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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After my traumatic experience with the Chocolate Éclair Bar, you’d think I’d have learned. But I was intrigued by the introduction of dark and white chocolate versions of the original Fudgsicle. I realized that this just left me open to the possibility that this would be a box of Triple Disappointment: the old-fashioned milk chocolate being not as good as I remembered and the new kinds being both not traditional and no good at all.

But what can I say? Hope springing eternal, as well as the fact that “Triple Disappointment” sounded like a charmingly bad translation of a name of a dish on a Chinese restaurant menu, sucked me in.
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After my last stomach-churning encounter with oversize cookies from an overpriced market, I promised myself I’d abstain from such indulgences. I was forced to eat my silent words a few days ago, when a bevy of mountainous, delicious-looking cookies entered my line of sight at Bristol Farms. Trapped within their deadly line of influence, I had no choice but to obey their siren song. I drew steadily closer to the bakery counter, wanting to resist but unable to break the spell.

Entrancing though these cookies were, I needed to perform a litmus test before falling victim to another disgusting-snack swindle. Tentatively, I cupped one of the cookies in my hand. It was as heavy as it appeared, being of a texture that was simultaneously rock-like and slightly yielding. I held the sample specimen, a Pike’s Peak of chocolate chip delight, to my nose, and was rewarded with the scents of genuine butter, brown sugar, and chocolate. This cookie passed muster, as did the other three varieties (Oatmeal Raisin, Peanut Butter/Chocolate Swirl, and Colossal Toffee Crunch). Whole Foods nasty-cookie legacy be darned; I was sold.
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If you’re like me, consuming an energy bar is like eating a bar of lies. I don’t mean that they conceal their ingredients or exaggerate their benefits (although I’ve yet to find a bar that makes me float above the street, a la Marty McFly). What I mean is that I will never, under any circumstance, use an energy bar to:

A) run a marathon
B) power-hike along the Appalachian Trail, or
C) lift something 20 times my body weight, in homage to the noble ant

My lifestyle does not involve a Jeep. Nor does it include Timberland hiking boots, a Nalgene bottle, or a dog with a bandanna tied around its neck. Rather than utilize energy bars for their intended purposes, I use them to silence my grumbling stomach as I drive to work, or elevate my blood sugar levels during lectures I would otherwise sleep through. Truth be told, most of the time I don’t even buy these products, since their marketing seems specifically designed to shame my slovenly ways.

Take Clif Bars, for example. Their wrappers feature a man scaling a mountain. Legs flailing, he clings to a granite outcropping with all this might, his battered fingernails digging into the stubborn rock before him (the man has just enough energy to hold on, thanks to that 3 oz. of granola he ingested before climbing). Ah, the average Clif bar consumer! Always spending his free time dangling above certain death!

So, if you couldn’t already tell, I’m glad that Clif has come out with a less intense snack. Because frankly, some of us just can’t handle the X-tremeness of the standard Clif Bar product.
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Some time ago I entered a contest through Twitter and won a jar of P.B. Loco’s freakishly fantastic Peanut Butter.

Hmmm buddy. First let me tell how much I love peanut butter. It should be illegal to have this kind of an infatuation with a condiment but when you suggest combining my love affair with chocolate with an unhealthy crush on peanut butter? Prepare for more than the tongue gymnastics P.B.Loco suggests will happen when you taste their gourmet adult peanut butter. I was leaping over small children to meet the UPS truck when it arrived and I hadn’t even tried it yet.

Opening the jar I was warmly greeted with the peanut butter Gods smiling upon me and saying, “Go ahead, get a spoon.” Either that or it was the voices in my head. I’m not too sure because they sound the same.

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