Out Damned Spot: Queen Anne Dark Chocolate Peppermint Cordial Cherries

That's a mouthful. And so are these classic candies. Queen Anne Dark Chocolate Peppermint Cordials are what the hilarious female, bee hived hair in rollers, watching her stories, would eat in a sitcom. Or a fifties screwball comedy.
The two tiers of ten cordials are filled with drippy fondant and red syrup wrapped in dark chocolate. It doesn't really matter if they taste of plastic and cardboard, and who cares how old they are, you can keep a box in your bomb shelter, and they'll taste the same as they did the day you got them.
The piquant cordials lock in a taste which sticks to your teeth long after you've come to your senses and pushed them aside.
Fools, you can't just close the flap on a box of Queen Anne's Cordial Cherries and be done with it. The creamy sweet filling clings to you like a living thing. They call to you in the night. You'll think how well one or two would go with a glass of skim milk.
"It's skim milk," you'll tell yourself. "There's even milk in the ingredients and peppermint will help with my indigestion (indigestion from eating half a box of cordials)."
The cherry cream is harder to scrape off than a bad boyfriend. You can't wash him off, he's everywhere. Drinking your beer, eating your leftover Uno's Pizza, never filling the ice cube trays...I mean the peppermint cordial cherries (shouldn't that be cherry cordials?) which have oozed onto a copy of my tenant's rights, stick to everything. I've washed my hands twice in the last 15 minutes, and I think there's a kind of Lady Macbeth thing going on with this candy.
You'll have to excuse me, I need a minute to, uh, wash up, yes, wash up and go to bed.
[Evil laugh muffled by the sound of chocolates being stuffed into mouth ends Act V Scene 1.]
WARNING: Apparently the note "REAL CHERRIES—may contain pits or pit fragments" isn't as funny as I thought. These things are getting more sinister by the minute.

Kissables

Equal Time.
Meet Miss Vickers. She ain't never chased a rabbit, but she is a friend of mine. Known as the "good dog," she'll eat a cup of Rocky's bread sticks, strip the car of dog treats and every wayward piece of gum, then retreat to the back seat before you come out of the video store with that movie about pies. And she'll know, somehow, the movie is about pies. Her photo appeared in an article (which I've yet to put up) about Pet Psychic Faye Pietrokowsky, who did a reading of the old girl via email.
And speaking of chocolate (weak, no?), I picked up a bag of Hershey's Kissables in a hoarding frenzy during today's hail/snow/ice/thunder does this mean Favre's deal with the devil is back on/storm.
I know it's not a new candy, but I was attracted to these festive Valentine's Day colors. They remind me of M&M's with better tasting chocolate—actually I'd forgotten how rich and smooth a Hershey's Kiss can be. Maybe it's the new sugar unfriendly diet. Maybe it's like getting lucky after a dry spell. A long, long, dry, dry spell, but these were tasty.
The candy coating is almost, but not quite, overkill, and the crunch is fun. You have to admit, they do look good in a cookie. The candy coated mini kisses are perfectly sweet, like the regular sized kisses, and have that flavorful bite which shows someone is at least trying.
Not exactly Old Speckled Hen, but no Point Beer either. Yeah, that's right, I went to happy hour before I wrote this.

Tossing Cookies

Here ya go Jimbo.

Candy Coated Packer Pretzel Balls

Frozen Tundra my Irish arse.
What do The Packers have in common with Candy Coated Packer Pretzel Balls?
They're green and gold
They weren't good enough to make it to The Bowl
They're lousy frozen
They're a choking hazard
It will be a week tomorrow and Cheeseheads around here are still blubbing. Mothers have cleaned the duct tape off their children, and re-raised the flags on their Packer mailboxes, further confusing the mailman.
If I have to hear another grown man weep over the loss of a football game, I'm going to duct tape them to a chair, and force feed them Packer Pretzel Balls until they've watched every Rosie O'Donnell episode of The View.
Officially called Team Colors Party Mix, this is one tiny bag of balls. They taste like those coated pretzels you find at the grocery store, only ball shaped.
For the diet conscious who wouldn't have a problem if they knew what it's like to raise seven children in a tool shed then fish Lake Mendota with nothing but a string and a rusty nail after collecting coal all day: 140 Calories for 18 tiny balls, 6g Fat, 19g Carbs. Hardly seems worth it now, does it? It took the efforts of five artificial dyes with the word "lake" in them to color this bag of nonsense green and gold.
The ho hum balls are made in Cedarburg (which used to have a good fish fry) by C.P. Twist. This company also makes something called Cheezels in party size tubs. Just what the kids need. Now wipe the snot off your face and go shovel the walk.

Emergency Chocolate

Warning: After a recent near death experience—the most serious threat was the ER staff interrupting me as I tried to watch the playoffs—this is even less a comprehensive candy review than usual. Maybe that's why the TVs are so high, so in case something goes terribly wrong you can watch the Cowboys lose one last time as you rise to your maker. I'm assuming rise. Am I assuming too much? My dead Irish grandmother, btw, would have smacked T.O. upside the head for blubbering on national TV like that. Am I being too harsh?
Shaky Transition
So for Christmas I wrapped up three bars of Bloomsberry & Co. chocolate. My sister the nurse got the Emergency Chocolate (she's been on this "Do. Not. Bring. Any. More. Sweets. Into. This. House." kick), so it seemed fitting. It's an Emergency, enjoy. Guido, the nephew in high school, got a bar of Instant Gratification, and my mother, the candyholic forever trying to cheat death by eating cereals that should come baled, got a 3.5 ounce bar of 100% Guilt Free Chocolate.
Other popular Bloomsberry titles include Eat Me, BoChox, and the undoubtedly popular Oral Pleasure (34% cocoa). Oral Pleasure says it's "For internal and external and internal and external use." Eewww. Bloomsberry & Co. is from New Zealand, where I guess they need a sense of humor.

My Trip To The ER
Convinced tainted cherries and a junk food jamboree were responsible for an Alien level belly ache, I toughed it out for two hours Sunday morning before slipping on my Crocs, making sure I had on clean underwear, and driving to my favorite ER. (This hospital serves Babcock ice cream and bakes the blueberries right into their pancakes.)
You could drop dead in triage, where they were more concerned about the parking lot than the doubled up rag that could barely lift her head to watch the Chargers at Colts in the waiting room. But once those sliding doors admitted you into the ER, it went from Kansas to Oz. The cable reception was good, the remote was within reach, and the drugs came quickly and often. I was optimistic despite being offered opiates like a tray of potato knishes. Or maybe because I was being offered opiates like a tray of potato knishes.
No one seemed too interested in my wax baggie of tainted cherries. They made me drink a pitcher of "contrast" and put me in this humming ring that reminded me of the Stargate bred with a copy machine.
I got laughs when I asked "Could I get meds-to-go so I can watch the last game at home?" I was being serious. Just before I went into surgery to get my appendix out I asked, "Are you sure it's not just a little gas?" Still not kidding.
It wasn't gas, and now I have an unreasonable fear of fresh fruit.
This counts as Day 11.

Brent's Fiery Beer Brittle

I came across this peanut brittle while looking for chocolate beer and Monroe's Lazy Mutt at Brennan's.
"Monroe, what was from the Monroe Brewing Company," I kept asking myself. No, not the frolicking Fat Squirrel or meandering Spotted Cow. The New Glarus Brewing Company is of course in New Glarus, the town that banned The Pints—ironic, no?
Lazy Mutt is made in the town that brought us Huber, as in: *"I'm drinking Huber because I'm out on Huber Law."
Perhaps more famously known as the Joseph Huber Brewing Company (among others), the brewery is now the Minhas Craft Bewery. No more Joseph Huber, but some young Kanook with a degree in petroleum engineering (eh?) named Ravinder Minhas is the new Monroe Brew King.
The point of all this: Fiery Beer Brittle, although made in Napa Valley, beer capital of the world, is made with Brennan's Cellars Amber Beer. The packaging looks like an inviting bottle of wine, but if you close your eyes and try real hard, you can almost taste the beer. Almost. You mostly taste chili de Arbol powder and savory brittle.
I can not stop eating this stuff. First I sampled it with reservation and the idea I'd give it to someone with a palette for spicy snacks. As the days went by, a wayward nibble turned into a small bite, which gate-wayed into way too much.
At first I was trying to wash off the thick dust of chili pepper, even patting the candy dry to get to the sweet, sweet brittle. But after three pieces for breakfast this morning, my dalliance was over.
Initially reminiscent of Guatemalan Insanity Peppers, the Fiery Brittle became more of a Narnian-Arrakis Turkish spice melange. I became hooked.
They tried to make me go to sugar rehab, but I said no, no, no.
*Huber beer was so cheap you could get a case for $3.46, return the bottles for your deposit, $3.46, and buy another case. It wasn't what you'd call "premium" beer. The joke was, it contained so little alcohol that prisoners on work release could drink it and return to jail sober.

Necco Chocolate Sweethearts

Day 10, Yes I'm still doing this, Chocolate Necco Sweethearts: You know them, you've thrown them around the classroom, it's one of the cheapest Valentine's Day candies in existence, it's the Necco Conversation Heart, chocolate style.
Chocolate is actually listed in the ingredients along with a couple gums and five different dyes. If you took a handful of regular Sweethearts and let them soak in the bottom of a carton of chocolate milk (along with a bit of chalk)—long enough to flavor but not long enough to disintegrate—you'd have a chocolate conversation heart. I can't tell you what happens to the conversation.
It's interesting that Necco comes up with ten new sayings and a theme each year, because the chocolate heart on the bottom left clearly says "Mug Me," and another declares "Maniac." I like the inclusion of the gay community with the "Love Boys" heart, although I don't understand one that says either "Now Mancat" or "Mow Moron."
Not crazy about the nagging "Call Home," or the desperate "Marry Me"—wouldn't "Have You Been Tested" or "I Hope You Choke On This" go better with the pragmatic "Get Real."
Did you know there's a conversation heart plant just east of here in Pewaukee? I didn't.
Not worth a drive through a foggy tornado or the inevitable flooding, but 110 Calories a box (almost two "full" boxes fit into one) and as much sugar as you'd expect, make the Necco Chocolate Sweetheart a decent Valentine's snack which tastes better than it needs to.

Welcome To Wisconsin

I have to drive through fog practically every day as it is, but enough with the 100 car pileups, killer icicles, and weather already. And a tornado warning? I hear it's mostly FIB bound, but after the season da Bears had they don't need another disaster.
Ba da dum.Postscript: At least six tornadoes spun through southeastern Wisconsin after I posted today. At least three in Kenosha County, and another one flattened a town near Milwaukee. Get them, smoke them, pour another one, have your fun now, roll in the mud with a redneck, and sing along with REM—it's Armageddon people, and southern Wisconsin is ground zero. Must be Satan collecting on that deal he made with Favre.

Day 9

Where was I?
Ah yes, the Twelve Days of Christmas, or Chocolate—either way it ended Saturday, the Epiphany being Sunday. My mother referred to the holy day (between bites of the forbidden Christmas fudge my sister banned from her house because "we are all on diets") as "Mini Christmas." At which point I heard my grandmother scream, "Why dida we waste alla da money ona da private's eschool" from the big Italian table in Catholic Heaven.
So the Epiphany, aka, Mini Christmas, was Sunday, which made me think it was time to haunt the melting Walgreen's Christmas aisle to see if they had completely cleared out the birth of our Lord for the fat little naked guy. No, not Danny DiVito, and I'm still sans limoncello.
There were surprisingly few Valentine's Day items, although I did come across the tub o' Cocoa Deli Rocky Road Clusters pictured above. I'd show you the unwrapped candy photos, but they look a scosh too much like a Christmas present the dog would leave. The chocolate doo drops were so bad, that after one bite I decided to ditch them in a snow bank.
Those Cocoa Deli Popsicles were to die for; someone even wrote me Jonesin' for some long after Belgian chocolate popsicle season was over. Cocoa Deli Rocky Road Clusters, not so much. They're not worth .99 cents of the $6.99 asking price. They taste like stale Chunkys, look nothing like the picture on the tub, and I left them as after dinner mints for indiscriminate squirrels. A few nibbles reminded me of eating the paper that sticks to melted chocolate, then solidifies, then you find it weeks or possibly months later, and eat it when you think no one is looking.
Not that I've done that.

Quarter Christmas Meme

I promised fellow ched Ms. M. a Fav Things of Christmas meme, but I cut my finger on a can of Black Label so here's little copy (~applause~) and my top three. Hey, for very few would I even make the attempt. Did I mention my finger?

Nephew #1, Joey the sailor boy and oldest (the other two call him "The Prince"), full of enough Christmas cheer to propel an aircraft carrier. The more he drinks, the younger he gets. He's about six here.

Nephew #2, The ignored middle child, Chris, the college boy, with Leinie's lip balm and Miller Lite Beer Mints. Do you see a pattern?

Nephew #3, Guido, the baby, all tuckered out from helping with the spedini and sitting on the couch. The downstairs is beginning to look like a frat house.

Christmas Cheers

An icy night spent playing Gassy Gus, stuffing our collective faces, and swilling pomegranate martinis helped count down the final days to Christmas. My cousin coated her pomegranitini rims with Pop Rocks.
Brilliant!
Some of us tried to watch New England bully the poor, defenseless dolphins. Eeee, eee, eee, eee. Some of us still discount the importance of return yards and special teams. Guido.
Merry Christmas, all. Or in Jimmy's case, y'all.

Scharffen Berger Milk Chocolate

Day 8, Scharffen Berger: Extra Rich Milk Chocolate, 41%
The now defunct Twee & Luliloo (which still has a Web site for their Madison location further shedding light on their demise) introduced me to Scharffen Berger. One thin nibble feels as if you've eaten half a bar twice the size.

I thought the salacious Hachez Cocoa de Maracaibo won my fickle heart (with its impudent 55% cocoa), but the Fine Artisan Chocolate of the 3 ounce Scharffen Berger Extra Rich Milk Chocolate bar continues to tempt me. Until I find something better. Not that I'm looking. Hell, I'm always looking. Told you I was fickle.
I may use one of these recipes with the 9.7 ounce home baking bar I picked up by accident thinking it was hot cocoa mix. I'm thinking wreath shaped chocolate chunk instead of the never ending ordeal that is making cut out cookies. Goes better with Irish Coffee.
Scharffen Berger is made in Berkeley, a so-called Madtown mirror city, at least in the sixties. Major plus, the label is in English.

Hachez: Lousy Photo, Great Chocolate

Day 7, Hachez: Cocoa de Maracaibo, 55%, Cocoa d' Arriba, 77%, and Premier Cru, 88%, German milk and dark chocolate
Being one of those plebian milk chocolate lovers, I have to say the Hachez Cocoa de Maracaibo milk chocolate reigns o'er me. Ah, the things you could do with this chocolate. Too good for chocolate porn, it's more like a charming guy that drinks all your Jameson and goes through your stash like a two-spotted spider mite on a garden tomato. Only sweet on the inside. I lost my train of thought.
At first I thought it was creeper chocolate because it took a second for descriptives such as milky, melting, and voluptuous to spring forth. Is it really voluptuous? Well, I'm out of adjectives and hold on—yes, yes it is.
The classic Cocoa d'Arriba is crazy loaded with cocoa at 77%; to the extent I almost confused it with the 88% Premier Cru. But no. It's flavorful and strong, with a sinful-rich subtlety that clears your mind of everything but your next bite.
The Premier Cru Chocolade on the other hand, is the espresso to the Cru's half cap. At 88%, it tastes primarily of cocoa—what else? It's smooth with far less discretion. But I must draw the line somewhere, and I draw it at 88% cocoa.

Redneck M&M Dispenser: This Counts As Day 6

You Know You're Blogging With A Redneck When:
•Your computer is up on blocks.
•Someone parked the truck in your carport and you have neither a truck nor a carport.
•The dog has a hankering to go hunting. The dog is a 12-year-old Pomeranian who's never in its life heard the word "hankering" or "hunting."
•There's a gun rack where your poster of 50 Wisconsin Cheeses used to be.
A Word From Clem: We here at the dish do not condone the combination of dogs and chocolate. Or dogs and mason jars, or dogs and shot glasses. We further urge responsible readers to consider Dogs Eating Candy: For Heaven's Sake and Fact vs. Myth: Will Candy Kill My Dog? Please disregard the foolishness perpetrated by my granddaughter and her cousin on her mother's side (an Italian), in the post entitled Chocolate Gift Boxes.
Thank you and Merry Christmas.
A Word From Me: Jimmy's boss's dad (still with me?) is making Redneck M&M Dispensers for Christmas this year. This handsome construction collects M&Ms in a shot glass, normally filled with Jim Beam I suspect, between two critters who probably got lost looking for the front porch (and turned into stone). You're not going to find this gorgeous Rube Goldberg at the Wal-Mart.
See Jimmy's related post at Uncivil.
Photo and idea by Jimmy, who thinks a keyboard is something to hang your truck keys on, as suggested to him by Heidi
Thanks to The Tamster for the redneck jokes

Angel Food

Day 5 Angel Food Candy: Honeycomb center covered with luscious milk or dark chocolate, aka Devil's Food or Fairy Food
Awhile back someone asked about a good Angel Food recipe, and here's my favorite:
Drive to Monroe Street, attempt to find parking behing James J. Chocolate, enter shop, buy Fairy Food, sample said candy on way home. Share, regret, buy more.
I went to a chocolate and wine tasting party sponsored by James J. last year, and they made Fairy Food in a giant copper cauldron for us. Watching the birth of the scalding golden mass was quite cool. Eating more free samples than was polite wasn't bad either. This photo is from one of the many trays of candy they set out for us around the chocolate factory.

Côte d'Or Lait Melk

Days 3 & 4 Côte d'Or Lait~Melk: Two 75g Belgian (Kraft owned) solid milk chocolate bars, 35% cocoa
According to the Côte d'Or website, "Belgians consume more cocoa per capita than any other people on earth." Yeah, well they haven't been to my house.
Thanks to what in retrospect seems like a lapse of judgement, I committed to this Twelve Days of Chocolate business. Did I mention I'm on a diet and now dreaming in chocolate. Actually, it's a jumble of chocolate and the last season of the Sopranos, which I'm just now watching. I was a little surprised by the Christopher move, but then again he was "an idiot all together."
I picked up this elephant stamped chocolat in Boo because of its girth. Turned out to be two bars, but see how big it is?

Each piece is so substantial, it leaves an imprint on the silver foil.
Instead of American wax, you know you're getting quality chocolate in the first bite. Not the first whiff though, which smells sweet and mildly of cocoa, but why are you standing around sniffing chocolate?
Three of the seven two inch long pieces did me in (I said seven two inch long pieces, James). This chocolate is smooth, thick, soft, slippery, silky, buttery, smlkuttery, all of that.
Jodi down by Will Work For Noodles misses the filled Côte d'Ors, some of which may or may not be available on this site. Why not try Milk Chocolate with hazelnuts, 33%, with raisins and hazelnuts, 33%, Noir Orange, 69%, or Dark Chocolate with Raspberry, 70 %.
Although I sensed the slightest of aftertastes, Côte d'Or Lait Melk easily makes it on the short What Chocolate Should Taste Like list. Now let's see if Tony's gabagool turns into a hunk of chocolate. Zzzzzz...

Where's Carl Spackler When You Need Him?

Day 2 Cadbury Picnic: Cadbury milk chocolate, caramel, crispy cereal, peanuts, and raisins
The first thing I tasted when I bit into this candy casserole was the wrapper. It's unfair to judge a candy by its wrapper, but this candybar tasted as if it had been sitting around since the Thatcher administration. I noticed the original price was slashed by a buck fi'ty which clues you in to the fact that it was over priced and old [insert joke].
These things happen when you pick up mass produced candy, especially imported, although I expected more from Cadbury, salmonella and all.
This level of barely (notice I said "barely") edible staleness has never been a problem with Cadbury Turkish Delight or even Flake, and someone once schlepped the most decrepitly flaked Flake (what is going on in that ad) across the pond for me.
After you unwrap the thing and let it breath in the fresh Wisconsin air, you'll find a Watchamacallit with raisins. There are too many tastes here (including purple wrapper) that don't blend with the ease of a Chunky ("The thickest nickel chocolate bar in the USA"). And it looks like something you'd find at the bottom of the Caddyshack pool.
I spoke too soon, this is a step back from the Elysia's Orange, although I was right about things getting more expensive.

The Twelve Days Of Chocolate

Day 1 Gefüllte Milchschokolade: Elysia German milk chocolate with orange filling and a little alcohol
So, Ralph Pierce of the Boo Pierces stuffs this 3.5 ounce bar in my already bursting candy sack. Does that sound as obscene (and confusing) as I think it does? He likes this chocolate bar because it's a decent candy for two bucks, which, if you like to buy imported chocolate, is a bit of a deal.
I will say that one row of this sinister candy sent my recently perfect blood sugar level one point over good at a poorly timed check up. So that should count for something.
The orange filling smacks you in the taste buds and is almost overwhelming. I didn't have a clue it was one of the fruit liqueur filled Elysia chocolates until by the process of elimination, I figured out who makes it. I think. Hey, whaddya tink dis is, Milwaukee, I can barely say "Are you from the Apple Store?" in Spanish.
The orange filling is nicely tart, the chocolate is a little too sweet and not what I think milk chocolate should taste like—in other words, a little cheap and waxy, you know, like American chocolate.
Elysia Milkchocolate With Orange Flavoured Filling is okay; perfect as a gift for those who don't appreciate good candy. Ahem, you know who you are. Maybe you don't, but you wouldn't be reading this anyway so the hell with you.
Dis German bar yah hey is a good price, imported, whaddya want?
A good choice for Day 1, it can only get better. And more expensive.

Chuck Norris PEZ

Hey thare Jimmy. I know, I know, Chuck Norris doesn't dispense candy, he dispenses pain. But did you know...
˚That as a kid Chuck Norris dressed up as himself to go trick-or-treating.
He came back with a sack of candy, miniature liquor bottles, an Irish Setter, and two underage prostitutes carrying more candy.
˚If Chuck Norris' pancreas stopped working, he'd tell it to get a job.
˚What is Chuck Norris' favorite candy? Jawbreakers. Favorite licorice? Sour Punch Straws. Favorite Chocolate? Nestle's CRUNCH.
This photo was posted by Stella on blogcadre.com

Speaking Of PEZ

Chrissy from Random Thoughts got me thinking. About what? About PEZ dispensers. (I took these photos at Deb's.)
Have you noticed how much the Princess Leia dispenser looks like Joan Crawford (see last photo). No wire PEZ!
I love the glow in the dark PEZ you see around Halloween, like the Green Goblin and such. And they might be my favorite emergency candy. (Am I beginning to sound like Andy Rooney?)
PEZ has gotten a bad rap because of sneaky teens like the young JR Chandler on All My Children loading them up with recreational drugs. Most people put PEZ in their PEZ dispensers. We're not all Neely O'Hara you know. ("She took the red pills.") What a cast, Patty Duke, Susan Hayward ("She took the yellow pills."), Sharon Tate, and Barbara Parkins as Anne. I know what my next video rental is going to be.Wonder if they have Valley of the Dolls dispensers? This old PEZ FAQ doesn't mention them. They do mention that the Spock, Michael Jackson, and Hitler dispensers are fake. Damn.