All posts by Kelley

Junk Food

Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips

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Well, it’s New Year’s Eve, and you know what that means! Yes, you will go to a party, get drunk, and act retarded, possibly kissing someone you barely know and then crying on his shoulder about how Jake was the best and you don’t understand why he suddenly won’t return your phone calls and then blaaaaargh all over his shoes.

Or perhaps you’ll ring in the new year a little more quietly, taking inventory of your bunker’s contents for the dozenth time, making sure every shotgun, bottle of water and Tactical Sammich is in place for the coming zombie infestation/financial and governmental collapse/Mayan calender apocalypse.

In reality, unless you’re a hermit or incarcerated, at some point during the holiday season you’ll be going to a party, voluntarily or involuntarily. Whether it’s a workplace potluck, a New Year’s bash, or a get-together to watch Favorite Football Team play against Rival Football Team, there’s one thing that’s going to be present:

Chips!

Yes, that’s right, chips. During the holiday season, they are quietly ubiquitous, usually sitting near some salsa or onion dip, waiting for you to mindlessly shove into your mouth as you make awkward small talk with that guy whose name you can’t remember or yell impotently at some dude in tights running up and down a length of grass. You may not think of chips as a holiday food, but they’re always there. Waiting. Watching.

Okay, so they’re not really watching. (It’s the salsa that you should be worrying about.)

Chips love to party so much that Tostitos is the official sponsor of the Fiesta Bowl, one of the bigger…bowls that goes on during this…bowl season. I’ll be honest with you, my knowledge of football bowls begins and ends with the male side of my family watching them on tv. I don’t even know why they’re called bowls. But hey, chips go in bowls, so that works…right?

This whole weak chip-and-bowl setup would not have happened except for something I half-heard on my local news this morning. I had to rewind just to make sure I’d heard correctly. The plastic-looking anchorwoman mentioned something about the Chip Drop coming back. I eagerly waited for her to expound, but no further information was given.

What the fuck is a Chip Drop?

Thanks to the Internet, I now know the answer to that question and I am so glad that I do, because it is fucking awesome and ridiculous at the same time. The aforementioned Fiesta Bowl takes place around where I live, and apparently there’s a little tradition known as the Chip Drop of which I was previously unaware. Let’s let the local news website explain:

“The last Chip Drop was in 1998 when Tostitos was the party’s title sponsor. A massive tortilla chip was dropped from a crane into an even larger jar of salsa.

The chip is a triangular, 4-by-4 foot piece of metal covered in small mirrors to represent salt. It will be suspended from a truss system above the video structure and dropped about 15 feet. High intensity beams will shoot from the chip to add flash, complementing the block party’s midnight fireworks show.”

Holy balls, you guys. Fuck watching some stupid disco ball drop in Times Square on your television. Those of us in the Valley of the Sun get the opportunity to watch a giant metal tortilla chip covered in salt mirrors. And the chip shoots high intensity beams. It’s not often there’s something to gloat about from where I live, but the Chip Drop just kicked the ass of all y’alls New Year’s traditions.

What does all this have to do with what I’m reviewing? Well, I’m about to have my own personal Chip Drop with this bag of Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips.

Far be it from me to criticize a chip company for trying to go all holiday on our asses. I mean, Mission could have just stopped at offering red-and-green food-colored tortilla chips, but they weren’t done there. They wanted to make a tortilla chip with some serious holiday zazz. I keep saying “holiday” instead of “Christmas”, because I discovered these too late to review before that particular event, but hey. You know you’re still drinking eggnog. There’s still a tree in the corner of your living room, rapidly dropping needles and becoming more and more of a fire hazard. Give Mission a chance.

I say that with a bit of trepidation on my own part, because, well, tortilla chips and sugar and cinnamon don’t sound like flavors that would jive to me. Tortilla chips go with cheese, salsa, guacamole…but cinnamon and sugar? I know a lot of people like the combination of sweet and savory, but this one didn’t sound like a good match.

Upon opening the bag, however, I started to change my mind. I was immediately hit with the comforting and nostalgic odor of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Cinnamon Toast Crunch rocks.

And, amazingly, so do Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips! Honestly, they taste like thinner versions of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, with just a hint of tortilla at the end. In fact, I’d say these have an even stronger sugar and cinnamon presence. Almost every chip was heavily coated with both sugar and spice, making me feel like I was reaching into a cereal box and not a bag of chips.

I think Mission’s winning secret here is using white corn tortilla chips, which let the sugar and cinnamon dominate while leaving just a tiny bit of tortilla on the back end. I also think making the chips thinner made the tortilla flavor less prominent.

Because I have some sort of compulsion about chips and dip, I immediately wondered what would make a good dip for these chips. After almost going with Funfetti frosting because I will use any flimsy excuse to eat Funfetti frosting despite being a grown woman, I went with Duncan Hines Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting. Delicious.

When I initially bought Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips, I figured they would be totally disgusting, but make for a fun holiday review. Merry Christmas, my taste buds are suffering for your entertainment! I should know by now not to judge a chip by its cover. These chips totally rock; unfortunately, they’re a limited seasonal flavor, so you’ll just have to go back to being that person that eats Cinnamon Toast Crunch straight out of the box the rest of the year.

My only problem with these chips is that I could never blow through a whole bag, just because they are so sweet. Others with a sweet tooth more prominent than mine will probably fare better, but I couldn’t eat more than a handful or so at a time before I went into sugar overload. Also, if you’re a fan of dipping like myself, I wholly recommend a whipped frosting with a vanilla or cream cheese flavor, but any frosting thicker than that and you’re going to get serious chip breakage, as these are thinner-than-average tortilla chips.

I hope you all have a Happy New Year’s! And don’t worry about Jake; he’s a total jerk and you deserve better.

Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips

  • Score: 4.5 out of 5 totally frickin’ awesome Chip Drops
  • Price: $3.29
  • Size: 12 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: First ingredient listed is “ground corn treated with lime”. Thankfully, no lime flavor was detected upon consumption.
Junk Food

Hershey’s Kisses Holiday: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies, Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

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Merry Christmas! Can you believe the last review I posted was Halloween? Life gets in the way sometimes. I’d started up a “Does this smell funny to you?” taster-for-hire business, but it went tits up, so I promise I won’t just be posting on holidays anymore. This doesn’t mean I’ll be posting a review on Boxing Day, but I promise you’ll see me again before Valentine’s Day.

When I think of Christmas Hershey’s Kisses, I think of your run-of-the-mill Kisses wrapped in green, red and silver foil. Apparently, I am ignorant and wrong. There are actually several special flavors of Christmas Kisses available. Well, Hershey’s calls them “Holiday” Kisses, but c’mon. They’re Christmas. Don’t fall in with the PC hype.

There are four different Holiday Kiss flavors: Milk Chocolate filled with Caramel, Milk Chocolate filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies and Dark Chocolate filled with Mint Truffle. I only bought the latter three, and I’m not sure why, because I love chocolates filled with caramel. Perhaps it’s because I’m already pretty familiar with what caramel inside of chocolate tastes like. Perhaps it’s because buying three bags of Kisses is my limit. Whatever the reason, I found the three that I bought to be the most intriguing, so this is what you get. Well, sort of. One of my bags of Kisses went a little…AWOL, you might say. More on that later.

How long have these Holiday Kisses been in circulation? I have no idea. This is the first time I had ever seen them, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been around since 1963. Well, they’re new to me, and maybe they’ll be new to you, too. Listen, just read the words and look at the pictures. Hell, you’re not even going to read the words. It’s Christmas. If you’re here at all, you’ve already eaten five pounds of ham, seven sugar cookies poorly decorated by your young relatives, and bitten the head off of at least one gingerbread man, having a not-so-secret feeling of satisfaction as you watch Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust.

I really hope you’re not actually watching that movie, unless you’re doing it in an effort to repulse your relatives and get a moment of private time for yourself. Desperate times, desperate measures. I understand. I don’t judge.

Hershey’s Kisses Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème

Growing up, cherry cordials were a staple in my house. Not just during the holidays; there always seemed to be a box in the kitchen cupboard, right next to the Entenmann’s donuts variety pack . I did not partake in the cherry cordials. As a youth, I was not a fan of chocolate, and I hated cherries and all things cherry-flavored. I blame that on having to take a horrible “cherry-flavored” medication twice a day for god knows how many years. You can see how the association would taint my opinion.

These days, I am older, and questionably wiser. At the very least, I am more open-minded about trying new things, especially things that I would throw a tantrum over as a kid. I recently learned that green beans ain’t half bad. Hey, it only took two decades to figure that out!

The foil wrapping on the Cherry Cordial Kisses doesn’t exactly scream Christmas. Bright fuchsia with curvy brown stripes that would make Yipes the Zebra jealous? It’s the candy wrapper equivalent of buying a pink plastic Christmas tree.

Encased in classic Hershey’s Kisses chocolate, a pink ooze flooded my mouth as I bit into the candy. It was very viscous, and had a strong cherry flavor. Unfortunately, the taste was rather artificial. The gooey inside was a little cloyingly sweet, but the chocolate actually worked well in taming it a bit.

I could see how some people would be turned off by the texture of the filling, but I grew up with Freshen Up gum, so I wasn’t put off by it at all. Man, I am really showing my age with these references. First Yipes, then Freshen Up. If you were born after 1986, Google them.

At first, I rather enjoyed the Cherry Cordial Kisses, but the flavor got a little overwhelming after about three pieces. I haven’t had a chance to try a real cherry cordial since I’ve broadened my food horizons, so I figured I’d let my mom try one, since she was always the big cherry cordial fanatic. She immediately spit it in the trash and said it was awful.

Well. There’s one opinion.

Hershey’s Kisses Candy Cane Flavored Candies

Come Christmastime, there’s no shortage of peppermint-flavored sweets out there. It’s kind of hard to get excited about yet another candy cane-flavored candy, when I’ve already had at least a dozen of them. Given this, I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to try out these Holiday Kisses.

I am not, however, immune to the charms of Christmasy packaging, and Candy Cane Kisses obviously have the most Navidad-oriented foil wrapping, with the little red candy canes standing out against the shiny silver background. Anybody reaching into a bowl of candy is instantly going to know what these Kisses are all about, even if they are illiterate and can’t read the classic Kiss tissue paper…unwrapper…thingie.

Does that thing have a name? Is it called a flag? I’m going to call it a flag. I’m writing this on Christmas Eve. I can’t be delving deep into the depths of Hershey’s Kisses history to find out what their iconic little piece of paper is called and probably trademarked.

Getting back to the candy itself, I found myself enjoying Candy Cane Kisses more than I thought I would. I like that Hershey’s put the effort into making these Kisses white with red stripes, thus mimicking the look of an actual candy cane as much as they could, given the shape of a Kiss compared to a candy cane.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that, when you bite into a Candy Cane Kiss, there’s little pieces of crunchy candy that add to the already strong peppermint flavor. I’d like to say those little crunchy bits are actual pieces of candy cane, but after reading the ingredients list, I couldn’t find any indication that this was the case. The main flavors of Candy Cane Kisses come from white chocolate and oil of peppermint. That said, the chocolate and the peppermint work great together, and I did love the little candy crunches, even if they weren’t authentic cane. I found myself reaching for a handful after I’d eaten my first one. Afterward, my breath was minty fresh and ready for some hot mistletoe action.

Hershey’s Kisses Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

Speaking of mint, here we have another minty Holiday Kiss. Hershey’s wants to make sure you’re 100% free of ham breath this holiday season.

The Mint Truffle Kiss foil wrapping is appropriately green, with adorable silver snowflakes all over. You may notice that there is no picture of an individually wrapped Mint Truffle Kiss here. There is a reason for this.

There are times when living with a food blogger can be trying. For instance, you get to stand around in the store while I try to find the best package that looks like it will photograph well and have the best chances of the product inside not being crushed or otherwise damaged. And then, once the product has been brought home, it’s hands-off until the photographs have been taken.

I was hanging out with my mom, who was visiting during the holiday season, during this particular purchase. She does not know the rules of food blogging. Before I had a chance to take my coat off once we’d come home, she had already ripped open the bag of Mint Truffle Kisses and was sampling the wares.

I was distressed. I informed her that the package was not to be opened until a picture had been taken. She was mortified, as if she had accidentally thrown away my sure to be award-winning piece of moldy bread that I was going to present at the Science Fair. Before I could get a word in, she already had the Scotch tape out, and was working fervently to repair the opened package with Scotch tape, positioning and re-positioning the plastic until she had repaired the bag to the point that you could barely see it had been opened. Can you spot the repairs? I have to admit, she did an admirable job.

The entire time she was doing this, I was trying to tell her that it was no big deal, and that the more she fussed with it, the more I was just going to make fun of her in this article. I don’t think she heard me. She was too busy trimming off millimeters of tape so it wouldn’t show in the picture.

For as much effort as she put into attempting to restore the bag back to mint (har) condition, she did not seem to take into consideration the fact that I had not taken a picture of the actual candy. So enamored was she with the Mint Truffle Kisses, in fact, that she either ate the whole bag or took the rest of them back to California with her while I wasn’t looking. This means I have no pictures of the foil wrapper or of the inside of the candy itself. Luckily, I did get the picture of the bag, and managed to score a few of the candies to eat for myself, so I can at least tell you how they looked and tasted.

I know you want pictures. I am sorry that I have none. Luckily, there is a candy out there that is remarkably similar to Mint Truffle Kisses: Andes Crème Menthes! You may have found these candies on your pillow upon arriving at a hotel room. You may have gotten one with your check at a restaurant once or twice. Mint Truffle Kisses taste almost exactly like these candies.

These Kisses have a dark chocolate outside, unlike the other Holiday selections. I’m not a huge fan of dark chocolate, but the kind they used for these Kisses is a less cocoa-heavy dark chocolate, and I found it paired fantastically with the minty inside. If you bite a Mint Truffle Kiss in half, you’ll see a green filling, but unlike the gooey, oozing center of the Cherry Cordials, this filling is about the same consistency as the dark chocolate outside, making for a smooth chocolate mint experience.

I enjoyed each of Hershey’s Holiday Kiss offerings, to varying degrees. I liked the pairing of chocolate and cherry in the Cherry Cordial Kisses, but found the artificial cherry flavor a little too strong, and the texture of the gooey center might be off-putting to some.

I thought I would find the Candy Cane Kisses a big yawn, but the creaminess of the white chocolate paired with the crunch of the tiny (although faux) candy cane pieces resulted in a pleasant peppermint candy with a texture that sets them apart from other Kiss varieties.

Pairing a mild dark chocolate with a creamy mint filling in the Mint Truffle Kisses was a no-brainer. If you like mint chocolate chip ice cream, well, you’ve pretty much found that flavor in the form of a Hershey’s Kiss. You could serve your Christmas guests Andes Crème Menthes and get pretty much the same flavor, but you’d be missing out on the iconic Kiss shape and the adorable snowflake wrapping. There’s a reason why my mom ran off with these before I had a chance to take a picture of the candies.

Today is Christmas, so unless you’re an extreme procrastinator, you’ve probably already got all your Christmas candies set out in your Santa-shaped bowls for all to snack on as they wait for their ham or duck or tofurkey or whatever it is you slave over to serve before the wrapping paper starts flying. However, I hope you’ll keep these in mind for next year, if they’re still around, as a fun alternative to the regular ol’ gussied up Hershey’s Kisses. And try the green beans this year; you may find that you like them, after all.

Hershey’s Kisses Holiday: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies and Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

  • Score: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème: 2.5 out of 5 late 1980’s gum references
  • Score: Candy Cane Flavored Candies: 4 out of 5 candy cane Vaudeville Hooks
  • Score: Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle: 4.5 out of 5 carefully Scotch-taped bags of candy
  • Price: $2.50 each
  • Size: 10 oz. bags
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Candy Cane Kisses appear to not contain actual candy canes. The “truffle” in Mint Truffle is unexplained.
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”.
Junk Food, News

News: R.I.P Arch Clark West – Your Doritos Will Hopefully Live on Forever in Thousands of Different Insane Iterations

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I feel like Doritos are the foundation of Junk Food Betty. The first two junk food reviews I ever did were both from the Doritos Late Night line. I posted them on my LiveJournal for my dozens tens few interested friends to read. I’d been knocking around the idea of creating a junk food review site for quite a while, and the encouragement I received from those two reviews finally motivated me to make it happen.

Heck, my very first review on Junk Food Betty was for Doritos Flavor Shots, and in the 2+ years I’ve been writing here, I’ve reviewed 11 different Doritos flavors. Cut me open and I bleed bright orange flavor powder.

Given all that, I obviously owe a debt of gratitude to Arch Clark West, the man who created Doritos. He got the inspiration while vacationing in San Diego, where he happened upon a small shack serving up fried corn tortilla chips. He took the idea back to what was then known as the Frito Company, and decided to spice the chips up a little with some seasoning. And thus, in 1964, the first flavor of Doritos, Taco Flavor, was born. (There’s a bit of controversy on what flavor actually came first, but you can read my review of the recently revived Taco Doritos here.)

Mr. West died on September 20th in Dallas at the respectable age of 97, and his funeral will take place in Dallas on October 1st. According to West’s daughter, those attending will have the opportunity to throw chips into the grave with West’s urn.

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate send-off.

Sources: The New York Times, Phoenix New Times

Casual Dining, News

News: Denny’s Introduces New “Let’s Get Cheesy!” Menu; You Have My Parmesan to Start the Cheese Puns…Now

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Denny’s, I’m starting to fall in love with you. You’re a sit-down restaurant, and when most people think of you, they probably think of breakfast with the family after church. Maybe a drunken late-night meal. Moons Over My Hammy.

When I think of Denny’s, I think of a restaurant chain ahead of its time. By this point, crazy menu items at fast food joints are old hat. Denny’s looked at that and said, “We can do that. We can do that and force people to eat it in public.”

I admire that.

Case, or rather, cases in point: mozzarella sticks inside a grilled cheese sandwich and a cheeseburger with french fries and gravy inside.

Denny’s isn’t resting on their laurels with their Tour of America Menu. They now have a whole new menu called “Let’s Get Cheesy!” And it’s just what you would think. “Urging everyone to try something a little different with their favorite dairy, the new menu boasts a medley of both traditional and unconventional cheesy choices covering, smothering, oozing and gooey with every dish.”

I have an official press release and Denny’s-sanctioned promo pictures in my hot little hands, and by golly, I am going to use them. I’ve decided to showcase them in order of “most normal” to “my God, why is this a thing that exists?” I hope you’ve taken your Lactaid.

Cheese Please Omelette

 

Cheese Please Omelette

“A three-egg omelette with a blend of cheeses folded in, topped off with a creamy cheese sauce and diced tomatoes, served with hash browns and choice of bread.”

Pretty straightforward stuff, here. Looks and sounds quite tasty. Anywhere there’s creamy cheese sauce, sign me up.

Say Cheese Sizzlin’ Skillet

Say Cheese Sizzlin Skillet

“A blend of diced cheddar smoked sausage, fire-roasted peppers and onions, grape tomatoes and seasoned red-skinned potatoes topped with shredded cheddar cheese, cheese sauce and two eggs cooked any way you like.”

This actually sounds quite delicious, although I have my suspicions about the “cheddar smoked sausage”, mostly because I then saw the…

Cheesy Breakfast Sampler

Cheesy Breakfast Sampler

“Featuring a cheddar smoked sausage, two eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese, hash browns topped with melted shredded cheddar cheese and choice of bread.”

I know, cheese inside of a sausage really shouldn’t bother me at all. And it’s probably right up my alley, as far as taste goes. But every time I see something like this, I get all squicked out. Perhaps I had a traumatic incident as a child with some cheese-infused meat product.

Although, the more I stare at the cheddar smoked sausage, the more I want to try it. My palate is always challenging itself, whether my brain likes it or not.

Also, what, no cheese on the bread? C’mon Denny’s, you’ve managed to cram cheese into every other item on the plate, you can’t conjure up some cheesy bread?

The Big Cheese Country Fried Steak and Eggs

The Big Cheese Country Fried Steak and Eggs

“Featuring a golden-fried chopped beef steak covered in pepper jack cheese sauce, served with hash browns topped with melted shredded cheddar cheese, two eggs cooked any way you like and choice of bread.”

Pepper jack cheese sauce on top of a country fried steak may be delicious, but it just sounds (and looks) decidedly unpleasant. Perhaps I’m offended on behalf of sausage country gravy, which is what really belongs on country fried steak. The pepper jack cheese sauce sounds like Denny’s is just trying too hard. On the other hand, as we move along, you’ll see that they can try much harder.

Winner Winner Cheesy Dinner

Winner Winner Cheesy Dinner

“Two golden-fried chopped beef steaks covered in pepper jack cheese sauce, served with a side of new creamy Mac ‘n Cheese, broccoli topped with cheese sauce and dinner bread.”

There’s two reasons this menu item falls below the Big Cheese Country in my hierarchy. The first is the name. Given, most of these have horrible punny names that are designed to embarrass you as the waitress takes your order, but I find this one particularly offensive. “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” is a phrase that has been around for quite a while, with origins in gambling or something, but thanks to this douchebag, I can’t see the phrase or any cheesy derivative without flying into a rage and smashing everything within arms’ reach. I can’t have nice things.

The second reason you may have already noticed on the left hand side of the picture, there. “That’s odd,” you may have said to yourself. “It looks like they accidentally replaced the Mac ‘n Cheese with a bowl full of giant maggots.”

Unfortunately, you’re wrong. That is the Mac ‘n Cheese. It scares me. I’m sure they use some sort of white cheese, and that’s the end of it, but I think I’d prefer it be neon yellow rather than sickly white. Unfortunately, the only descriptor we get is “creamy”. Creamy, indeed.

We’re not out of the woods yet, though. We now come to the “outrageous crazy omg wtf Internet sensation” menu item:

Mac ‘n Cheese Big Daddy Patty Melt

Mac n Cheese Big Daddy Patty Melt

Feast with your eyes. Take a good, long gander. “A hand-pressed beef patty topped with new creamy Mac ‘n Cheese, melted cheddar cheese and zesty Frisco sauce on grilled potato bread, served with a side of wavy-cut French fries.”

I’m not sure what else to say. Denny’s pretty much sums it up. I have seen many sides and snacks stuffed into a sandwich, but this one fills me with particular trepidation. I can’t imagine the texture of pasta going well with hamburger. It freaks me out. As if that weren’t enough, there’s also cheddar cheese and “Frisco” sauce. Taste and texture aside, this sounds like a giant, gooey mess waiting to happen. As if uttering the words “Big Daddy Patty” in public wasn’t humiliating enough, enjoy having your face and hands covered in cheese sauce.

It’s gimmicky, it’s ridiculous, and I want one. Wait, let me rephrase that. I “want” one. Sometimes being a food reviewer is a terrible curse.

Just in case you haven’t had enough cheese in your meal, Denny’s also has two new sweet and cheesy items.

Strawberry Cheesecake Milk Shake

Strawberry Cheesecake Milk Shake

“Thick, creamy hand-dipped milk shake made with vanilla ice cream blended with strawberry topping, cream cheese and real cheesecake. Topped with a dollop of whipped cream.”

Cream cheese in a milk shake. Is this okay? I can’t tell. I love cream cheese, but I’m not so sure I would appreciate it in a milk shake. I can get behind the cheesecake itself, but cream cheese just sounds wrong. Also, this thing sounds heavy enough that you could order it and skip a cheesy entree altogether.

Strawberry Pancake Puppies with Cream Cheese Icing

Strawberry Pancake Puppy with Cream Cheese Icing

“Six bite-sized round pancakes made with strawberry and white chocolate chips. Sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with a side of cream cheese icing for dipping.”

Ow. I think I just got a cavity. While these things sound like sugar overload, I see nothing inherently creepy about them, which is a relief. They actually sound damn tasty, but I could probably only eat one or two before my stomach started protesting. I can’t even finish a donut; I don’t think I could put down a whole plate of these.

“And if the limited-time menu still doesn’t have enough cheese to please you, there’s the option to cheese it up even more by adding some extra ooze to any dish for just 69 cents.”

“Extra ooze”. Not the best phrase I would choose if I were in the marketing business, but after writing this news post, I find it apt. This thing is longer than many of my reviews. I never thought I’d get tired of cheese, but after just writing this review, I feel kind of cheesed-out, and that’s no small feat.

What a muenster of a post! You cheddar believe I’m spent. I hope you all have a Gouda day!

Okay there I’m done.

Edit: No, wait, one more thing: why are all the shakers in these pictures empty? Is there a serious salt and pepper shortage that I should be worried about?

Junk Food

Canadian Candy Cornucopia! (Part Deux)

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Today we conclude our glorious examination of some Canadian candy, courtesy of a generous friend of mine. To read part 1, put your eyeballs over here. As with the previous post, this won’t be a review, but it will have some fun stuff that will bore Canadians but might interest Americans. This post has lots of pictures, so for those of you who don’t like words, enjoy!

Nestle Kit Kat Creamier Chocolate

 

A Kit Kat.

Look at that pretty packaging! So much more shiny and attractive than the United States’ packaging. It almost looks like it’s designed for Valentine’s Day. “Here baby, I got you a Kit Kat!” Romance is different in Canada.

Also a Kit Kat.

Beyond the package difference, there’s not much more to say here. It’s a Kit Kat bar. Break me off a piece of that.

 

Still a Kit Kat.

Bars of crispy wafer stuff with chocolate. If you’re looking for freaky Kit Kats, you’re going to have to look at Japan, not Canada.

Nestle Coffee Crisp Crispy Wafer Bar

Coffee Crisp!  According to Wikipedia, this is a truly Canadian candy. You won’t be finding it anywhere else, minus a few specialty stores in Australia. Apparently, Canadian ex-pats love this candy bar so much that there was a petition on coffeecrisp.org to market it in all US cities. Flying in the face of all that we know about Internet petitions, this one apparently succeeded. However, it gets a little murky after that – long story short, citations needed, and you’re still going to have to get past the Mounties to get yourself a Coffee Crisp.

Doesn’t look like much, I’ll admit. But Coffee Crisp is the shit.

Large layers of crispy wafer goodness lovingly surround a thick middle layer of smooth coffee cream, all wrapped in the embrace of a thin chocolate coating. The coffee flavor is subtle; it doesn’t really hit you until after you’ve swallowed, and even then, it’s mild but still delicious. Even if you don’t like coffee (you heathen bastard), you might still like this candy bar, because the coffee flavor comes with the sweetness of the cream and the chocolate, so it’s like eating a crunchy sissy mocha latte whatever drink, which may sound gross but is totally awesome.

The textures are executed perfectly. Crunchy wafer with smooth cream and chocolate? I couldn’t ask for much more out of a candy bar. The ratios are also perfectly balanced. The coffee flavor is just icing on the cake. In retrospect, I’m lucky this candy bar is restricted to Canada only, because I might switch from salt vampire to sweet tooth, and I don’t think my metabolism or my dental insurance could handle that.

Coffee Crisp – possibly the best candy bar you’ll never taste. Unless you’re Canadian.

Kinder Surprise

I’ve saved the best for last. And by that I mean, I spent an inordinate amount of time taking pictures of tiny toys, so you better fucking appreciate it.

Kinder Surprise has a long and storied history in pretty much everywhere but the United States. I could read the entire Wikipedia article and sum it up for you, but I seriously spent a really long time with these eggs, so go educate yourself here. I’ll break down the most salient points: they are egg-shaped chocolates with toys inside.

Over 80 jouets! I just learned another French word!

You get three of these per box. When you shake them, you can hear the toy rattling around inside. I’m technically an adult, but even I got excited after hearing that rattling. What would be inside my eggs?! I officially declare Kinder Surprise to be the best stocking stuffer ever.

Presenting: the egg.

The chocolate shell that encloses the toys is very thin. Let’s face it; kids love chocolate, but they’re really after what’s inside the egg. Of course, this means Kinder Surprise could use the shittiest chocolate possible, but I actually found it rather tasty. It seems that the outside is milk chocolate and the inside is white chocolate. It melts quickly in your mouth and is pleasantly smooth.  The milk and white chocolate work well together. I could be totally wrong about the white chocolate, but who cares? TOYS!

I bit into my first Kinder Surprise egg to get it open, but it turns out the seam breaks apart easily, leaving you with two intact pieces. I was surprised that the toy wasn’t just sitting there waiting for me; instead, I was greeted with a little pod with an unpleasant yellow hue. My friend sent me two boxes, which, to the math-impaired, equals six eggs, and all the pods were this sickly yellow color. I could think of about 80 different colors that would be more appealing to children. That’s the same number of jouets possible!

Kinder Surprise uses some sort of dark magic to squish all this shit into that little pod. The toys don’t come assembled; depending on what you get, they can range from 2-4 pieces, going off of my own Kinder eggs.

Included with each disassembled toy is a strip of paper listing all the warnings and dangers in every single goddamn language in the world. Seriously, I think I saw Ugandan on there. I don’t even know if that’s a language.

There’s also an insert that shows what…playset, I guess you could say, that the toy comes from. Eh, you’ll get the idea from the pictures.

Before I get to the toys, I’d like to address my earlier statement that Kinder Surprise is not allowed in the United States. There’s a very good reason for this, and I will let Wikipedia explain:

“In 1993 the Ferrero Group (the maker of Kinder eggs) applied to have the eggs sold in the USA, but was turned down because of a prohibition against having an inedible item inside an edible object. More recently, the US Consumer Products Safety Commission determined in 2008 that the product did not meet the small-parts requirement for toys for children under the age of three, creating a choking and asphyxiation hazard in young children. Since 1991, at least 7 children worldwide have died of choking after swallowing the toy inside the Kinder egg.”

This is no fucking joke. Each Kinder toy, even assembled, is no bigger than the size of a half dollar. Some of the components are smaller than an Advil tablet. Furthermore, you’re encasing these tiny toy components inside a chocolate egg. Put yourself inside the mind of a four-year-old: “This tiny, tiny piece of plastic smells like chocolate! I should definitely put it in my mouth!” I’m usually a proponent of natural selection in cases like this, but even my cynical ass can look at these things and say, “This is a very bad idea.”

Apparently, the rest of the world disagrees.

Eh, fuck it. Americans are pussies. Who cares. Let’s look at the toys!

Despite having a selection of over 80 jouets, I managed to get a duplicate toy amongst my six eggs. This was the duplicate. Here, you can also see what I mean by the insert showing the set that the toy belongs to. I got a…fire…hoverboat? With a giant fireman’s helmet on top? Is the rest of the world utilizing some sort of hoverboat technology to put out fires? The US really needs to get on that.

My firehoverboat came in three pieces. I could have swallowed any one of them with a glass of milk.

Here we have a different, yet similar, fire department scene. I guess this one is all about the tiny fire midgets who bravely fight the tiny Kinder fires. This toy only had two pieces, but here we see one of Kinder Surprise’s failings: the tiny nub on the fire midget that should have connected the fire pole to the base was too big for the hole in the base. Tiny fire midget is doomed to slide down a pole that never ends. He is also doomed to never stand upright.

Tiny fire midget is one of the bigger pieces I got in my Kinder Surprises. I would probably need something pretty viscous to swallow him. Maybe some V8.

Here we have Hockey Duck, who is a part of the Hockey Guy set. Hockey. Canada! Kinder Surprise likes to perpetuate stereotypes.

They all appear to be different animals, although I would question whether or not some of the animals are real. I had to screw on his legs and then attach them to the base. It took me a second to realize that the other piece was a hockey puck on ice. I thought it should connect to the figurine, but try as I might, I could not find a way to fit the swirlies on the base to the swirlies on the ice. Maybe the ice connects with the ice pieces of the other toys pictured? I do not know. It will forever be a mystery, because I live in the United States.

I probably couldn’t choke down assembled Hockey Duck, but I could swallow his legs with a bit of water.

Now we’re getting to one of my two favorites: Crazy Ears Bunny. That’s his mobster name.

I haven’t addressed this yet, but each insert is two-sided: one side is a picture of the group that the toy belongs to, and the other side varies between just a boring picture of the toy enlarged (firehoverboat) or instructions on how to assemble the toy (Hockey Duck and this guy).

I’d been playing around with Kinder toys for a while at this point, and Crazy Ears Bunny frustrated the hell out of me. Perhaps all the assembling and picture-taking had fried my brain, but these instructions made about as much sense as the instructions to building an Ikea desk. The nose has a component that fits inside the two halves of the toy, and it took me a few tries to figure out how to fit it in there.

The ears were all folded up inside the pod, and they refused to straighten out, no matter how much I ran them across the edge of my fridge like someone trying to smooth out a dollar bill on the side of a vending machine. I also didn’t figure out for a while that you had to fold the base and then fold the- you know what, I’m still not really sure how that was supposed to work. I kinda like how they turned out, though. They look…jaunty.

Here we see Crazy Ear Bunny’s Crazy Ear friends.

…Wait, I just realized something. That’s not a bunny! It’s Crazy Ear Rhino! That is ten times more awesome and I am really unobservant. There’s even an actual bunny in the picture and I missed it.

Anyways, the entire Crazy Ear crew is awesome. There seems to be some indication that their ears work like helicopters and they can all fly. Considering I could barely keep the ears upright on my rhino long enough to take a picture, I have doubts about it flying, but they are still the coolest kids in Kinder school. I love that Crazy Ear Giraffe has no neck but super long ears. Now he can fly up to the trees to eat the leaves, and his neck will never be tired again.

I could probably swallow Crazy Ear Rhino’s horns after working up a mouthful of saliva.

And here’s my favorite: Dino Hatchling! I’m not sure what kind of dinosaur he is, but that’s okay, because none of them in the picture look very specific. If Dino Hatchling looks fuzzy in the picture, that’s because he is! He feels sort of like the felt on a pool table, and I love it. He also appears to be hatching from his egg in a very awkward way. Actually, looking at the illustration, it looks more like he’s already hatched, and has decided to hang out in his shell, rocking a casual paw-resting-on-tail pose.

Dino Hatchling only has two pieces, the Hatchling itself and a little purple flower looking thing that attaches to his back. I have no idea what it is supposed to be, but it is small enough that I could probably swallow it without even noticing. Seven children dead.

Dino Hatchling comes with a different kind of insert. You can color him! The picture obviously demands that you use a periwinkle colored pencil or else you’re doing it wrong. There’s also a bunch of dots, which would seem to suggest there’s also a connect-the-dots game involved, but they don’t seem to really connect…anything. Kinder Surprise, sometimes I don’t understand you at all.

Kinder Surprise has a real Pokemon “collect ’em all” vibe going, which is good for them but bad for parents and their wallets. I don’t know how much a box costs, but I know if I were a kid living in Canada, I would demand that they be bought until I had the entire fuzzy dinosaur collection. Complete with fully choke-able accessories. You’re a sly dog, Kinder Surprise.

And thus ends our tour through the wonderful world of Canadian candy. Today, we learned that Canada has more savvy Kit Kat packaging, Coffee Crisp bars are awesome and I will probably never have one again, and Kinder Surprise wants to kill your children unless you live in the US. They also have inscrutable assembly instructions.

Well, it’s been fun, but I guess it’s back to American junk food for me. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures and the mental image of a grown woman fumbling with tiny toy parts. A special thanks again to my Canadian friend for sending me all these lovely gifts. Poutine Alex Trebek Clearly Canadian.

Junk Food, News

News: Cheetos Crunchy and Doritos Fiery Fusion Shock The World by Combining the Flavors of Peppers and Cheese

2 Comments

I was immediately excited and then somewhat un-excited to see new Cheetos Crunchy and Doritos Fiery Fusion snacks at my local convenience store the other day. My brain went, “Yay! New chip flavors!” Then my eyeballs looked closer and saw that the “Fusion” flavors were “Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese”.

Forgive me for not throwing handfuls of confetti in the air, but the “spicy/cheese” combo has become a bit played out to me. Notable ingredients in the Cheetos Fiery Fusion include brown sugar, aged red cayenne peppers, blue cheese, cheddar cheese, jalapeño pepper, and paprika. The Doritos version differs slightly, using regular sugar and containing no blue cheese but keeping the cayenne, jalapeño and paprika.

One serving of Cheetos Crunchy Fiery Fusion contains 150 calories, 10 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 190 milligrams of sodium, 14 grams of carbohydrates and no cholesterol.

One serving of the Doritos version of Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese has 140 calories, 8 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 160 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates and no cholesterol.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy spicycheesy snacks just as much as the next capsaicin-tolerant person. I’ll probably give one or both of these Fusions a try at some point. I’d just like to see a little more creativity from the Frito-Lay flavormakers. No word if “Fiery Fusion” is going to be a whole line or just a one-shot deal, but I wouldn’t mind seeing future varying concoctions show up in the snack aisle.

Source: Frito-Lay’s website