Can You Steal a Horse With Ice Cream?

You can lead a horse to water but can you steal one with an ice cream cone? I decided to find out. Now you can learn the answer without having to be horse-adjacent yourself. Just click on the video!

M&M New Flavor Voting

The M&M turns 75 this year. Yep, it was three quarters of a century ago that Old Man Mars kind of ripped off the idea for encasing chocolate in a hard candy shell after he saw soldiers eating British Smarties during the Spanish Civil War. (Let’s just call it an “homage” and move on.)

My favorites, the Peanut M&Ms, were added to the line up in 1954 so this 75^th anniversary retro 1960s-style packaging I got today is accurate.

Except for the blue M&Ms inside, that is. Those didn’t come along until 1995 when customer voting replaced the old tan M&M with a new bright blue kind. (Don’t blame me, I voted for purple.)

For year number 75 (and, obviously, for advertising purposes) M&Ms is doing another vote. This time they’re looking for a new nut flavor. For a limited time, you can find all three choices in stores: Chili Nut, Honey Nut and Coffee Nut.  Let's take a quick look at each variety. 

Chili Nut

When it comes to sauces I like a little spice with my sweet so I expected to love these but they just left me cold. Not much extra taste at all – in fact, the nut actually seemed to get in the way of the chocolate – and, on top of that, the chili nut burn was mostly just a slight back-of-the-throat irritation. “Not as good and slightly irritating” probably isn't the advertising slogan they're looking for. Chili Nut does not get my vote.

Coffee Nut

If you like coffee the Coffee Nut kind are pretty good. I don’t like coffee so, no. No thank you.

Honey Nut

These are sweet and earthy and remind me of pancakes with chocolate chips. Oh yeah, Honey Nut M&Ms get my vote for sure. 

All voting is being conducted on Facebook, by-the-way (where I’m pretty sure real voting will take place any year now. ) Click the link if you want to cast your ballot: https://www.facebook.com/mms/app/1016130751780697

And remember, if you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

Here’s a bonus, advanced technique. Mix the Honey Nut and the Coffee Nut kinds together for Coffee and Pancakes M&Ms. 

But you have to do it before 11:59 pm on June 17^th. That’s when voting ends and all but the winner will be gone from stores. Well, the winner and the Chili Nut kind. I can’t imagine those disappointing bastards will sell out any time soon.

National Donut Day!

Today is “National Donut Day”. I’m not sure who invents all these dumb fake holidays and gets them sort of semi-officially recognized but they deserve a dumb, fake, semi-officially recognized holiday of their own for coming up with this one. That’s because, unlike National Itch Day or National Impersonate Authority Day (both of which are also today so get your scratching finger warmed up and your police officer costume out (and also your bail money because that’s illegal)), National Donut Day can get you a free donut. Seriously. Several shops are offering them but the only one I’m going to mention by name is Krispy Kreme. That’s because here in Los Angeles, the Land of a Bajillion Donuts, Krispy Kreme is the only one who won’t screw you over with the chocolate iced cream filleds.

Seriously, Los Angeles. Why can’t I reliably get a chocolate iced cream filled donut out here? All I ever find is chocolate iced custard filled. And the worst part is that the two look exactly alike from the outside. You never know you’ve been had until you’ve already bitten into it and your mouth is filled with slimy, snot-colored, gross custard rather than fluffy, bright white, delicious cream. And asking the person behind the counter doesn’t always help because, for some reason, people here don’t seem to know the difference. The terminology is off. Maybe it’s because the custard filled is sometimes called “Boston Cream” or “Bavarian Cream”. I don’t know but there should be a law. Those damned things must be clearly labeled! We’ve got a big election coming up in November. I need to know where the candidates stand on this issue. You want my vote, you've got to tackle the important stuff.

Anyway, Krispy Kreme is the only place in Los Angeles that I’ve been able to reliably find a real cream filled donut so they get my endorsement on this most magical day of the year. Find one near you and ask for your freebie. Just stay away from the cream filled. Those are mine. 

By-the-way, notice how I didn't make a single hack dress-up-as-a-cop-eat-a-donut-joke even though I could have tied those two dumb fake holidays together? You're very welcome.