.FooRd BloRg. Crunchle Krunch Crunx

Is it just me or does time seem faster as you get older? When you are young time seems so slow. I recall the minutes of a clock lasting a lifetime. Now it seems that the days are short and years are a blur. Did you know mallards are monogamous?

Ok. See, what happened there is I am pretty bad at segues. What is a segue? It is a smooth transition from one subject or topic to another. Did you know that the king of hearts is the only king without a mustache? Think about it dudes. Shave that thing off your face. The king of hearts. He is the king of hearts. He wouldn't lie. 

A segue requires a logical bridge between the two subjects. My brain doesn't build logical bridges. My bridges are a bit more like the end scene in Labyrinth where there is all those steps and the girl can't figure out how to get to Bowie but she can see him.  I am also bad at segues because I will learn something and I will need to share it with everyone I know and I don't finesse it into the conversation either. Example: 

Person: Nice weather we are having.

Me: Yes. I read that a crow lives in a family group ranging from 2-15. And every family is called  a murder. Want to go 50/50 on this fruit roll up? It is grape.

Sarah recently went to a candy store on NW 23rd and she saw a wall of black licorice containers. Different shapes etc... I have seen red licorice ropes and laces and wheels. So who is this person that is sitting around like "Rope? Oh somebody did that? How about a smaller rope? Like a shoe lace. Somebody did that? What if the shoe lace is all wound up and you can then unroll the lace. Somebody did that? AH. Boot? Damn. Sheep? Arg! Pirate? Double Arg! Booty? Yeah, like tiny licorice tooshes. Whew. We did it." That is what I imagine. Just a weird licorice loving snack engineer sitting in a basement somewhere brainstorming licorice shapes. Did you know pearls melt in vinegar? True.

I love bad segues. I love snacks. Lets combine those two.

First up we have a snack that Sarah found at an asian grocery. They are a type of snack named ball cookies. Keep it together. These are called honey ball cookies. This brand is called Hot Kid but we will get to that later. That makes this snack 'Hot Kid's Honey Ball Cookies." I am pretty sure that typing that sentence puts me on some kind of government list. What can you do? Snacking has risks.

Why isn't this snack called "chicken egg cookies?" It is far less questionable. Plus they went thru all the trouble of having chickens all over the packaging. I thought that these cookies were shaped like eggs not balls but then I also thought that they were crackers not cookies.

But wait it gets weirder. Look at the warning in the clear part of the bag. Think about that. They made a nearly invisible warning on food item. What? Was the white background too expensive? Look at the top of the picture at what they did print on white background. "Jim want ball cookie" WTF? What kind of super weirdness is this? Who is Jim?

Finally we have this. That must be Jim. Now I am really hoping that the "hot" that they are referring to is a temperature situation and not how I would feel I'd look in that ensemble. How is the actual ball cookie? Well.  The ball cookie sack, when opened, smelled of flour, paper, and honey. I was disappointed because I thought that this would be like goldfish crackers but instead it was silly little cookie puff balls. We had this on a family outing to the beach. Nobody cared for them. Really the most interesting thing about this snack is the bag. The cookies are barely a cookie. You bite into it and it quickly dissolves in your mouth. Forgettable with a hint of honey. I bet that if you had these as a child than maybe you'd like them as an adult. For me it doesn't do much. I give this snack a 2-A ducks quack doesn't echo and nobody knows why AND Walt Disney was afraid of mice-out of 5.

Oh good. A soy sauce flavored watermelon seed. Yeah. Not a sunflower seed. Which is a seed that people normally eat. This is a soy sauce flavored watermelon seed. A seed that people have always spit out. Now we know why. It has nothing to do with them being inedible and everything to do with that they don't taste like soy sauce. Sarah also found this snack at the same market and we ate these on the same beach trip mentioned earlier.

I didn't go in the ocean.

There is a good look at the ingredients. Very interesting. Not really. In fact I have no idea why I even took that picture. Did you know that peanuts are an ingredient in dynamite? I wonder if dynamite has a warning on the side "Manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts." Like wise peanuts would seem pretty bad ass if they had a warning "Processed in a dynamite factory."

Were these good? Well they smelled like a leather wallet aged in a well and dried with salt on it. It was bitter and very soy saucy. It was also difficult to chew and seemed burnt. In short, this is a terrible thing to put in your mouth.

Here is a list of better things to put in your mouth: soil, lower grade soil, hobo slept on soil, soil on a hobo, hobo, owl pellets, lawn furniture that has received a urine shower, a photo of Rosie O Donnell, a soil covered photo of Rosie O' Donnell, a grave robber's pants, or you could lick the lower portion of a glass door in a day care.

This will surely turn you off of both soy sauce and watermelon seeds. I wish I could go into graphic detail about how gross it was. But again it just isn't that memorable. I give this snack a 0-Your stomach has two produce a new layer of mucus every 2 days or it will digest itself.  Justin Timberlake is 31-out of 5.

Ok these nuts are available at many asian markets and groceries. They might look like that nut snack at Trader Joes but these are far better. First of all, Trader Joes really really sucks. Think about it. Nothing good comes from there. It is a grocery store of one brand. It belongs in a mall. They have frozen trash that isn't very good trash and poor produce and lame cheeses and cheap wine that is gross. ZING! Take that! One person doens't like trader joes. I am sure they care. My point is that the trader joes nut snack has funky lime leaves in it. This mix just has peanuts, pepper flakes and pepper corns. Sarah loves these nuts. What is there not to love.

Look at this dreamy field. Rolling hills covered in nothing but nut bushes. I didn't know that you'd find nuts under bush. I assumed nuts grew in trees. I guess that peanut is a ground nut meaning that it grows in the ground. The first Portland Rose festival was today June 20th 1907.

So I have no idea what this product is called I just know what it is. Clearly the illustration shows: 1. Shake bag. 2. Break tooth. 3. Eat a steaming hot dish of leaf and ovals. Is this a good snack? Do you like heat? I sure as heck do. These nuts are great. Sometimes the pepper corns are a bit much but the chili and peanuts are delicious. I give this treat a 5-The nobel peace prize depicts three naked men with their hands on each others shoulders and on average a 100 people choke to death on ball point pens-out of 5.

Lastly we have another cheeto flavor from Tokyo. I ordered this snack from japan. I am not sure why. It is flavored to taste like Tteokbokki. I know. It looks like I had a seizure while typing. It is a dish prepared with rice cakes cut into rectangles and stir fried with ginkgo nuts and sometimes seafood and then covered with cheese. I guess not all are covered in cheese but this one is. Sound good?

Now lets just put the weird dish name and flavor aside and look at what is going on in that picture. It looks to me like that dog has rolled that boy up in a blanket. I saw this once done to a man who took a lot of extacy or lsd or both and he was dressed like fred flintstone. Well, he was flipping out and pooped in a bush and white bird, who were like the crazy wranglers, came and rolled him up in a blanket and took him away. So in my mind, that boy made this dish and that dog was like "he HAS to be on drugs!' and has rolled him up. I bet that is it.

It looks pretty good to me but looks can be deceiving. It smells like a cheeto. Like puffed corn and some type of dried spice. It tastes like if the three words "I don't know" had a flavor. I haven't had this dish and my brain has no idea what to do with this flavor. It isn't really cheesy. It isn't really sweet or savory. It is somewhere in the middle. Now you might be thinking that doesn't sound that bad but think about this. I am in my thirties. I have tasted a wide array of flavors. When you taste something and you can't quite place it your brain does odd things. It panics like "This isn't food! What are we doing?" It feels creepy for something to be texturally normal but flavor wise it is something unknown. I think that our brain also tells us if something is rotten much in  the same way. You bite into an apple and the texture might be the same but then your brain says "This doesn't taste like apple. Eject!" 

Well the texture was corn puff but the flavor was a mystery which ultimately I found unnecessary to eat. For really no reason I give this snack a 3-The cigarette lighter was invented before the match and the king of hearts represents Charlemagne- out of 5.

You should all be more like Charlemagne. (*Actually just shave. I don't know what kind of life he lived.) 

.FooRd BlooRg. Joy!

Greetings! This post is going to be a joyous one. By definition joy means an emotion evoked of well being. Uh, yeah I guess. I could sum up a large chunk of my childhood joy in one word with 5 letters and two syllables. Candy. Sure there were other things. Like christmas presents or birthday presents or random presents not associated with my birth or christs. What? Kids are pretty self absorbed. (It isn't their fault but it is pretty much the truth.) Who else, while still believing in god, would be like " Yes. Merry Christmas! Happy birthday jesus! Where is my bike? What? Kevin got a bike when HE was 7! What did I get? What is this shit? A doll? Are you f*cking kidding me? Have you been to my room? It only has like a bizzangle amount of dolls! (At that age, bizzangle does sound like a mathamatical amount of dolls to have.) One more doll! Yippee. No, you know what? I have enough dolls that I could go in the backyard, next to the Chipper's house (the dog) and build my own house. Yes, a LITERAL doll house. Actually, you know what,  I can't because Kevin hasn't been picking up Chipper's poops. Yeah, that is right! Screw you Kevin! If I am getting played like this YOU ARE ALL GOING DOWN! Mom wears secret ankle socks to the grocery store and dad smells of lady lotion! Oh, I am out of order? This whole christmas is out of order. With a christmas like this I can't believe that god is real. Especially since neither Joseph or Mary are storks and THAT is my understanding of where babies come from."-Kayla age 7.

Yeah sure there were joyous times with family and friends but I don't think you really get that understanding until you are older and reflect back at how awesome those times were. I am talking about at that age and at that time. Candy is one of the major joys. Obviously with this blog a by product is a large amount of odd and sometimes inedible candy and snacks. Some of those I can take to work and people will try them and most of the time the things I have hated on the most become quite well received by others. Chili Rokkas became a fave of a coworker and I hated them. Sadly it all doesn't make it to work. Another stock pile develops at home. Recently we had some home troubles in the shape of a sink leaking and majorly f-ing up our floors. So we had a contractor come out and one time he brought his son. I have no idea how old his son was but somewhere between 8-12 I'd guess. Well the contractor left the room to get a fan and there I was with a child I didn't know. I looked over my shoulder while searching for some common denominator between this child and my thirty something self. That is when I saw it: candy. Here is the problem with that situation though. When you are a thirty something male talking to a stranger's child there is no possible way of saying "you like candy?" without being totally creeped out. In fact I think that very scenario should be used as a screening for people. 

Interviewer: Ok, so hypothetically you are in a room with a child you don't know.

Guy: How'd I get there?

Interviewer: That isn't important. On the table is a bowl of assorted candy.

Guy: Is there Nutter Butter?

Interviewer: That isn't important....Also that is a cookie. The child doesn't see the candy.

Guy: Is he blind? Is the candy blind? I mean invisible.

Interviewer: No and no. It is just in a bowl. A bowl that ...he just hasn't seen the candy. Ok? Now say the line please.

Guy: You like candy?

Interviewer: Ok. How was that for you?

Guy: Oh good.

Interviewer:Not creeped out in the slightest?

Guy: No. Does he want some candy?

Interviewer: Really ok with this situation?

Guy: Oh yeah. Can I go now? My windowless van is double parked.

Interviewer: (into watch) We are going to need to take this one down. I repeat, the muskrat is doing the watoosie.

-And Scene-

What was I talking about? Oh yes, the joy of candy. Of simpler times. In honor of that our 1-5 scale will be recalling said times of joy.

Up first we have Krachie Puchitto soft candy. This flavor is grape in case you didn't notice that the candy is shaped like grapes. Do you know who likes grapes? Bunnys. Yep but only soft grapes because a bunny's mouth is like a tiny silk purse. True. Also a bunny doesn't chew to break down food. It merely cradles it in its silken mouth until the food relaxes enough to slide down in's esophogus. Yeah. They don't eat carrots either. Too hard. That whole fallacy was concocted by rabbit farmers to keep questionable folks from touching their bunnys. (*I clearly know nothing about rabbits or bunnies.)

Ah! What is that shady monkey up to? Bunny-stay away from the candy! I think the monkey holding the log in the sky which says something on it-is up to no good! Seriously, what is up with the monkey? Who holds a log like that? We can clearly see his lower torso behind that log. So am I to understand that the mascot for this snack is a log palming monkey? Yes? Ok. No that isn't weird at all. (I didn't want to say anything but it also looks like that monkey is "you know"ing that log.)

So the whole appeal to this candy, other than being soft is each kind pulls apart into tiny pieces. So the grape flavor pulls apart into individual grapes. The orange flavor has a rind you remove and you can separate the segments. Pretty clever right? And is it fun? Well, upon opening the bag you are greeted  with a fantastic grape aroma. Think about that pungent grape gum you had in your youth. Yeah, thats the good stuff. It smells heavenly.

The texture is what you pick up on first when putting it in your mouth. It is like a stale marshmellow. Not in a bad way. Maybe more like a chewier marshmallow. Then comes the sweetness and then the grape flavor wave. It is delicious. I can't say I am crazy about pulling the tiny grapes off. Or eating candy that is a fourth the size of a pencil eraser. That being said if you toss the whole thing in your trap it is quite enjoyable. A tad chewy, a bit fluffy or squishy, and very very grape. Was it a joy? Yes. Would a kid find it a joy? You bet they would. (Except maybe Kayla age 7)

Sarah just tried this treat. She smelled it and said "ooh yeah!" and thought that the pulling it apart into smaller pieces was the best part. She also said that it tasted like grape Big League Chew. She liked it.

I give this snack a 5-Swimming. The feeling of weightlessness as a kid in a pool was a magical joy.-out of 5.

Who doesn't want Smog Balls in their mouth? Most people actually. Yet here it is. This snack wa given to me by my parents for this blog. How cool is that? Pretty dang cool but lets just get somethings out of the way here. First of all, calling a sour goo candy "Toxic waste" can be gross fun for a kid. I agree with that idea. However attempting to build an empire of environmental themed candy is not a great business model. Here is why: Smog is a concept that kids not only don't care about but the don't need to. Gi-Joe doesn't stop mid battle and say "Cobra! We will be back when this smog isn't so unbarable. I mean the airborne soot particles right now have to be a hazard to local floral and fauna." Doesn't happen. Do you think Barbie's car is a hybrid? Nope. She lives in a pink mansion with a bizzangle amount of clothing, shoes, and accesories. Her whole world runs on coal and internal combustion. Don't even get me started on the Transformers.

Second of all, I guess I just had a first of all.

Now what am I supposed to make of this nuclear explosion which is obviously experiencing moderate to high levels of gastrointestinal discomfort. It just makes me think that this product might give me the emergency-D. (That is code for diarrhea.) I don't want the emergency-D on a good day and certainly not at an atomic level. I don't even think that sour candy can have that effect can it? I don't know why I am asking. I hope I never know. Ever.

So in the back of the bag of candy they included a story to rationalize their asinine choice to invent Smog Balls. It has something to do with Dr. Smogg and he wants to cover the earth is toxic chemicals that will rain down from the sky and some dude named Professor Sauernoggin (nice one) who can blast the chemical rain cloud and make it rain sour candy instead. That is the jist of it. It is really dumb. Trust me when I say that no kid is going to give a rats watoosie about that story. They just want whomever is reading it to them to shut up and give them the candy. Also I'd like to say that calling something toxic but teaching kids to eat it seems dangerous. Right? So they hear "Timmy, that is toxic!" and what Timmy hears is "That most likely has been cured by sauernoggin and comes in a variety of flavors ranging from but not limited to blue raspberry and windex." RIP Timmy. Taken from us so very young.

Are they good? Well. when you bite into one it has a crunchy candy shell and a soft sour interior. That pretty much sums up the experience. Is it sour? Not really very sour. I mean when I hear sour I imagine sucking on a lemon. (Which I love to do.) I guess sour as well as spicy is all relative to a person's taste. For me I will say that this isn't super sour. Now I am not saying that the level of citric acid isn't reminiscent of stomach bile because it is. Close your eyes and imagine eating a large amount of sub par Skittles and then having a vurp. What is a vurp? You know when you burp but some stomach acid comes up into your mouth and throat? That is a vurp. That pretty much encapsulates the aftermath of eating Smog Balls. Sound awesome?? Well luckily there are 6 flavors of regret in each bag. One of which and I am not joking, tastes how window cleaner smells. Seriously. Remember what I said earlier about "toxic"? Coincidence? Hmm.

Sarah just came in and tried this snack and she said it smelled good but when she tried the lime flavor that it was NOT sour. She said it tasted like stale tiny jawbreakers and that the strawberry wasn't bad but seemed like it tasted like strawberry nerds and that she didn't want to try others because she didn't want the windex one.

I give this snack a 1-people falling down-out of 5. Think about it. Kids get so much joy out of people falling down. Some of us adults think it is pretty awesome too. One time, Sarah, Dave and I were walking in the snow and Sarah slipped and fell which caused Dave to fall and then I stepped in the same place she slipped and I fell. It was hilariously painful.

Next up is Sumiyaki Coffee Candy!!! I love coffee. I really do. I love the smell. I love the taste. I LOVE COFFEE! My big problem when it comes to coffee drinks or coffee candy is that they usually involve cream and sugar. I only like black coffee. That is what I want. Just black. So I was hesitant to try this snack but it also said coffee on it so I wanted to try it. Ugh. So is my curse. My coffee curse.

Oh I get it. There are the beans and the coffee grinder and candy. That pretty much sums up coffee candy. Thanks candy bag designers. I had so many questions about what I was about to experience. I mean I know what candy is and I know how to drink coffee but coffee candy? I don't get it.

Oh I get it now. The candy comes in these cute silver teepees. The cuteness stops there sadly because the taste of this candy is not awesome. This tastes like old person candy. You know, the type of candy that every kid can tell is not meant for children. It isn't fun or particularly delicious. In this case it tastes like sweetened hard candy and stale old person mouth who just drank coffee which was also stale and the coffee has a mouth and it drank older coffee and it is kissing you too. (That got weird. Sorry.)

Ok close your eyes again and imagine eating a plain sugar disc candy and then your grandma who just drank a coffee gave you a big kiss. ugh. I know. I know. What did I expect. Of course it is going to be sweet but did it have to be so sweet? The candy not the grandma. Ok open your eyes.

I know. It is candy. I get it. Shame on me.

I give this snack a 3-fars-out of 5. Kids get so much joy out of gas. They do! It is like a brief toy to them. It happens to anyone and kids will roar with laughter. That is why Eddie Murphy has a 5 fart a movie clause in his contracts. (*Not a fact but it could be.)




*BONUS*

What?? Oh amn. Not Salsagheti???? Again? But I did this already! Oh wait. That was mango and this is watermelon. Fine. I will try stupid salsagheti again. This was a gift from Sarah's mom from when she went to Mexico. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the thought. I do. She wouldn't know that this was one of the first things we tried and how god awful it is. However we did and it was not great. It is funny to look back on that, years ago and how the natural evolution of this blog has changed. I am in no way a connoisseur or chef or know it all on food in any way. I am just a person who wanted to experiment with writing and this seemed like an appropriate avenue. Things were bound to change as each post is different and written in one sitting of about 2 hours. That being said some of the old posts are strange to me. Can you tell that I just don't want to eat the candy? Procrastination.

I said it last time but what is up with the duck? The duck is not a typical mexican animal nor an italian animal. Will someone please tell me why it is the spokes animal for salsagheti?,,,, And how is that duck supposed to fly with his wings pulled thru a shirt?

Crap. Just look at it. It doesn't even look good. It looks like it tastes. Like dirt and sadness. I think it may be sensing my fear. Look at the beyond lame packet of sickness that it comes with. Oh lord.

There. Much better. Don't you just want to drag some candy noodles thru that sewer leak?  MMMM. Joy! Nobody should want this.

It smells like leather and the breath of someone who may have eaten fruit once whispering the words "dream of a better life."-"One without salsagheti." The noodle itself tastes like cheap gummy laces with salt and sugar or earth rubbed on it. Not pleasant in the slightest. The poo goo is salt and chili and mucus I think. Like if someone put some salt and chili in the palm of their hand and sneezed it into your mouth. That good. No joke kids, get some of this. Together the two parts play out like two bad jokes on your tongue. Either way your feeling will be hurt. No joy. NO JOY AT ALL.

This snack gets a 0-people getting hit in the crotch-out of 5. Only the twist here is it is the first time you got hit in the crotch and it hurt. Like really hurt. That is the day the laughter died. Some shred of innocence was never to return because of that crotch shot. I hate you Salsagheti.

Thanks for reading. Till next week.