Monthly Archives: October 2011

Junk Food

M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn

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Candy corn. Love it or hate it, it’s been around for over 100 years, and it’s not going anywhere. It’s an iconic symbol of Halloween. It can be used to make impromptu vampire fangs, so hey, that’s something. I’m a big fan of Lewis Black’s take on the stuff. My take on candy corn? I don’t hate it, but let’s just say it never went into the “premium” pile of candy when it came time to sort out my trick-or-treat haul.

I had never even heard of M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn until it arrived in the Halloween package of love my mom sent me. Yes, two out of my three Halloween reviews have come courtesy of my mom. Yes, I am a grown woman, and I still get care packages from my mommy. Don’t act like you’re not jealous. I don’t care if you’re 15 or 50, getting a box full of goodies for Halloween is awesome.

I have to say, I’m loving the package. The bag subtly reflects the candy corn’s tri-color appearance, and there’s some corn stalks in the background, because everyone knows candy corn is made from corn. It’s going to be the next biofuel. Which is great, because the amount of uneaten candy corn in the world could probably get us by for a very long time.

And then, of course, there’s Red. Red looks pissed. Or…constipated? It’s hard to tell. Although, given his hand placement, it’s either intestinal distress or he hates how the costume makes him look fat. Regardless, he wants out of that fucking costume like right now. He must share Lewis Black’s views on candy corn.

Through pure chance or clever design on the part of M&Ms, the sample I took from the bag to photograph seemed to reflect the color ratio of an actual candy corn. Small white tip, large yellow middle, and an orange base that falls in between. They’re larger than regular M&Ms, but maintain the classic M&M shape.

I was already apprehensive about the idea of a white chocolate candy corn-flavored M&M, so when I caught a strong whiff of plastic off of them, my hesitance only increased. I’m on good terms with white chocolate, but…together with candy corn flavoring? It seems like a rather Frankensteinian pairing. My tongue shuddered. It was the wrong kind of Halloween scary.

Good news and bad news: M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corns taste like…candy corns. Which, come to think of it, taste pretty much like how the M&Ms smelled. Like plastic. They really nailed the taste quite accurately. There’s a hint of white chocolate flavor at the end, and it has the texture of white chocolate with a candy shell crunch, but the flavor is strongly that of candy corn. Possibly even more than candy corns themselves. M&Ms out-candy-corned the candy corn. Take that, Brachs.

If you’re a fan of candy corn, M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corns will delight your palate and look great in that bowl on your coffee table that has a zombie hand sticking out of it which moves and screams any time someone passes by it, annoying everyone in the room. If you’re Lewis Black, I assume you will shout incomprehensibly and throw them across the room while twitching violently. If you are Red, I guess you’ll just stand there looking annoyed. I’m assuming the cast of M&M characters don’t indulge in cannibalism.

If you’re me, you’ll appreciate the entertaining packaging and the accuracy of the replication of candy corn flavor. Unfortunately, like candy corns themselves, these M&Ms won’t be in my premium pile of Halloween candy. However, I always appreciate it when a company tries something new for Halloween. Even if it tastes like plastic.

M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn

  • Score: 3 out of 5 pissed off Reds
  • Price: Freeeeeeeee! (Thanks again Mom!)
  • Size: 9.9 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: I have no idea; somewhere in Southern California
  • Nutritional Quirks: One serving (about 1/4 cup) contains 35% of your daily recommended saturated fat. Brach’s candy corn contains 0 grams of any fat. Make the wise choice. (Eat a Fun Size Snickers bar.)
Beverages

Vile Villains Hot Chocolate: Wonderfully Wacky Purple, Deceivingly Orange, and Heartless Green

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Kids love food that is a color it isn’t supposed to be. My mind immediately travels back to Pop Qwiz, a microwave popcorn that came in various un-popcorn colors like red, green, and what should always be your favorite unnatural food color, blue. It also came in yellow, which is weird, because you can do that with butter. But hey, there was also purple, so I will forgive Pop Qwiz. For those of you too young to remember Pop Qwiz, here’s a commercial, and get off my lawn.

The second thing I remember is Heinz ketchup, which made some cah-RAZY colors like green, purple, blue, and teal. Teal? Most kids probably don’t even know what teal is. This was in 2000, at which time I had (mostly) grown out of my desire to eat foods of inappropriate colors, but I do remember my grandfather bought a bottle of the green stuff. Just because. I tip my hat to his spirit, since it’s obvious a little bit of him rubbed off on JFB.

Pop Qwiz disappeared long ago and Heinz stopped making the colored ketchups in 2006, presumably leaving millions of children without the opportunity to eat extra food coloring while their parents roll their eyes.

But fear not! (Or be afraid, it is the season for it.)  Just in time for Halloween, and possibly only for Halloween, I present to you Vile Villains Hot Chocolate! Not a hell of a lot of info about them on the Internet, but I gather they’re only available at Walgreen’s, and they come in three colors: Wonderfully Wacky Purple, Deceivingly Orange, and Heartless Green. The chocolate remains the same, but the colors are Halloweenolicious.

This is a Disney Joint, so we’ve got three villains from their vast library of evil beings. I’ll talk briefly about each and show you the all-important pictures, but since the chocolate is the same in all three, we’ll check that out at the end.

Wonderfully Wacky Purple Hot Chocolate

Okay, I have objections right off the bat, here. Really, the Chesire Cat? First off, he’s not even a villain. Second, I suppose he could pull off representing purple, but isn’t there someone who would really embody the spirit of purple? Any guesses? Motherfucking MALEFICENT from Sleeping Beauty, that’s right! Only one of the awesomest Disney villains ever! SHE TURNS INTO A MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON. Wasted opportunity.

Oddly, all the powders look generally the same. I was expecting purple powder, but this is what I got. But hey, kids like shit that changes colors just like they like food that is oddly colored, so…bonus?

The hot chocolate itself was a little more pastel than I would have liked. Lavender is not that spooky. I had a heck of a time taking the photos because, as you can see, it gets that film on top that masks the true color of the liquid, but you can generally see it around the edges. I later realized I could have let it cool down and that probably would have fixed the problem. But done is done. Deal with it.

Deceivingly Orange Hot Chocolate

Here we have the Evil Queen from Snow White, disguised as a witch. She gives Snow White a poisoned apple in the story, but here she appears to be presenting a Jack o’Lantern, apparently to tie in with the orange color. I have to say, if Snow White had been given a pumpkin, the story would have turned out much differently, unless she decided to toast the seeds and eat them I suppose.

Deceivingly Orange is a strange name. Out of context, it makes little sense. Oranges are not so deceiving. You pretty much get what you’re asking for out of an orange, unless you bought a grapefruit by mistake, but that’s your own fault. In this context, Deceivingly Orange means several things – first of all, nobody expects their hot chocolate to be orange, and second, the poisoned apple is deceiving. Except now it’s a pumpkin. Why not.

I’m not a big fan of orange as a color, but I guess this one delivers the most Halloweeny of all the colors. Purple and green are great backup colors for Halloween, but if you’re going to go Halloween, you know you have to go black and orange. The black is surprisingly absent, but at least orange has a backup team.

Heartless Green Hot Chocolate

Here we see the Evil Queen from Snow White in her natural evil form. With that bubbling green cauldron, she feels the most natural of the three. I am, however, a little miffed that two of the three Vile Villains are from Snow White. There are a bazillion Disney villains; do we really have to dip into the same pumpkin bucket twice?

Also, she’s holding the poisoned apple. Where the hell was the continuity director on these things?

Much like with the purple hot chocolate, this drink’s color is disappointingly pale. It does look a little sickly, however, which could be considered in the spirit of Halloween, but I would have liked to have seen a deep, dark green. Same with the purple.

Now then, to the hot chocolate flavor itself. I ran into a problem right off the bat: Vile Villains Hot Chocolate does not contain any chocolate. No cocoa powder, nothing. Now, I understand the fundamental reason for this; cocoa is brown, and that would effect the color of the drink. I understand with the orange and the green, but if they had made the purple darker, couldn’t they have gotten away with adding some cocoa? And what about black? It seems like it would have been easy to incorporate cocoa powder into that. But hey, I wasn’t on the hot chocolate development team; who knows what hurdles they went through before they settled upon these choices.

Oddly, despite the absence of actual chocolate, the Vile Villains do possess a ghost of hot chocolate taste. The basic ingredients are sugar, nonfat dry milk, and non dairy creamer. This makes for a very sweet drink, and I think it’s the creamer that makes it taste a bit like hot chocolate.

My mom (who lovingly sent me these when I couldn’t find them at my local Walgreen’s) thought they were awful due to the lack of chocolate flavor, but I found them passable as a hot, sweet, milky drink. Then again, I may or may not have enjoyed a few sips of flavored creamer in my past, so perhaps I’m not quite right in the head.

In the end, the execution of packaging and coloring didn’t sit quite right with me, but I think kids would enjoy drinking hot “chocolate” that comes in a spooooky package and nontraditional colors. Temperatures are falling, Halloween is in full swing, and a hot sweet treat would probably satisfy most young palates. Adults will probably find the lack of chocolate flavor disappointing, unless they really enjoy the taste of non dairy creamer. I appreciate the effort to create a cool Halloween product, but Disney’s Imagineers could have put a little more thought into it. (Note: I doubt the Imagineers had anything to do with this product; I just wanted an excuse to use the term “Imagineers”.)

Vile Villains Hot Chocolate: Wonderfully Wacky Purple, Deceivingly Orange, and Heartless Green

  • Score: 2 out of 5 totally kick-ass Maleficent dragons that should have been on the purple package
  • Price: Freeeeeeeee! (Thanks Mom!)
  • Size: 1.25 oz. package
  • Purchased at: A Walgreen’s somewhere in Southern California
  • Nutritional Quirks: No chocolate in the hot chocolate. Perhaps the largest quirk of all time.
Junk Food

Chips Ahoy! Haunted Halloween Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Did you think I’d forgotten about Halloween? Shame on you. And shame on me for not having all that much to work with this year. But I’ve got a few things up my sleeve, and Chips Ahoy! Haunted Halloween Cookies are one of them. Not literally though; I don’t want crumbsleeves.

If you’ve read this website for any amount of time, you know I appreciate a good piece of packaging, and Chips Ahoy! Brings it in spades. These are not just Chips Ahoy! cookies, they’re Chips Ahoy! Haunted Halloween cookies. BEWARE! It’s all black and orange and ghosts and bats and YEAH HALLOWEEN!

They didn’t just go all-out on the front and ignore the rest, however. There’s more! Tombstones and black cats! EERIE! (Chips Ahoy! are not very eerie, but I appreciate the sentiment.) BE AFRAID! (There’s not really much to be afraid of, besides maybe choking on a chocolate chip, which would be embarrassing.)

Even the ends get the spooky treatment. SPINE TINGLING! Love it.

On the other side, there’s even a recipe for Chips Ahoy! wiches, which a.) is a rather awkward name, and b.) totally should have been “witches”. There’s even a damn witch right next to the word! Chips, you dropped the ball. But I forgive you because your package is still 100% awesome.

I would have made the wi(t)ches, but I didn’t have any ice cream or Halloween sprinkles, and it just strikes me as odd to make ice cream sandwiches for myself. That’s a fun family activity. Just hanging out by myself with a pile of cookies and ice cream rolled in sprinkles seems sad. I don’t have enough cats to justify that.

“Have the guts to make it?” is also a lovely touch. I guess I just didn’t have the guts, though.

Oh hey, added bonus – there are cookies inside! I haven’t had a Chips Ahoy! in forever, but these seem smaller than I remember. If you don’t know what a Chips Ahoy! tastes like, well…it is a chocolate chip cookie. The crunchy kind, not the soft kind. Although there are Chewy Chips Ahoy! and I could probably put down a whole package of those. Oh, I just looked at their website, and I guess they have a “Chewy Gooey” kind now that has fudge inside and-

You know what, we’re getting off track here.

What sets apart Haunted Halloween Chips Ahoy! (can I stop with the exclamation point now?) from their regular chocolate chip cookies is the addition of little orange candy-coated bits of chocolate thrown in with the regular chocobits. Not exactly revolutionary, but look at them! They look about as Halloweeny as chocolate chips can look without being made out of bat wings and eyes of newt. Or some little ghost-shaped candies thrown on. Either way.

By appearances, you’d think the addition of the orange candies wouldn’t really make that much of a difference in the cookie, but I think they bring a little something to the cauldron. You can taste the candy shell, which adds a different sweetness than the cookie and the chocolate chips, and the added crunch is notable and rather fun. It’s not like the addition is groundbreaking (see: Keebler Chips Deluxe, every mom who has ever baked M&Ms into cookies), but it’s fun, and it’s Halloweeny, which is more than I can say for most other cookies. At least Chips Ahoy is trying.

And let’s not forget that packaging!

Chips Ahoy! Haunted Halloween Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • Score: 4.5 out of 5 cauldrons full of cookie ice cream sandWITCHES
  • Price: $2.50
  • Size: 12.2 oz. package
  • Purchased at: Walmart #3799
  • Nutritional Quirks: No newts were harmed in the making of these cookies. As far as I know.
Junk Food

Cheetos and Doritos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese

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For a couple of months now, every time I’ve visited my local convenience store, I’ve seen these Cheetos and Doritos Fiery Fusion bags sitting in the cashier’s front display. The first time I saw them, I said, “Yay! New snacks!” Then I read the flavor description: “Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese”.

My Snack Rage started boiling. Okay, maybe not rage; more like Snack Annoyance. Spicy and cheese: not exactly an original concept. Buy hey, even if I’ve had those flavors about 50 different times, I still like them. So why not.

The definition of fusion is simple: the connection of two distinct things. There are many different types of fusion: there’s cell fusion, which is pretty important, since none of us would exist without it. There’s nuclear fusion, which creates things like supernovas and can also be used to kill us all.

One type of fusion I wish I’d never learned about via Wikipedia is tooth fusion, which is exactly what you would imagine it is, and makes me want to vomit. The picture just made things that much worse. Thanks a lot, Cheetos and Doritos. I’m pretty sure you weren’t responsible for the entry, but I’m going to go ahead and blame you anyway.

Fiery Fusion was not listed on Wikipedia, but Frito-Lay likes to make up catchy adjectives like “FANTASTIX!” to describe their food products, and I’m a fan of alliteration, so Fiery Fusion gets a pass. Right now they only have Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese available under this label, but perhaps we will see future Fusions. I predict ranch will be involved. Always bet on ranch.

Doritos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese


Part of the reason I hated staring at these chips while I waited for the guy in front of me wearing the ragged shirt with 20 holes in it to finish paying for his case of Natty Ice in rolls of quarters was that the packaging is so ugly. Probably the ugliest I’ve seen in a long time. It’s like a sick mixture of what your puke looks like after you’ve drank cherry Nyquil and an unsuccessful hybrid color of nail polish I once made when I fancied myself a chemist and would try to mix different polishes to create the ultimate in nail coloration. If purple drank were this hue, Lil’ Wayne would probably have a lot more brain cells right now. Even rappers have aesthetic standards. Okay, that is a lie.

Fortunately, the chips themselves do not share this heinous color scheme. They are appropriately reddish-orange, and have a thick layer of flavor powder coating almost all the chips, which I like. The back of the bag says, “Get ready! The slow-burning fire of new Doritos Fiery Fusion chips is about to be unleashed on your unsuspecting mouth. Things might start smooth with the creamy flavor of cheese, but in no time your tongue will IGNITE with hot cayenne, jalapeño and spices.”

Bold words, Doritos. Surprisingly, I actually found these claims to be true. As I started eating, my first thought was, “Oh hey, these taste just like Spicy Nacho Doritos. How original.” However, as I continued munching, I did find the heat building beyond Spicy Nacho levels. My tongue did not literally ignite – if it had, I would call that a bad business move on Doritos’ part – but there was some definite heat that did blend well with the nacho cheese flavor. I couldn’t really differentiate the cayenne from the jalapeño from the spices, but I did enjoy the overall flavors.

Cheetos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese


The Cheetos bag carries the same ill-conceived color scheme as the Doritos, but there’s a little break at the top with Cheetos’ signature orange, plus there’s a picture of Chester looking super delighted as he prepares to sodomize an innocent wedge of cheese with a hot pepper. Seriously, he is going to pepper-fuck that cheese and he is loving it.

The back of the Cheetos bag reads a little different from the Doritos: “Chester’s at it AGAIN! This time combining the smooth flavor of cheese with a burning blend of hot cayenne, jalapeño and spices in new Cheetos Fiery Fusion snacks. It’s a spicy sensation!”

I like how Cheetos is always blaming/giving credit to Chester for their new flavors. “Chester’s at it AGAIN!” takes a more sinister turn given what I said in the paragraph above. “Oh that Chester, always playing the food fornication game! I wonder what two foods he will fuse via sodomy next!”

The Cheetos had the same slow build-up of heat as the Doritos, starting with the classic Cheetos cheese flavor and adding some heat as I munched along. The heat was not as intense as the Doritos, but I felt like I could actually taste more of the cayenne pepper, as opposed to just a generic heat. You can actually see some darker flecks on the Cheetos that don’t appear on the Doritos.

Overall, I liked Cheetos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese just a little more than the Doritos, if just for the more discernible cayenne flavor. Neither of the chips (or snacks in the case of Cheetos, whatever) disappointed; their claims of going from cheesy to spicy really did deliver. Is it the most original snack I’ve ever had? Well, no. Did someone on Frito-Lay’s marketing team let a blind person design the packaging images? Possibly. Will any of us ever be as happy as Chester is, inserting a pepper into a piece of cheese in a way that makes everyone around him uncomfortable? Probably not. But if you’re looking for a cheesy spicy snack, Fiery Fusion will satisfy. They won’t blow your mind, but they’ll satisfy.

Doritos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese

  • Score: 3 out of 5 cringe-inducing tooth fusions
  • Price: $0.99
  • Size: 3 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Circle K #2821
  • Nutritional Quirks: Nothing too crazy here. At least the chips weren’t the same color as the bag.

Cheetos Fiery Fusion Cayenne & Cheese Snacks

  • Score: 3.5 out of 5 uncomfortable moments with Chester Cheetah
  • Price: $0.99
  • Size: 2 3/8 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Circle K #2821
  • Nutritional Quirks: Can actually differentiate the cayenne flavor from “general spiciness”.