ZOMG, Candy!

I just finished Candy and Me (A Love Story) by Hilary Liftin. I give it an OM. It’s more or less a memoir tied to sweets, with each chapter linked to a different sugary treat, from Skittles to Circus Peanuts to canned frosting.

I was amazed at Hilary’s capacity for sugar consumption. As a kid, she used to eat straight sugar! And she has a love for white chocolate and those giant, individually wrapped pseudo-jelly bean/marshmallow thingies that I just don’t understand.

I love how she mentions obscure candies like Zotz along with more common treats like Smarties. And her husband’s method of proposing to her is ridiculously adorable. I also love her description of her wedding favors: little bags of assorted candies with a toothbrush, like the kind you get with your dentist’s name on the handle, only with the married couple’s names. Totally stealing that someday.

The book definitely has its weak moments, and overall, it’s quite fluffy. Basically, like candy full of empty calories and can cause stomachaches and nausea when overindulged in, but it’s also a fun treat. Hence the OM. Pick it up at your local library if it catches your eye, but don’t go out of your way to hunt it down.

Thanks to everyone who entered. I love running these little contests, since who doesn’t like giving stuff away? The two winners of my Junior Mint Giveaway are (drumroll please)….

Read the rest of this entry »

Missed the chance to throw your own Hershey’s Bliss party? Their website has a $1 off coupon so buy it for yourself at a discount. I’ve never tried Bliss (and did not get selected to throw a Bliss house party) and am not planning on going out of my way to do so based on this tepid review from Candy Addict.

And don’t forget to enter my Junior Mint Giveaway (helped along by wholesale candy store Candy Xpress) by 9 PM EST on Friday!

Joel from Candy Xpress, an online wholesale candy seller, sent me a big package of Junior Mints, Colombina Mint Balls, and Trident Tropical Twist gum. Quite the Xtreme care package for reading/finals period, I must say. I gave away lots and lots of the candy to my studying-addled friends, but several boxes of Junior Mints remain for me to give away to 2 lucky winners!

Leave a comment with a working email address in the form (only I can see it, and I’ll only use it for the purposes of this giveaway) by 9 pm EST on Friday. I’ll randomly select 2 winners, who will each receive 3 (three!) 1.84 oz. boxes of Junior Mints.

After the success of my first chocolate tasting (notes here), I held a second one with the extra bars. Unfortunately, by the time the second tasting rolled around, most of the bars had bloomed thanks to New Haven humidity and temperature fluctuations and a lack of air conditioning. The Vosges chocolate bars were the only ones that survived because their wrappers are airtight. We tasted them anyway, and all the flavors were there; it’s just that the textures were all wrong. Sadness. Here’s what we tasted, with my notes:

• Green and Black’s milk, 34% - sweet, yogurty flavor; tastes like a Cadbury mini-egg. Thick texture.
• Dagoba milk, 37% - slightly fruitier than the Green and Black’s with a dusky finish.
• Vosges Macha (Japanese macha green tea in 41% deep milk) - woodsy dirt flavor, brittle texture. Tastes like green tea, as it should. I don’t like the taste of green tea, but if you do, this bar is true to its name.
• Vosges Woolloomooloo (roasted and salted macadamia nuts, Indonesian coconut, hemp seeds in 41% deep chocolate) - I’ve reviewed the truffle version of this bar. Nicely nutty, smells of coconut.
• Vosges Goji (Tibetan goji berries, pink Himalayan salt in 41% deep milk) - fruitiness to the bar; goji berries just taste like red berries. Saltiness works, I think.
• Vosges Mo’s Bacon Bar (applewood smoked bacon, alderwood smoked salt in 41% deep milk chocolate) - I bought another one of these bars because it’s such a great conversation piece for tastings.
• Chocolove dark chocolate, 55% - nuttiness to the flavor, which starts off sweet and has a long finish. Vanilla notes? Thick texture.
• Nirvana Single Origin Granada, 60% - fairly straightforward cocoa flavor with a strong roasted taste.
• Scharffen Berger 62% semisweet - fruity notes, sweet finish

• Vosges Calindia (Indian green cardamom, organic California walnuts, dried plums in 65% Venezualan dark chocolate) - strong spice flavor. Can taste the sweetness of the plums and feel where it adds texture.
• Nirvana Single Origin Santa Domingo, 67% - strong earthiness, dirt flavor. Not at all well received (the wrapper promised herbal tones, which must have been the dirt flavor people complained about).
• Green and Black’s Maya Gold (orange and spices) - on first taste, strong notes of pepper with a light orange finish. On second taste, orange flavor stronger. Many people said the bar tasted like marmalade.
• Scharffen Berger 70% bittersweet - super fruity with a cocoa finish
• Dagoba Conacado, 73% - nutty
• Dagoba New Moon, 74% - sweeter than the Conacado with a dark fruitiness
• Dagoba Xocolatl, 74% with chilies and nibs - slight fruitiness to the chocolate. STRONG chili flavor that wallops your taste buds on first impact. Not the way I like my chili chocolate.
• Endangered Species 88% Extreme Dark (panther) - vanilla scent with a nice smoky flavor.
• Ghirardelli 100% baking chocolate - completely dries up the mouth. Worse than the 100% La Maison du Chocolat bar.

Before your regularly scheduled candy review, a plug for my personal life. Today, I will be conducting the Yale Precision Marching Band LIVE! on ESPN’s First Talk. We’re scheduled to go on at 10 AM EST (note time change from original posting) for a quick performance of our fight song.  First Talk airs on ESPN2 and ESPN HD live from 10AM-Noon, EST, and the day’s episode is then rerun from Noon-2PM EST. We’re also shooting a bit of a “This is Sportscenter” commercial today, which should air sometime in the future. Hope you get the chance to tune in! And now back to candy.

I get NY Times emails for breaking news, like when election results are posted, when famous people die, when big business things happen, etc. Here’s one I got at 3AM Sunday night/Monday morning:

Subject: News Alert: Candy Maker Reported Near Deal for Chewing Gum Giant

Body:

Candy Maker Reported Near Deal for Chewing Gum Giant

Mars, the makers of M&M’s, was near a deal last night to
acquire the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, the chewing gum concern,
for more than $22 billion, people involved in the talks said.
The transaction would create a confectionery behemoth and
could pressure rivals into a cascade of other mergers.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

Candy can make headline news too!

Over the weekend, I churned out a 14-page final paper that I turned in on Monday for my history of food class. It’s a good thing I wrote this week’s reviews a couple of weeks ago, as the last thing I want to do right now is read or write about chocolate (by the way, I’m a two-eyed college-age female, not a uni-eyeballed man with too short pants. And I don’t have a typewriter).

If you ever have questions about how the development of Hershey’s and Cadbury’s compared to that of Lindt & Sprungli from the Industrial Revolution to World War II, I’m your gal.

Thursday’s chocolate tasting went pretty well, except for one great sadness - most of the chocolate had bloomed. Stupid New Haven humidity and weird spring temperature fluctuations. The flavor profiles weren’t affected, but the texture and melt were. Tasting notes will come as soon as I’m ready to write about chocolate again.

Because today is Earth Day, I am reposting bits from an old post from Blog Action Day and listing some earth-friendly brands that I’ve the pleasure of trying:

Endangered Species donates a portion of their chocolate bar proceeds to help, well, endangered species. I’ve only formally reviewed one of their bars, but I’ve tasted several of them (including the wolf, panther, dolphin, and rain forest) and have loved them all. Endangered Species makes really good chocolate that holds its own against Scharffen Berger and the like, which is especially admirable when they could be just coasting on their environmental pledge.

Theo 3400 Phinney Bars are fair trade (they pay above the market price for beans so that cacao growers can earn a living wage) and organic. I’ve reviewed some of their line and loved the chai bar. Sadly, I can no longer find this brand in my library’s cafe.

Dagoba bars, sold under Hershey’s artisan confections line, are certified organic, and I’ve reviewed several and tried more that I haven’t formally reviewed (the Superfruit is okay, the Conacado is nutty, and the Xocolatl is too spicy and is not as good as other chili chocolate bars).

Green and Black’s is, I think, one of the earliest chocolate brands to be on the organic bandwagon. I haven’t formally reviewed any of their bars, but I can tell you that their milk bar tastes like the inside of a Cadbury mini-egg.

I don’t know how to reconcile the carbon footprint of chocolate. Unless you live in South or Central America or Africa, you’re not going to be able to have chocolate on a locavore diet. Then again, measuring the carbon footprint of food is so hard (is local better for the environment? or organic? or even efficiently mass-produced?) that it may not be a good guideline. But now, at least, environmental awareness is present in the candy industry. There are now several brands of organic bars out there, and many non-organic companies may have an organic line.

———————–

Today is Blog Action Day, when blogs around the world post on the same topic to raise awareness. This year, we’re bloggging about the environment. In the candy world, I’ve taken that to mean blogging about organic and fair trade candy.

As you can see from a quick Amazon.com search, there are hundreds of organic candies, organic chocolates, fair trade candies, and fair trade chocolates.

I haven’t reviewed much organic stuff on this site, mostly because organic candy is pricier than the average Hershey bar, and I’m a college student who is far from being financially secure. But I’ve still managed to hit a few: Larabars and their Jocalat line use only fair trade and organic ingredients, Vosges claims a green mission on their website, and I think the truffles I got at Whole Foods were green in some way, if only because they came from Whole Foods. Sustainable food is HUGE at Yale, and I can promise you that organic desserts, even when mass produced by the dining halls, is sinfully delicious.

I’ve seen Dagoba bars (BUY!) and Yummy Earth Lollipops (BUY!) at the campus convenience store. I wanted to buy some and try them in time to review for my Blog Action Day post, but I’ve had a nasty cold for the past week, so I haven’t been tasting new things because my sense of taste is compromised. I’m nearly fully recovered though, and I’ll hopefully be able to have those reviews up within the next couple of weeks.

While my site’s sustainable candy section is regrettably sparse, Cybele’s got a whole category on her site for organic candy reviews and tips on how to go green for Halloween.

I hope you learned something from today’s post! I know I did in putting it together.

Greek chocolate gets a little blurb in the Times Dining section this week. I’ve had white chocolate with olive bits at Vosges before and didn’t much care for it, but the halvah praline and the baklava praline sounds divine. Mmm…

Also, my apologies for my Happy Tax Day post somehow not making it. These last few weeks and next few weeks are especially crazy, as I’ve got final papers out the wazoo, and my internet connection has been lousy lately as well. Thank goodness for this afternoon, when I’ll be hosting another chocolate tasting party. Notes on that next week!

Go eat a giant piece of candy. Or partake of something a little stronger. You deserve it for finishing your taxes. You did finish them… right?

I wonder if I could use this blog as a tax write-off. After all, it’s one form of non-profit work for me.

Here’s to hoping that you, dear reader, finished the year in the black.