I’ve got to credit the snacksmiths at Michael Season’s - they’re incredibly generous. I was grateful to the homegrown Illinois company already for sending me some of their Baked Multigrain Chips to review a few weeks ago. Apparently, Michael Season’s was satisfied with my review - I was pleasantly surprised, this morning, to discover a second box of Michael Season’s goodies, larger than the first, waiting at my door.

In eager anticipation, I peeled away the industrial tape and cardboard to find… Cheetos, Michael Season’s style. Not only did the “Natural Gourmet” gift me with its “Ultimate Cheddar Cheese Curls” - oh no. The Midwestern proponent of “Feel Good Snacking” also threw in its Cheddar Cheese Puffs in both Original and White Cheddar. To top this all off, they decided it would be a great idea to also include the healthier “baked” incarnations of the Cheese Curls and Cheddar Puffs. I laid the selection across my kitchen counter, feeling a bit daunted - being a lone reviewer, I had my work cut out for me!
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I am deeply suspicious of snacks that make health claims. Healthy eating doesn’t mean giving up pleasure in food. That won’t make you live forever – it’ll just feel that way. As long as you get all your fruits and vegetables and so on at meals, there is nothing wrong with a snack that’s just junk once in a while.

What’s more, I’ve lived through enough bogus food trends – oat bran, low fat snacks that ended up having twice as much sugar, people eating nothing but bacon and meat and thinking it is a health diet – to have learned that any health claim is going to be used as a way to make money by companies whose only interest in your health is whether you have the strength left to take your wallet out of your pocket.

So when I was asked if I wanted some samples of these to review, I was all, “Bring them on! You can’t fool all of the people all of the time! I wasn’t born yesterday! Etc.!”
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This was tough. What with all the excitement over the election - I never thought I’d live to see people celebrating an election in the streets like a sports win - I was feeling unusually patriotic.

So, comparing these Vermont-made cookies to the Canadian Dare maple cookies, I wanted them to be better. I expected them to be better. They were prettier, for one thing. And larger. And had a nice rustic effect with different amounts of cream in each one, not so factory-made looking. And, Vermont. What could be a more maple-y, all-American place?
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Last week, as I was cleaning my apartment (a rare enough occurrence), I came across a box which seemed out of place. Intrigued, I opened it up to discover a small treasure of snacks from the folks over at Divvies. Words I won’t repeat here suddenly erupted forth as I realized that this box had been sitting around for a few weeks and the review was sorely overdue.

As I looked through the contents I realized someone else would probably be a better fit to do the review, as I don’t really like ginger in any form. So, I figured I would just pack the box back up and send it on its way to one of the other writers. That’s when a little voice told me to look at the expiration date on the cookies. D’oh! They’d never make it before their date expired. Panicked, I searched my brain for someone close by who could review them. This is when I realized that a) I really need to get more friends and b) my employer loves baked goods! I trotted over with the box and settled in to record her opinion.
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Maple! It’s not just for breakfast anymore.

I like chocolate and vanilla and fruit flavors as much as the next guy, but is that all there is? Sometimes it seems that way.

But how about maple. Those fiendishly clever Canadians. Why didn’t we think of that? I am always despairing that America is losing the international race for deliciousness to other countries. And partly it is that those other countries have wonderful flavors like green tea, black sesame, coconut… that we don’t use enough of.

I know, it’s not reasonable to expect, say, green tea flavored Twinkies. But, maple. I used to live in Massachusetts, I know we make maple in this country. What’s our excuse?

Well, until we catch up in the cookie-flavor arms race, if you see these, give them a try. They are not crazy sweet like eating maple syrup, but mild and nicely fragrant. You won’t eat many packaged cookies that smell this good. The texture of the cookie is good, not too hard, just crumbly enough. They are good dunked or not. They are also pretty, in the shape of maple leaves with nicely embossed veins. All terribly civilized, in the best possible way.
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