Snack Review: Angelic Gourmet Chocolate Cranberry Orange Popcorn

You know, the holidays. You want to buy presents for people you don’t see very often, and something edible is a good bet. Everyone eats, after all. And if you get a gift you don’t like, at least it won’t take up space in your closet for years.

I got this snack from a well-meaning friend who didn’t realize that I am an individual of exquisitely refined taste, who appreciates the subtler things in life, the plain, unadorned, natural tastes of things instead of elaborate combinations of -

Oh, let’s face it. I am the kind of person who does not like different foods to touch each other on my plate. I would not buy something that combines chocolate, popcorn, cranberry, and orange any more than I would breed my pug dogs to a parakeet to see what kind of pet I got out of it.

But, readers, for you, I tried it. And let’s just say it did nothing to change my attitude toward too many things combined into one snack.

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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.

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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?)

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Snack Review: New Zealand Natural Ice Cream

I’m kind of a strange choice when it comes to reviewing ice cream. You see, after jaw surgery in my teens, I was left with two small metal plates in my upper jaw. You know how painful metal can be to touch when it’s cold outside? That’s kind of how my jaw starts to feel after too much ice cream. So, I eat it sparingly, and when I do eat it, I want it to be good.

Now we come to the question of what exactly entails good ice cream. If you were to set a dish of Häagen-Dazs ice cream next to a dish of generic grocery store brand ice cream, I will inevitably choose the generic brand. I can’t explain it, but I like cheap stuff. New Zealand Natural Ice Cream is NOT cheap. With that in mind, how would this premium ice cream fare in my freezer?

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Snack Review: Trader Joe’s Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies

So, I had just embarked on a new Healthy Eating Plan which was going to be based on ensuring that the number of cookie packages bought per week was less than the total number of trips to the gym in the same week. Then I made the mistake of doing this week’s grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s.

Trader Joe’s seems to have an insane number of new sweets for the holiday season. I bought three boxes of cookies for a week in which, having spent part of it sick in bed, I believe there were zero trips to the gym. Arithmetic is not my strong suit, but I am pretty sure I blew the plan.

My excuse for two of the packages of cookies was that I was bringing them to a party, and never mind that said party often has so much dessert at it that even a nice box of cookies might end up never getting opened and therefore going home with the bringer. The excuse for this, the third package, was that I just couldn’t help it. They are chocolate, and seasonal, and who could resist this text on the package:

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