Snack Review: Damn Good Cookies

Hey Snackers! Quick intro, since I’ve meandered my way over here from Candy Addict: I’m Monica; I really like cookies; and I love four-letter words. (It’s true. I know exactly the one I will supply when James Lipton inevitably asks for my favorite curse word one day, and it has exactly four letters.) Now, armed with this all-important information, it wouldn’t be difficult for one to imagine the warm reception that greeted the package of Chocolate Gourmet’s Damn Good Cookies (and Ugly Truffles, reviewed over at Candy Addict) when they recently arrived at my house. Jammed inside an unassuming cardboard box was a selection of ten different gourmet cookies for my sampling, a quantity that necessitated an act that falls decidedly lower on my list of favorites: sharing. So, tasting cohort by my side, I settled in for a sugarfest this weekend, and am happy to report my findings.

Read more

Snack Review: Little Debbie 100 Calorie Snacks

I’ve been crazy about Little Debbie since I was Little Jimmy. I remember fervently wishing that the cute cowgirl on the snack cake package lived nearby so we could play together, not knowing Debbie was easily twice my age at the time. Like all good stories, there’s a narrative arc: Now Little Debbie is following ME! On Twitter! (LittleDebbie is trying to make you salivate like a Great Dane who missed lunch. about 5 minutes ago from web)

What’s more, she sent me a huge box of cute li’l snacks! For pre-packaged, mass-produced cakes and sweet treats, you can’t find much better than this.

The trick to wise snacking is sensible portions in moderation. Little Debbie’s 100 Calorie Snacks help us do just that, or at least suggest it; the rest is up to us. These snacks have about the same fat and sugar content as their regular items, but the serving sizes are anywhere from 50-60% smaller. In short, you’re eating the same sweet and fatty food, just less of it. At least it’s a start.

Although I’m not a body builder like the narrator’s father and brothers in Jonathan Evison’s excellent first novel, All About Lulu, I swear I thought my arms were super bulked when I grabbed a Yellow Cake (with “butter creme” icing) and a Triple Fudge Brownie.

Man, I’m massive!

Read more

Japanese Snack Review: Every Burger

Over the holidays I took my annual pilgrimage to the Mitsuwa marketplace in Edgewater, New Jersey. Now, I don’t want to hear from you West Coasters, taunting me about how you live right near one of these or some other equally large Japanese market. For me this is a big deal.

The biggest snacking news there was that one of the stands had black sesame soft ice cream. While you can now get a few ice cream products in that flavor that are made in this country - I’ve got one in my freezer that I’ll review for you as soon as I forget the soft ice cream, because the comparison wouldn’t be fair - I’ve only had it in soft ice cream in Japan. And somehow it’s just so much better that way than in any other ice cream type. So delicious that I did not know whether to jump up and down, or cry; I seriously considered moving to New Jersey instead of both of those, but unfortunately that is not a realistic option.

As for things I could buy and take home in a bag rather than my stomach, the market disappointed me by a lack of Crunky, and I remembered my vow not to buy any other Japanese chocolate snacks. But these Every Burger things - OK, there is some chocolate in them, but that is clearly not the point. The point is that they look like little tiny hamburgers.

Read more

Snack Review: Tim Tams

Dear Australian expats living in America. Has something been missing from your life? Something creamy, chocolaty, and delightfully rectangular? Something, perhaps, by the name of Tim Tam?! Well, rejoice! Because, as of this winter, Tim Tams are taking up temporary residence in the United States!

That’s right. In its great beneficence, the Campbell’s Soup Company, which owns Australian cookie producer Arnott’s, is releasing Tim Tams through Pepperidge Farm (which it also owns, because Campbell’s Soup is a huge corporation). These tempting treats are big on the cocoa, consisting of two chocolate wafers injected with chocolate cream and surrounded by a chocolate coating. And since they’ve been a favorite among Aussies for nearly four decades (Arnott’s claims to sell 35 million packages each year), they’re coming to America with a serious reputation to uphold.

As a Tim Tam virgin, I had no idea what to expect from these cookies. Sure, their ingredients sounded good, but did they have that certain X factor that makes me want to live off them? I’d experienced this feeling with a non-American cookie only once before, with the United Kingdom’s Hobnobs, and I wasn’t sure the ‘Tams were going live up to their tasty example. (As a side note, I have to ask, what is up with the cutesy two syllable cookie names? Are there any American cookie brands that do this, or is it just a British/former British colony sort of thing?)

Read more

Snack Review: Bissli Snacks Falafel Flavor

Most years, it’s just Christmas that’s almost a disaster because I leave my shopping till the last minute. But this year, I thought I’d managed to ruin Hanukkah too: Recently I saw that this season, Jones Soda’s holiday soda flavors include - be still my heart - jelly doughnut! But tragically, if you click on that link you will see the three saddest words on the Internet: OUT OF STOCK.

You might wonder what this has to do with this little bag of falafel flavored, cracker-stick sorts of things. It’s not because they are made in Israel, although that is indeed a country that celebrates Hanukkah.

No, it’s that these crackers made me feel better about not getting the soda. It’s because they reminded me: Certain tastes are supposed to go with certain textures.

I expected this snack to be, you know, kind of reminiscent of falafel, kind of suggestive of falafel, something like a relative, or a good friend, of the falafel family.

But instead, it tasted, uncannily, exactly like falafel. You’d think this would be a big success, right? But it was actually kind of disorienting. Falafel are supposed to be round, and fried on the outside, and soft and grainy-textured on the inside. Not little crunchy sticks. It’s weird to be eating a little cracker-stick and tasting basically a sandwich.

Read more