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This mystery is part of a series set in Sicily, which has been made into TV shows in Italy that I have been watching on an obscure cable station in my area. It finally occurred to me to go and try to read one of the books that the series was based on. And when I saw that my bookstore had the one called “The Snack Thief,” of course the choice was easy.

The series features as its main character Inspector Montalbano. Montalbano is both an individual and a classic character in many ways: loveably difficult to his devoted staff, strictly moral but willing to tell a lie in a good cause – even if sometimes that cause is less about solving a case and more about standing up his long-distance girlfriend on New Year’s Eve because his cook is making rice dumplings (arancini di riso).

Montalbano has an intense appreciation of good food. He’s not much of a snacker, but given the meals that are described in the books, it’s easy to see why – he can’t possibly have any room left for anything between-meals:

He gobbled up a saute of clams in breadcrumbs, a heaping dish of spaghetti with white clam sauce, a roast turbot with oregano and caramelized lemon, and he topped it all off with a bitter chocolate timbale in orange sauce. When it was all over he stood up, went into the kitchen, and shook the chef’s hand without saying a word, deeply moved.

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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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While visiting my Mom the other day, we discovered that we had the house to ourselves, so we brought out the Breyers ice cream. My Mom is a big fan of Breyers, so she always has some various flavor packed away in her freezer. This time it was Breyers Triple Chocolate All Natural Ice Cream.

I’m all for chocolate, but sometimes things can be a little too chocolaty, so I was hesitant to try it, figuring all three flavors combined would give my taste buds spasms. The three flavors in this ice cream carton were: white chocolate, dark chocolate and milk chocolate. I decided to try all of them separately before combining them.

I tried the white chocolate first: I noticed the taste of chocolate right away, but my Mom didn’t think so and said it tasted like plain vanilla. She is so wrong.
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Cape Cod makes the best potato chips on earth. Hey, I’m some person who writes stuff on the Internet - you know it must be true. And potato chips are the best salty snack on earth.

But, for that very reason, I don’t like flavored potato chips, and don’t understand why Cape Cod ever started making them. Why would you want to take the greatest snack on earth, already perfect exactly as it is, and add stuff to it? How can you improve on perfection?

So normally, I would never have tried these. But the other day I found myself eating a sad, boring bag lunch while sitting next to a large box that was half full of tiny bags of these chips. They were free for the taking, and it was a very lame lunch indeed that I was eating. And the bags were so tiny that even if I had to throw away most of the contents of one, well, I would not feel very guilty about not being able to send them to the starving children in whatever country modern parents threaten their offspring with the starving children of.
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