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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If you’re from Australia or have an Australian friend, you’ve probably heard of Tim Tams. They’re billed as “Australia’s favorite chocolate biscuit” and consist of layers of chocolate malted biscuit, chocolate cream filling, and a chocolate coating. Sounds good, right? Up to now the only way for those of us in the United States to get some was to either have some sent over from an Australian friend or pay exorbitant prices at specialty food stores. Well, no more!

Starting this month, Pepperidge Farm is offering both the chocolate creme and caramel varieties at Target stores here in the US. But, you’ll have to act fast - they’re only supposed to be available through March. If you’ve tried them, let us know; if they’re popular enough, maybe this will become a permanent fixture on our snacking scene!

• Tim Tams Website
• Original Tim Tam Article

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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I have had my eye on these for a while, but I have resisted trying them, because they come in such a large package. I mean, I could eat these ten times and review them once, or I could eat ten different snacks once and review each of them. And I hate to deprive you, faithful reader.

Recent news finally overcame my resistance. No, I didn’t try them to honor Paul Newman in death. It was more that economic troubles have finally come to that chain affectionately known as Whole Paycheck.

Some weeks ago, before the banking system had started to collapse, there was something that made me start examining my mattress with an eye to its money-holding capacities: Whole Foods started advertising the great bargains you could get there. Now, you can actually find numerous things on sale there whenever you go. I truly fear for civilization.

On the bright side, hey, these cookies were on sale! They were probably still expensive, but they had a sale label on them, and you know what that does to the mind. I finally couldn’t resist.
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