Sugar Savvy

Have you ever heard a new word only to hear it time and time again within the next few days? Unless it was gibberish or your attempt at creating a new word, most likely it’s not that the word came into being the moment you heard it. More so the word, or even thing, was suddenly added to your brain bank and, therefore, is more likely to be acknowledged when it catches one of your senses.  I can’t remember when I first heard it, but at some point within the past month, I heard the word “It’s-It,” but had no idea what it was.

I didn’t really think much of it, but the word was strange enough for me to remember. A day later, I was poking around on Yumsugar and saw it referenced during a photo tour of the food facilities at Google. I now knew it was an ice cream sandwich. Then a few days later on Chow, people were buzzing over it being spotted in Los Angeles grocery stores. I think fate was telling me I needed to possess it, and it was about time I went to the website and did a little reading.

The “It’s-It” is an ice cream sandwich created in 1928 by entrepreneur George Whitney, a San Franciscan native, who, one day, decided to take two oatmeal cookies, slap some vanilla ice cream in the middle, and drop his Frankendessert in dark chocolate. For more than four decades the “It’s-It” picked up its local cult following until finally being sold to the Shamieh Brothers in 1974 who took the product to wider pastures, adding flavors like mint, chocolate, and cappuccino. It is thanks to them you can now find the “It’s-It” in 15 other states, and why I was able to find one in my local Von’s, thanks to tips on Chow.

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First off, I love the size of this Dolfin bar. As someone who is frantically trying to eat as wide a variety of food as possible in the next two months, I really appreciate the 30g size as I can happily eat it in one go before moving onto the next treat in my pantry (okay, so everyone else would call my pantry a wardrobe, but there are more snacks than food in it at the moment so pantry is correct in my mind).

This Dolfin 60% Dark White Pepper and Cardamom bar had a crisp snap to it, indicating high quality cocoa butter and good tempering. Upon smelling the bar, I could discern hints of cardamom, but I’m not sure if I could have detected the white pepper had I not known it was there. I was expecting a bigger spice hit than I initially experienced, but the white pepper did gradually create a (very) slight burn in the back of the throat. As cardamom is a strong spice, I was also prepared for this flavor to dominate the chocolate, but instead it was nicely blended in with the pepper to create a general sense of spice that suited the percentage of the chocolate really well.

The chocolate is not chalky or bitter, and with the combination of spices, it is simultaneously sweet, spicy, cool and warming. The beans are from Guatemala, and the chocolate itself is made in Belgium, so I would rather not think about the food miles of this little treat. There was no crunchiness from the spice, although after noting this, I realized that the reason I often associate spicy chocolates with bits of crunch is that many such bars also have cacao nibs in them. In contrast, this is a very smooth bar, quite subtle to my taste, and therefore could be a good introduction for someone interested in moving into the realm of spiced chocolates.

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If my hands get on a bag of one of the best chocolate creations, known as plain M&M’s, there is no stopping me. All over my mother and stepfather’s house there are a variety of the adorable M&M candy men riding in a car, in a fire truck, and sitting on a sofa chair. If I know that they are filled with the delectable chocolates, I go over to them and pull the handle or the foot and have me a handful.

I put M&M’s in everything from every flavor of ice cream to popcorn. This “mania” started when I presented a book report for my fifth grade English class. I cannot remember the book, but I had to come up with the food that looked like what the girl ate in the book. I mixed M&M’s and Quaker Oat Squares cereal. I still remember my mother squinting her eyes as if she just swallowed something sour, when I put my hand in the cereal box and put this concoction in my mouth. It was delicious! 

The ultimate guilty pleasure is having a bowl of fudge ice cream with M&M’s mixed in. When I came upon the new M&M ice cream bars by Mars, my mouth watered in the ice cream aisle. I could not wait to go home and tear the wrapper off. It was as if they have been listening to my taste buds dreams. I got cozy on my couch and tore off the wrapper to find a red M&M that was less than the size of my palm. I bit into it and the chocolate was much richer than the little chocolates. Although this was a new tasty treat, it left me needing a drink of water and discontented. Maybe it is because of my trusty little M&M’s of the past, or I am old fashioned. I do recommend this new ice cream bar to the M&M lovers though, because every M&M, big or small, deserves a chance.  

Picture: google/Images

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In line at the checkout at Target this weekend, my eye fell upon the latest offering from Orbit, which seems to churn out new flavors every other day. And that’s fine with me, since it keeps the time I spend in the checkout lane — a inordinately large chunk of my life it would seem – interesting and helps to distract my kids away from tabloid images of cellulite gone wild and rich girls with poor self-esteem and no self-control. (Bat Boy, where are you?)

Anyhow, turns out the latest offering from Orbit is actually 4 latest offerings, but I’ll get to the others later. For now, I’ll focus on the new Sangria Fresca, since that’s what immediately grabbed my attention. I love sangria! Fruity, festive, fortified punch! Naturally, I had to have it. (Yes folks, this time it was me. I had to have something from the checkout danger zone. Me, Mom.)

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This little cherry ménage a trois all began when my friend Tripp came across a Twin Bing in Seaside, Oregon, at a candy store specializing in retro and off-beat products. We had both read and about the Twin Bing in Steve Almond’s book, Candy Freak, a few years ago, and try to keep our ears pricked for elusive nuggets such as the Bing. Based on Almond’s drool-inducing descriptions of the Valomilk, for example, Tripp tracked those ones down somewhere in the southern U.S. and then toted two whole bars across the Rockies just for me. He is an Eagle of a Candy Scout, that one.

Just about the same time he unearthed the Bing, I spotted something called a Cherry Cocktail at, oddly, a Caribbean grocery store down the street from my house. Although it is made by the relatively local Owyhee (of Idaho Spud fame), I had never seen this bar. Naturally, I bought it.

And, knowing that we had imminent plans for a head to head tasting between the two, I decided that I’d throw in a third contender – something that has caught my eye over the past few years in the candy aisle at Fred Meyer (major Portland grocery/one-stop shopping chain). This one is called Christopher’s Big Cherry.

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