintergreen to deal with. And, at the time, only water to wash it down with.

Okay....fishing to find a non white or yellow and I grab orange and pink. I'm usually not down with artificial orange or cherry flavors, but these i'm okay with. They are both slightly medicinal (with orange being reminiscent of chewable childrens tylenol), but the flavor is mild enough I can handle it. Not my favorite, but I can deal. And it is far better than bananogreen.

And then I hit the motherlode. The reason I buy necco conversation hearts. The purple and the green (maybe it's because they're the closest things to blue in the bag). The purple with it's hint of grape flavor. The green with it's hint of lime. And by hint, I mean very little flavor at all and mostly just the taste of pure sugar. These are delightful little bits of heaven and there are clearly not enough of them in the bag.

So now I've eaten about half the bag over the past couple of days, so as not to have a repeat of the "whole bag at once" incident of '97. Except now I'm left with way too many yellow and white ones, and way too few purple and green ones. I wonder if there's any place I can buy individual flavors in bulk like I can with Jelly Bellies.

So anybody want any yellow or white conversation hearts?

Assortment of goodies from work peeps

It's been one of those days, so I decided to take a field trip away from my desk to get some treats.

First was some excellent peanut brittle from someone at work that his mom made. I might have to go back and get another piece later this afternoon.

I also had a mini Twix, and this is always a lovely treat. Cookie + caramel + chocolate=yum. Although I do remember when I was 13 or so, they had these cookies and cream Twix, and I really loved those.

Next on the list was a mini mint dark chocolate KitKat. I wasn't sure what to expect with this, but had high hopes since I really love the dark chocolate KitKats. This was also very good. Plenty minty, but not overwhelmingly minty or too sweet.

And last (for the moment) I have a mini Kilky Way Midnight. These are one of my favorites. I'm a big fan of the vanilla and chocolate combo. So the vanilla of the nougat + the dark chocolate are great and go very well with the slightly salty caramel. I think I'll have to go get another.

Caramel Tootsie Pop

These didn't taste so much like caramel to me as they tasted like butterscotch. Which, in my opinion, is a good thing. They have a different consistency that other tootsie pops. They're grainy and opaque, but the plus side is they don't get the sharp edges that regular tootsie pops do, so my mouth wasn't all cut up by the end. Overall, I quite enjoyed this treat, and I think they should add it to the mix in their regular bag.

Blue raspberry?

I've never quite understood why raspberry flavored things are so often blue. I mean, I suppose it's to distinguish raspberry candy from cherry and strawberry candy. But why blue? I love blue raspberry candy, yet it is not always appropriate for me to have a blue mouth,* so I find the blue a bit inconvenient. But what exactly is blue raspberry? And is it different than regular raspberry. Well, thanks to Tootsie Pops, I can now find out. In a bag a coworker brought in, there are both raspberry and blue raspberry flavors. So I figured it was my duty to see just exactly how blue raspberry differed from plain old red raspberry. It turns out that, at least in the Tootsie Pop world, blue is just a sour version of red. The red raspberry is very sweet. And yes, I know all tootsie pops are sweet, but this is sweet with very little tangy or tart flavor to it. Just pure, unadulterated sweet. The blue raspberry has a bit of a sour bite to it. I really enjoy both flavors, and would like to have a bit more of the blue flavor since it might help me perk up a bit during that afternoon post-lunch tired time. But I'll settle for the red for now. At least until my meetings are finished for the day.


*Or maybe it's just blue things I like. After all, my favorite Maggie Moos flavor is cotton candy.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Roasted Pistachio Toffee

Trader Joe's has done it again. This stuff is REALLY good. Granted, I pretty much love toffee. But this ranks right up there with the EthelM Almond Butter Crisps. And it maybe even surpass it since it's actually affordable and readily available. The pistachios, toffee and chocolate are just a great combination together. The only thing I might change is to use salted pistachios. I am a sucker for the sweet & salty combo.