Oh, Christmas Tree

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks because I’ve been writing my day job but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been enjoying the junk food. It’s peak sweet season and there's no way I’m letting this one get by me without sampling as many seasonal treats as possible. 

For example, the Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake only comes around once a year and a man would be a fool to miss it. I’m not necessarily a big white cake fan (oh, it’s fine and all but I usually like my cake to have a little color to it) but there’s something perfect about the pair of thin slices of white cake with crème filling slathered between, encased in a layer of white icing, stripped with red and decorated with green sugar sprinkles. 

It tastes great and it’s fun to eat. The icing resists the bite a little - just the perfect amount - then your teeth sink right in. I love to push my tongue through the crème between the layers before I chew and feel (and hear) the sugar crystals pop under my molars. That’s some very merry masticating!

Sampling

Apparently Old Man Whitman isn't selling enough candy on Valentine's Day because now he's trying to muscle in on Christmas.

Whitman's Samplers feel more like February candy to me but the box's wrapping paper is festive and the stuff inside is always tasty so I cracked one open a couple months earlier than usual this year. 

Chewing on the chocolates gave me time for reflection. I started thinking about how when I was a kid my family made an annual midsummer drive down into the hills of Tennessee to attend our family reunion. My mom grew up with these people but not me. I was raised miles away and only saw them once a year. When you got right down to it, this gathering wasn't much of a reunion for me because I had no real union to re. 

"What does this have to do with Whitman's Samplers?" I'm glad I asked. "Sampler" implies that Whitman is giving you this selection to sample so that you can choose which flavor or flavors you'd like a whole box of. But have you ever seen a whole box of, say, Molasses Chew or Pecan & English Walnut Clusters? I haven't. I doubt they exist anymore. I suspect that all Whitman ever puts in stores is the sampler. Given that, is it really a sampler? Was my reunion really a reunion? I don't know. My Christmas Whitman's Sampler only contained four pieces. I finished the candy before I came to any conclusions. I guess I'll have to reconsider the matter come Valentine's Day.

Treemageddon Revisited

Back in the day parents used to tell kids, "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about." I guess "back in the day" in this case means the day in which child abuse was considered kind of funny.

I was thinking about that because while shopping for Reese’s Trees I found a new, smaller size and guess what? These are the kind that (a very few) people have been whining about. See the difference?

 The standard variety is kind of blobby but the little ones are even worse. As I’ve pointed out before though, all the seasonal Reese’s products are blobs and always have been. These new tree blobs are pretty much just a Christmas version of the Halloween Reese’s Ghost blobs.

Like the bigger blobs, the ghosts and the tiny trees have a better peanut-butter-filling-to-chocolate ratio than the standard Reese's cups so what they lack in verisimilitude they more than make up for in taste.

I'm not sure what kind of absolutely perfect life a person would have to be living to be outraged by less-than-photo-realistic food sculpting but if you want to cry about candy you now know what kind to buy. Grab 'em and grumble. Just don't do it in front of me or I'll give you something to cry about.

Candy Coal

My wife and I were combing the Christmas candy isle the other day looking for seasonal snacks. I found Peppermint Ho Hos but if it was a contest she clearly won because she found this:

It's candy coal! I always thought the idea of a bad kid being punished by a lump of coal in his stocking was funny. Candy coal is even better. It's kind of a “Dad Joke” but I don’t care. Christmas is prime time for Dad Jokes. The kid thinks he got coal. Big twist: It’s candy! Hilarity ensues. This stuff is comedy gold.

 How does it taste? It’s milk chocolate and crisped rice like a Nestle Crunch or a Hershey Krackel but maybe not quite that quality. 

Double Crisp Coal actually tastes a lot like the seasonal Crisp Kringle.

When you think about it, Double Crisp Candy Coal isn’t punishment for a year of bad deeds but it isn’t quite ultimate reward material either. It’s more like candy purgatory. Mmmm. Purgatory.

Peppermint Ho Hos

Hostess has made a seasonal peppermint Ho Ho. Seriously. They’ve replaced the regular old white filling of the regular old Ho Ho with peppermint crème.

In real life they may not look as pretty as they do in the picture on the package but they’re not half bad. Kind of like a softer version of the chocolate/mint Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie. Definitely worth a try if you like Ho Hos (which I do) and peppermint (which I kind of do.)

My only real problem with them is the name. It’s a Christmas Ho Ho. A Santa Ho Ho. Why didn’t they call them “Ho Ho Hos”? What a wasted opportunity. So, I took an Exacto knife and some glue and fixed my box. You’re more than welcome (encouraged, even) to do the same.

Condiment Experiment

What the heck do you put on a sweet potato french fry to make the damned thing edible? Let's find out!



Junk Food Jones Sweet Potato Fries Experiment from Scott Sullivan on Vimeo.

Santa For Sale

I don’t begrudge Santa Claus some endorsement deal income. He makes toys and gives them away. That’s just not a sustainable business model. Santa's choice of products to endorse kind of annoys me, though. 

Not Coca-Cola so much. The fat man in the red suit has been pushing Coke since the 1920s.

I don't really mind M&Ms either. 

Junk food just makes sense. We all know Santa loves him some cookies and sweet treats are a part of Christmas. It's the other stuff that kind of gets to me. Electric razors? Santa don't shave. Cars and motorcycles? Santa drives a sleigh. Jewelry? Santa shouldn't help prop up the evil diamond industry. Shame on him.

 

I bring all this up because I got one of the special Christmas Twix bars.

Santa not only let them shape the candy just like his famous face, he also allowed them to stamp their brand name right on his hat. Even if this is a candy endorsement that last bit feels like he's gone too far. 

How does it taste? Well, if you’ve ever eaten a Twix and thought, “This is pretty good but I wish it were thinner and looked like Santa Claus’ head,” then they’ve finally made a candy bar for you. Enjoy!