A lot of knick-knacking this weekend. No hardcore snacking sessions went down; just little bits and pieces here and there. I continued to make a dent in one of three large bags of Cool Ranch Doritos that I have currently. Opened a box of Lucky Charms for the first time in a while. Had to defend my bag of Cheddar Cheese and Cracker Combos from my cat all week long. It’s the only human food that I know of that she will stalk faithfully. My cat has good taste.
Here’s a list of snacks in my world this weekend (Friday included):
Chocolate pudding pie
Twizzlers
Hershey’s Cookies and Cream
Chunky
Combos
Reeses Peanut Butter Cups
More Peeps
Ellio’s Pizzas
Keebler Fudge Shoppe Peanut Butter Filled Cookies
Entenmann’s Little Bites Blueberry Muffins
Teddy Graham’s Honey Graham Snacks
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thanks
I just want to take a moment to give thanks to people who have made me excited to create and continue this blog.
Firstly, Lindsey Bourque, for the marvelous pictures. She took the picture that you see up at the top of the screen when you come to the blog. Lindsey took time out of her schedule to help me out and took a ton of pictures, which will rotate as my blog header.
The photos are amazing in quality and I almost feel bad having to reduce them to fit on the web. They carry through not only as phenomenal Snackmaster themed photos, but as incredible portraits too. Many many thanks, Lindsey.
Please check out her website at:
www.lindseybourque.com
for more amazing photos.
Many thanks to Cassie Raihl who came up with most of the ideas for the photos as well as helping to assist make it all happen. I also have to give credit to Cassie for initially giving me the idea of making a snack-themed blog. Without her, this blog wouldn't be here.
Also, Andrew Graham, deserves a shout for giving me moral support during the shopping spree that preceded the photo shoot. In addition to that, he was actually the man who first christened me "The Snackmaster", so too, without him, there would be no The Snackmaster blog.
Lastly, the followers and people who have taken time out to check the blog. Thanks guys, keep reading. I hope it entertains!
Firstly, Lindsey Bourque, for the marvelous pictures. She took the picture that you see up at the top of the screen when you come to the blog. Lindsey took time out of her schedule to help me out and took a ton of pictures, which will rotate as my blog header.
The photos are amazing in quality and I almost feel bad having to reduce them to fit on the web. They carry through not only as phenomenal Snackmaster themed photos, but as incredible portraits too. Many many thanks, Lindsey.
Please check out her website at:
www.lindseybourque.com
for more amazing photos.
Many thanks to Cassie Raihl who came up with most of the ideas for the photos as well as helping to assist make it all happen. I also have to give credit to Cassie for initially giving me the idea of making a snack-themed blog. Without her, this blog wouldn't be here.
Also, Andrew Graham, deserves a shout for giving me moral support during the shopping spree that preceded the photo shoot. In addition to that, he was actually the man who first christened me "The Snackmaster", so too, without him, there would be no The Snackmaster blog.
Lastly, the followers and people who have taken time out to check the blog. Thanks guys, keep reading. I hope it entertains!
Back in the Day Segment: 52 Green
Cool Ranch Doritos.
At the age of 18 I graduated high school and immediately struck out on my own. I started working at a cafe 5 days a week, 8 hours a day and soon moved into my first apartment with some pretty cool people. We lived at a place called 52 Green and, for me, this began the era of Cool Ranch Doritos.
I had been eating Doritos for a handful of years before this, but mainly the Nacho Cheese Doritos. I had never been a big chips guy, and Nacho Cheese Doritos were the "safe" brand for me. I really never even ate potato chips up until a couple of years ago. But slowly, in my late teens I made the transition from Nacho Cheese to Cool Ranch. This process was no huge. monumental shift at the time, and I really did not eat a large amount of Cool Ranch Doritos. But somewhere at the end of senior year of high school and the summer afterwards, Cool Ranch Doritos became The Staple.
Please don't get this confused with any ordinary preference or obsession. Cool Ranch Doritos became entire meals for me. Probably because I earned so little and because of an unexplainable finicky phase that I was going through, a large bag of Doritos was often times the only thing I wanted and could really afford to eat regularly. Now, eating snacks as a meal is a ridiculously stupid thing to do, and even I knew that as an untiring 18 year old. Clearly, the majority of snacks just do not possess the materials for your stomach to send the necessary signals to your brain indicating satiation or contentment. But Doritos kind of sneak in the in between. While their flavorings are certainly fattening with no nutritional value, the corn chip itself was enough of a compromise to my 18 year old self to make me believe that if I ate enough of them, I could actually consume enough corn to substitute for an entire healthy meal. I imagined it was like substituting 5 quesadillas, just without the cheese. Surely 5 quesadillas is a big and nutritious enough meal for me! So instead of taking home the incredible sandwiches that got thrown out every night at the cafe I worked at (sandwiches that I would LOVE to have now), I would down a half to a full bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and call it a night (the large bags). The danger would only come when occasionally I would want desert and I would go up the street for something like a 2-pack of Hostess Cup Cakes. Throwing those on top of a stomach full of Cool Ranch Doritos produced a queasiness strong enough to cut through the lies I would tell myself about the harmlessness of a meal of Doritos.
Cool Ranch Doritos stuck with me long after that era, which amazes me because I ate enough for anyone to be sick of them for life. I often accredit that to the complexity of the flavoring mixture that is used. Trying to describe the mixture, I actually find myself at a loss for words. Fifteen years after I first started eating them, they are still a regular part of my weekly diet, and the experience of eating them has dulled only so slightly. They are still the rule by which I judge any other chip or breaded light snack.
Planters Cheez Balls:
I can't talk about snacks at 52 Green without mentioning the ever-present round tin can of Planters Cheez Balls. While I certainly never tried to make this a meal, these were consumed almost as frequently as Cool Ranch Doritos. The craving for these hit me around the time I first moved into 52 Green, as I found myself needing a more potent munchie. I had always eaten Cheez Doodles, but shied away from the Cheez Balls because they had a bit of an extra cheese kick to them and were much saltier. Those inhibitions faded. I remember buying these at the CVS up the street from me in the largest container I could find. They were also a hit with the guests, so much so that I had to horde and defend them. We would go through a canister ever other day. At a certain point the empty canisters became trash cans, lying around on the floor of my bedroom. This soon became a problem when they also started to double as ash trays and the dried up "trash" inside would start to smolder and almost catch on fire.
To me, Cheez Balls were decadent. They represented a leap I had made in expanding my horizons. The packaging was incredibly unique and unforgettable. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them in a long time and I hear that they are now also discontinued.
Older packaging, this style of packaging was the one right before I jumped aboard. The basic colors and layout remained the same but some formatting and font changes occurred.
At the age of 18 I graduated high school and immediately struck out on my own. I started working at a cafe 5 days a week, 8 hours a day and soon moved into my first apartment with some pretty cool people. We lived at a place called 52 Green and, for me, this began the era of Cool Ranch Doritos.
I had been eating Doritos for a handful of years before this, but mainly the Nacho Cheese Doritos. I had never been a big chips guy, and Nacho Cheese Doritos were the "safe" brand for me. I really never even ate potato chips up until a couple of years ago. But slowly, in my late teens I made the transition from Nacho Cheese to Cool Ranch. This process was no huge. monumental shift at the time, and I really did not eat a large amount of Cool Ranch Doritos. But somewhere at the end of senior year of high school and the summer afterwards, Cool Ranch Doritos became The Staple.
Please don't get this confused with any ordinary preference or obsession. Cool Ranch Doritos became entire meals for me. Probably because I earned so little and because of an unexplainable finicky phase that I was going through, a large bag of Doritos was often times the only thing I wanted and could really afford to eat regularly. Now, eating snacks as a meal is a ridiculously stupid thing to do, and even I knew that as an untiring 18 year old. Clearly, the majority of snacks just do not possess the materials for your stomach to send the necessary signals to your brain indicating satiation or contentment. But Doritos kind of sneak in the in between. While their flavorings are certainly fattening with no nutritional value, the corn chip itself was enough of a compromise to my 18 year old self to make me believe that if I ate enough of them, I could actually consume enough corn to substitute for an entire healthy meal. I imagined it was like substituting 5 quesadillas, just without the cheese. Surely 5 quesadillas is a big and nutritious enough meal for me! So instead of taking home the incredible sandwiches that got thrown out every night at the cafe I worked at (sandwiches that I would LOVE to have now), I would down a half to a full bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and call it a night (the large bags). The danger would only come when occasionally I would want desert and I would go up the street for something like a 2-pack of Hostess Cup Cakes. Throwing those on top of a stomach full of Cool Ranch Doritos produced a queasiness strong enough to cut through the lies I would tell myself about the harmlessness of a meal of Doritos.
Cool Ranch Doritos stuck with me long after that era, which amazes me because I ate enough for anyone to be sick of them for life. I often accredit that to the complexity of the flavoring mixture that is used. Trying to describe the mixture, I actually find myself at a loss for words. Fifteen years after I first started eating them, they are still a regular part of my weekly diet, and the experience of eating them has dulled only so slightly. They are still the rule by which I judge any other chip or breaded light snack.
Planters Cheez Balls:
I can't talk about snacks at 52 Green without mentioning the ever-present round tin can of Planters Cheez Balls. While I certainly never tried to make this a meal, these were consumed almost as frequently as Cool Ranch Doritos. The craving for these hit me around the time I first moved into 52 Green, as I found myself needing a more potent munchie. I had always eaten Cheez Doodles, but shied away from the Cheez Balls because they had a bit of an extra cheese kick to them and were much saltier. Those inhibitions faded. I remember buying these at the CVS up the street from me in the largest container I could find. They were also a hit with the guests, so much so that I had to horde and defend them. We would go through a canister ever other day. At a certain point the empty canisters became trash cans, lying around on the floor of my bedroom. This soon became a problem when they also started to double as ash trays and the dried up "trash" inside would start to smolder and almost catch on fire.
To me, Cheez Balls were decadent. They represented a leap I had made in expanding my horizons. The packaging was incredibly unique and unforgettable. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them in a long time and I hear that they are now also discontinued.
Older packaging, this style of packaging was the one right before I jumped aboard. The basic colors and layout remained the same but some formatting and font changes occurred.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
March 25, 2009
Lunch:
Nothing special. Few Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The uber-small kind, individually wrapped, Christmas treats.
Dinner:
I hauled out the sack just to tempt myself with an extreme amount of selection.
Ended up eating more Christmas treats. The marshmallow santas in foil wrap.
Then moved on to some gummy worms, "Sweet Rainbow" brand. I had never heard of the brand, but picked them up in the photo-shopping free-for-all. They come in those packs that are about 3.5 ounces and used to be sold two for a dollar but now sell for 99 cents. There are so many companies that make gummy worms and package them in this format, and for a while I figured they would all be the same level of quality of taste. This brand, however, was surprisingly sweet. They tasted .... more pure; a good analogy would be the comparison of Mexican Coca-Cola, which uses real sugar cane, to US Coca-Cola, which uses corn syrup sweetener. This brand would be the Mexican Coke.
Bad things happen to good snacks.
Nothing special. Few Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The uber-small kind, individually wrapped, Christmas treats.
Dinner:
I hauled out the sack just to tempt myself with an extreme amount of selection.
Ended up eating more Christmas treats. The marshmallow santas in foil wrap.
Then moved on to some gummy worms, "Sweet Rainbow" brand. I had never heard of the brand, but picked them up in the photo-shopping free-for-all. They come in those packs that are about 3.5 ounces and used to be sold two for a dollar but now sell for 99 cents. There are so many companies that make gummy worms and package them in this format, and for a while I figured they would all be the same level of quality of taste. This brand, however, was surprisingly sweet. They tasted .... more pure; a good analogy would be the comparison of Mexican Coca-Cola, which uses real sugar cane, to US Coca-Cola, which uses corn syrup sweetener. This brand would be the Mexican Coke.
Bad things happen to good snacks.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
March 24, 2009
Lunch:
No morning treats from my buddy Ju. at work. I figured it was my turn, so I gave him an individually wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Yesterday, he brought me a cup full of these bizarre marshmallows. They were typical marshmallow size and shape but they were duo-colored. The outer shell would be one color, and the inside would be another. The colors spanned the range of pastels. They also tasted a bit different. I couldn't really distinguish tastes between the colors. The taste resembled the mild sugar flavors of Pixy Stix or Sweet Tarts, but without the tangy, tarty flavor. They were an interesting little morning adventure, but not something I would pursue in the future.
Today for lunch I finished off a larger sized Russell Stover Chocolate Marshmallow Rabbit that I had began yesterday at lunch. These are different from the ones I reviewed earlier. This one came in a box with a cellophane front for you to see the rabbit inside. The previous ones come in foil wrappers and are smaller. I have to say I prefer the foil packaged ones, although this one was good as well. This larger one advertised milk chocolate but kind of tasted like a dark chocolate. I also wasn't as fond of the proportions of chocolate to marshmallow on this larger one: there was much too much chocolate.
Dinner:
I had a Snack Pack Triples Chocolate and Vanilla single serving pudding. I was pretty pumped for this because I had totally forgotten I had two left from my 4-pack when cruising the fridge tonight. For whatever reason this was just what I had wanted. I also threw down a couple of Snackwells Devil's Food Cookie Cakes. You know, Snackwell's advertises Fat Free on most of their cookies, but don't let that discourage you. As you probably know, these cookies are pretty dope. They're soft and flavorful, and, although not mentioned on the package, they have a slight mint taste to them.
No morning treats from my buddy Ju. at work. I figured it was my turn, so I gave him an individually wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Yesterday, he brought me a cup full of these bizarre marshmallows. They were typical marshmallow size and shape but they were duo-colored. The outer shell would be one color, and the inside would be another. The colors spanned the range of pastels. They also tasted a bit different. I couldn't really distinguish tastes between the colors. The taste resembled the mild sugar flavors of Pixy Stix or Sweet Tarts, but without the tangy, tarty flavor. They were an interesting little morning adventure, but not something I would pursue in the future.
Today for lunch I finished off a larger sized Russell Stover Chocolate Marshmallow Rabbit that I had began yesterday at lunch. These are different from the ones I reviewed earlier. This one came in a box with a cellophane front for you to see the rabbit inside. The previous ones come in foil wrappers and are smaller. I have to say I prefer the foil packaged ones, although this one was good as well. This larger one advertised milk chocolate but kind of tasted like a dark chocolate. I also wasn't as fond of the proportions of chocolate to marshmallow on this larger one: there was much too much chocolate.
Dinner:
I had a Snack Pack Triples Chocolate and Vanilla single serving pudding. I was pretty pumped for this because I had totally forgotten I had two left from my 4-pack when cruising the fridge tonight. For whatever reason this was just what I had wanted. I also threw down a couple of Snackwells Devil's Food Cookie Cakes. You know, Snackwell's advertises Fat Free on most of their cookies, but don't let that discourage you. As you probably know, these cookies are pretty dope. They're soft and flavorful, and, although not mentioned on the package, they have a slight mint taste to them.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Weekend Action 3/20 - 3/22/09
So this weekend was The Snackmaster photo shoot.
I feel it best to hold off on the full description of the shoot and it's content until I have the photos ready to put up.
In the meantime I'd like to discuss the prep for the shoot. I spent a little bit over $100 on snacks, treats and desserts.
Unfortunately, I left the shopping to the very last minute and had to rush around a bit. This did not compromise my selection, but it did compromise my really being able to savor the experience of spending $100 on pure junk food.
Truth be told, I was somewhat anxious about the process of buying so much snacks. When it comes to shopping for snacks, it is always best to be impulsive. Often, I will anticipate something very specific less than 3 hours ahead of time. Any more time than this you really cannot accurately gauge what you will we be in the mood for when it is time. Any attempt that I have made to pre-empt what I really want too far ahead of time has almost always spoiled the eating experience for me. This, for the most part, holds true for meals as well. So going shopping for about a month or two's snacks in advance was a bit disorienting for me. I did not doubt that I could do it, rather I knew I would have to overcome some sort of mental obstacle in order to execute the shopping experience. I ended up hitting up 2 grocery stores and 4 convenience stores.
I only gave myself two simple rules:
1. Only buy stuff that I KNOW I like and that I know that I will eat. I was not going to spend $100 on props. Everything I bought has value to me and has history with me.
2. Try to buy as much of a variety of snacks as possible.
Number two is pretty obvious. A larger range of labels will make for a more interesting picture. Practically, a more diverse range of snacks will not feel like a responsibility in the coming month or two when I eat all of these snacks. I won't get bored or tired of eating the same thing.
Nonetheless, the huge sack of treats that now sits in my room does have a bit of an intimidating presence. My approach has been to not think about it. The enormous bag of snacks is there. It is not going anywhere. I do not have to eat something every chance I get. (Everything is pretty much packaged so I also don't have to worry about anything going bad.) My feeling is that I will pick at it whenever I feel like it, and within a week I will have forgotten most of the stuff that I bought, leading to some pleasant surprises and internal self-congratulatory thoughts for being smart enough to have picked up such and such item.
Another point of anxiety was that I was not going to get enough for the shoot. I was worried that I would hold too tightly to the variety rule, and end up not getting enough sheer visual quantity to make the photos effective. One hundred dollars worth of treats looked a lot smaller than I thought it would have. Fortunately I pretty much got JUST enough to make one of the shots look just about right.
Onto this weekend's actual consumption:
It was a pretty slow weekend for me. I had no appetite on Friday night, and I went out on Saturday night. Sunday night I had dinner with my sister's family over at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt and uncle made an awesome dinner and brought out some brownies engineered to retard the ability to move one's body. They had chocolate frosting on them as well, something that I really don't see often enough on brownies. Add to that a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream and I felt that I had made up for the weekend's drought. At the end of the night my aunt sent me home with some food and about 1/3 of a plate of the brownies. Also, my sister gave me a bag full of my Christmas stocking candy that I had left at my parent's house and that my parent's had brought up and left with my sister. Carrying that stuff back home to be greeted by the garbage bag full of junk food, I felt a rising sense of pressure inside me....
One specific highlight of the weekend I have to mention is the acquisition of a handful of Little Hug juice drinks. These have gone by many names. When I was a kid the corner store stocked "Teenis", which is pretty much the exact same product. They are the tiny, clear plastic, kool-aid type drinks that come in a container that resembles a mini barrel or jug. The tops are sealed with foil on which the only type is found. The classic move for these bad boys was to bite into the foil with your teeth and immediately begin sucking the juice out. As a wee-lad, the pro technique was to bite down and immediately suck the entire contents out in one motion, imploding the cheap plastic container. They come in like ten different flavors and all are pretty decent. Amazingly, these drinks seem to be inflation proof. When I was REALLY little, I believe I first got them for like 15 cents or something. Not soon after, they were selling for a quarter. I didn't check the price last weekend, but I did get six for a dollar at the same store about 9 months ago. You GOTTA love that.
Little Hugs in all it's simplistic glory.
I feel it best to hold off on the full description of the shoot and it's content until I have the photos ready to put up.
In the meantime I'd like to discuss the prep for the shoot. I spent a little bit over $100 on snacks, treats and desserts.
Unfortunately, I left the shopping to the very last minute and had to rush around a bit. This did not compromise my selection, but it did compromise my really being able to savor the experience of spending $100 on pure junk food.
Truth be told, I was somewhat anxious about the process of buying so much snacks. When it comes to shopping for snacks, it is always best to be impulsive. Often, I will anticipate something very specific less than 3 hours ahead of time. Any more time than this you really cannot accurately gauge what you will we be in the mood for when it is time. Any attempt that I have made to pre-empt what I really want too far ahead of time has almost always spoiled the eating experience for me. This, for the most part, holds true for meals as well. So going shopping for about a month or two's snacks in advance was a bit disorienting for me. I did not doubt that I could do it, rather I knew I would have to overcome some sort of mental obstacle in order to execute the shopping experience. I ended up hitting up 2 grocery stores and 4 convenience stores.
I only gave myself two simple rules:
1. Only buy stuff that I KNOW I like and that I know that I will eat. I was not going to spend $100 on props. Everything I bought has value to me and has history with me.
2. Try to buy as much of a variety of snacks as possible.
Number two is pretty obvious. A larger range of labels will make for a more interesting picture. Practically, a more diverse range of snacks will not feel like a responsibility in the coming month or two when I eat all of these snacks. I won't get bored or tired of eating the same thing.
Nonetheless, the huge sack of treats that now sits in my room does have a bit of an intimidating presence. My approach has been to not think about it. The enormous bag of snacks is there. It is not going anywhere. I do not have to eat something every chance I get. (Everything is pretty much packaged so I also don't have to worry about anything going bad.) My feeling is that I will pick at it whenever I feel like it, and within a week I will have forgotten most of the stuff that I bought, leading to some pleasant surprises and internal self-congratulatory thoughts for being smart enough to have picked up such and such item.
Another point of anxiety was that I was not going to get enough for the shoot. I was worried that I would hold too tightly to the variety rule, and end up not getting enough sheer visual quantity to make the photos effective. One hundred dollars worth of treats looked a lot smaller than I thought it would have. Fortunately I pretty much got JUST enough to make one of the shots look just about right.
Onto this weekend's actual consumption:
It was a pretty slow weekend for me. I had no appetite on Friday night, and I went out on Saturday night. Sunday night I had dinner with my sister's family over at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt and uncle made an awesome dinner and brought out some brownies engineered to retard the ability to move one's body. They had chocolate frosting on them as well, something that I really don't see often enough on brownies. Add to that a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream and I felt that I had made up for the weekend's drought. At the end of the night my aunt sent me home with some food and about 1/3 of a plate of the brownies. Also, my sister gave me a bag full of my Christmas stocking candy that I had left at my parent's house and that my parent's had brought up and left with my sister. Carrying that stuff back home to be greeted by the garbage bag full of junk food, I felt a rising sense of pressure inside me....
One specific highlight of the weekend I have to mention is the acquisition of a handful of Little Hug juice drinks. These have gone by many names. When I was a kid the corner store stocked "Teenis", which is pretty much the exact same product. They are the tiny, clear plastic, kool-aid type drinks that come in a container that resembles a mini barrel or jug. The tops are sealed with foil on which the only type is found. The classic move for these bad boys was to bite into the foil with your teeth and immediately begin sucking the juice out. As a wee-lad, the pro technique was to bite down and immediately suck the entire contents out in one motion, imploding the cheap plastic container. They come in like ten different flavors and all are pretty decent. Amazingly, these drinks seem to be inflation proof. When I was REALLY little, I believe I first got them for like 15 cents or something. Not soon after, they were selling for a quarter. I didn't check the price last weekend, but I did get six for a dollar at the same store about 9 months ago. You GOTTA love that.
Little Hugs in all it's simplistic glory.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Quick Note
You will never catch The Snackmaster discussing "a piece of fruit" or "some celery with peanut butter". These are not "snacks." Those are a joke.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
March 19, 2009
Lunch:
My fellow Snackmaster in arms at work gave me another small treat this morning before lunch. More easter loveliness: a small Nestle Crunch Egg. Nestle Crunch is solid; no matter what shape size or portion it comes in, the recipe holds up.
At lunch I had a two-pack of Peanut Butter Twix. I've struggled with purchasing these a lot in the recent past since their cookie switch up. Yes, now you can no longer get Peanut Butter Twix with the white cookie.. it's always chocolate cookie. Granted, it doesn't affect the taste all that much, but it is noticeable. Frankly, if it's not broken, don't fix it.
Dinner:
No snacks again. Had breakfast for dinner again. That usually takes care of the snack cravings. Cracklin' Oat Bran, as recently reviewed.
My fellow Snackmaster in arms at work gave me another small treat this morning before lunch. More easter loveliness: a small Nestle Crunch Egg. Nestle Crunch is solid; no matter what shape size or portion it comes in, the recipe holds up.
At lunch I had a two-pack of Peanut Butter Twix. I've struggled with purchasing these a lot in the recent past since their cookie switch up. Yes, now you can no longer get Peanut Butter Twix with the white cookie.. it's always chocolate cookie. Granted, it doesn't affect the taste all that much, but it is noticeable. Frankly, if it's not broken, don't fix it.
Dinner:
No snacks again. Had breakfast for dinner again. That usually takes care of the snack cravings. Cracklin' Oat Bran, as recently reviewed.
Cereal Profiles, Entry 1
Cereal is, with little question, in it’s own sub-category of snacks.
It can be eaten as a meal and it can be eaten as a snack, but it’s never quite wholly one or the other.
Now there are certain brands of cereals that clearly excel more in snacking aptitude, but I’d like to reserve those fetishes for later, more focused discussions.
I was the type of kid whose parents wouldn’t let him get sugar cereals for breakfast. The best I could get was Honey Nut Cheerios and occasionally Frosted Flakes (when it became clear that I was just going to pour spoonful after spoonful of sugar on my Corn Flakes to try to get the same effect.) I was bitter at the time, and I had my sugar cereal retribution in my late teens to early twenties, but now I am somewhat grateful to that routine they taught me.
Recently I’ve felt I need something that resembles something substantial in the morning. Unfortunately, this means that Lucky Charms isn’t going to cut it. So to keep breakfast exciting, I hunt down rare, old healthy favorites or try new healthy looking stuff.
Recent Favorites:
Cracklin’ Oat Bran (Made by Kellogs) :
My family experimented with this a bit in my early teens. This stuff is really good, it’s nice and sweet and you can easily get really stuffed on it. Cracklin’ Oat Bran is a brown colored, squared O that is very thick and very hard. It is crunchy, but not in any light flaky way. The “Cracklin” can definitely be coming from the crunch sound coming from your teeth as you bite down. This is one of those cereals that feels like a borderline sugar cereal to me. It’s got the flavor and sweetness of a sugar cereal, but essentially, it is (rightly) marketed to an adult, health conscious audience. There are no fruity colors and no fun shapes. Sadly, there is no mascot.
The down side to this type of cereal is that the Os are so big and clunky that you can really only get 2 or 3 in each spoonful. In addition to that, they are so dense that you will also need a substantial amount of milk in your spoon or it will feel like you are eating dry food. I often will pour a bowl and then pour the milk way over the peak of the highest cereal bit in anticipation of this situation. Unfortunately, your stomach doesn’t know that that excess milk is a balance for the cereal in your mouth, and the milk will weigh heavy on you.
I recommend hunting down some Maple Brown Sugar Oat milk to have with this. The combo is insanely perfect and unbelievably good. There is no way that this combo can’t be considered a treat. Let’s get it Cracklin’.
Honey Graham Oh’s (Made by Quaker):
I know: made by Quaker?! Quaker makes decent cereals? Indeed.
I’m convinced that this is a version of Cap’n Crunch reshaped visually and marketed to the adult cereal market. They taste almost exactly like Cap’n Crunch except a little less light and airy. They’ll even cut up the roof of your mouth the more passionately you eat them, like Cap’n Crunch. Appearance wise, as the name states, they are shaped like Os. The middle of these “Oh’s” are crammed with more foodstuffs, possibly little oats? The flavor is marketed as being a mixture of graham and honey and oats, but whatever, they taste like a slammin’ sugar cereal.
In my travels I’ve found that boxes of these are incredibly hard to find. At the present, I only know of one place that sells them. Much like the Hostess Pudding Pies, I hadn’t seen Honey Graham Oh’s for probably over a decade until one random day I stopped into a bodega near my friend’s apartment in Fort Greene looking for cereal and found a box. I went nuts. My feeling on this, without having done any research, is that this product was probably not discontinued, rather demand for it in the areas that I have lived is pretty much non-existent. For all I know, Honey Graham Oh’s may be on the shelves of every supermarket in the mid-west.
Good Friends (Made by Kashi):
I have to talk about this for a second. Not because it’s a good cereal that I obsess about, because it’s not really even that good. I have to talk about it because of it’s box design. The box fronts of Kashi’s Good Friends cereal intrigued me and drew me in like a magnet for years as I perused the cereal aisle. Only recently did I actually step up to the challenge of trying them out; and let me restate IT IS NOT GOOD (I mean come on, they even advertise on the front that it is made up of “flakes, twigs, and granola”. TWIGS?! That’s what we would call the stuff Grape Nuts was made of when we were trying to emphasize how revolting it was. Why would you put it out there like that?)
I merely have to mention this because of the absurdity of the cover. The cover always consists of two people of different ethnicities hunched in real close together, smiling like it was payday and hugging their bowl of “Good Friends” cereal. For the longest time I would only see this in nature/health food stores, and looking at the cover I suspected that it was the intention of Kashi to make me FEEL like a better liberal while eating their cereal. In all honesty, I expected the cereal to be edible but not in the slightest bit exciting or rewarding. To my surprise, I discovered it is possibly less appetizing than Grape Nuts. Heed the words of The Snackmaster and stay away from this.
I apologize for this deviation from all things snacky, I just felt it had to be discussed.
It can be eaten as a meal and it can be eaten as a snack, but it’s never quite wholly one or the other.
Now there are certain brands of cereals that clearly excel more in snacking aptitude, but I’d like to reserve those fetishes for later, more focused discussions.
I was the type of kid whose parents wouldn’t let him get sugar cereals for breakfast. The best I could get was Honey Nut Cheerios and occasionally Frosted Flakes (when it became clear that I was just going to pour spoonful after spoonful of sugar on my Corn Flakes to try to get the same effect.) I was bitter at the time, and I had my sugar cereal retribution in my late teens to early twenties, but now I am somewhat grateful to that routine they taught me.
Recently I’ve felt I need something that resembles something substantial in the morning. Unfortunately, this means that Lucky Charms isn’t going to cut it. So to keep breakfast exciting, I hunt down rare, old healthy favorites or try new healthy looking stuff.
Recent Favorites:
Cracklin’ Oat Bran (Made by Kellogs) :
My family experimented with this a bit in my early teens. This stuff is really good, it’s nice and sweet and you can easily get really stuffed on it. Cracklin’ Oat Bran is a brown colored, squared O that is very thick and very hard. It is crunchy, but not in any light flaky way. The “Cracklin” can definitely be coming from the crunch sound coming from your teeth as you bite down. This is one of those cereals that feels like a borderline sugar cereal to me. It’s got the flavor and sweetness of a sugar cereal, but essentially, it is (rightly) marketed to an adult, health conscious audience. There are no fruity colors and no fun shapes. Sadly, there is no mascot.
The down side to this type of cereal is that the Os are so big and clunky that you can really only get 2 or 3 in each spoonful. In addition to that, they are so dense that you will also need a substantial amount of milk in your spoon or it will feel like you are eating dry food. I often will pour a bowl and then pour the milk way over the peak of the highest cereal bit in anticipation of this situation. Unfortunately, your stomach doesn’t know that that excess milk is a balance for the cereal in your mouth, and the milk will weigh heavy on you.
I recommend hunting down some Maple Brown Sugar Oat milk to have with this. The combo is insanely perfect and unbelievably good. There is no way that this combo can’t be considered a treat. Let’s get it Cracklin’.
Honey Graham Oh’s (Made by Quaker):
I know: made by Quaker?! Quaker makes decent cereals? Indeed.
I’m convinced that this is a version of Cap’n Crunch reshaped visually and marketed to the adult cereal market. They taste almost exactly like Cap’n Crunch except a little less light and airy. They’ll even cut up the roof of your mouth the more passionately you eat them, like Cap’n Crunch. Appearance wise, as the name states, they are shaped like Os. The middle of these “Oh’s” are crammed with more foodstuffs, possibly little oats? The flavor is marketed as being a mixture of graham and honey and oats, but whatever, they taste like a slammin’ sugar cereal.
In my travels I’ve found that boxes of these are incredibly hard to find. At the present, I only know of one place that sells them. Much like the Hostess Pudding Pies, I hadn’t seen Honey Graham Oh’s for probably over a decade until one random day I stopped into a bodega near my friend’s apartment in Fort Greene looking for cereal and found a box. I went nuts. My feeling on this, without having done any research, is that this product was probably not discontinued, rather demand for it in the areas that I have lived is pretty much non-existent. For all I know, Honey Graham Oh’s may be on the shelves of every supermarket in the mid-west.
Good Friends (Made by Kashi):
I have to talk about this for a second. Not because it’s a good cereal that I obsess about, because it’s not really even that good. I have to talk about it because of it’s box design. The box fronts of Kashi’s Good Friends cereal intrigued me and drew me in like a magnet for years as I perused the cereal aisle. Only recently did I actually step up to the challenge of trying them out; and let me restate IT IS NOT GOOD (I mean come on, they even advertise on the front that it is made up of “flakes, twigs, and granola”. TWIGS?! That’s what we would call the stuff Grape Nuts was made of when we were trying to emphasize how revolting it was. Why would you put it out there like that?)
I merely have to mention this because of the absurdity of the cover. The cover always consists of two people of different ethnicities hunched in real close together, smiling like it was payday and hugging their bowl of “Good Friends” cereal. For the longest time I would only see this in nature/health food stores, and looking at the cover I suspected that it was the intention of Kashi to make me FEEL like a better liberal while eating their cereal. In all honesty, I expected the cereal to be edible but not in the slightest bit exciting or rewarding. To my surprise, I discovered it is possibly less appetizing than Grape Nuts. Heed the words of The Snackmaster and stay away from this.
I apologize for this deviation from all things snacky, I just felt it had to be discussed.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
March 17 ,2009
Lunchtime:
The day started a bit early for me. A fellow worker (who, himself, is probably a bit of a Snackmaster in his own right; this guy snacks on different random stuff at any hour of the workday, something I cannot claim) gave me a small individually wrapped Sunkist Fruit Slice. These are like sugared gummy candies; very soft and chewy. Generally I cannot eat anything between breakfast and lunch for fear of hampering the most critical energy building section of the day. But I saw nothing wrong with sneaking this little bit in. After a massive sandwich for lunch, I had a few small York Peppermint Patties. These were the snack size that come collectively in a larger bag. I have grown a fondness for chocolate mints recently, but I feel that the York Peppermint Patties are a substitute for the superior Junior Mints (Re:Weekend Action 3/14 - 3/15, the Peppermint Patties were purchased because of the unavailability of Junior Mints). Part of the logic of this claim of superiority boils down to the chocolate:mint ratio. Junior Mints have the absolute perfect portioning while York Peppermint Patties are a little too generous with the mint.
Dinner:
KFC. Long day. Got home late. Tired. No room for treats.
The day started a bit early for me. A fellow worker (who, himself, is probably a bit of a Snackmaster in his own right; this guy snacks on different random stuff at any hour of the workday, something I cannot claim) gave me a small individually wrapped Sunkist Fruit Slice. These are like sugared gummy candies; very soft and chewy. Generally I cannot eat anything between breakfast and lunch for fear of hampering the most critical energy building section of the day. But I saw nothing wrong with sneaking this little bit in. After a massive sandwich for lunch, I had a few small York Peppermint Patties. These were the snack size that come collectively in a larger bag. I have grown a fondness for chocolate mints recently, but I feel that the York Peppermint Patties are a substitute for the superior Junior Mints (Re:Weekend Action 3/14 - 3/15, the Peppermint Patties were purchased because of the unavailability of Junior Mints). Part of the logic of this claim of superiority boils down to the chocolate:mint ratio. Junior Mints have the absolute perfect portioning while York Peppermint Patties are a little too generous with the mint.
Dinner:
KFC. Long day. Got home late. Tired. No room for treats.
Monday, March 16, 2009
March 16, 2009
Easter Candy Continuance
Lunch:
So I broke into the Solid Chocolate Rabbit and discovered why it costs so cheap. Really probably some of the worst chocolate I've ever had. It is much too sweet and does seem to confirm the suspicion that there has got to be something funny about your product when it is labeled "Milk Chocolate Flavored." It's so sweet that it almost tastes... perfumed. Like a weird super sweet that is semi–acidic to your tongue. Ate half today. I'll finish it, but I won't enjoy it.
Dinner:
Banged out the second row of 5 peeps that come in the duo-pack. This duo pack is set up all wrong. Clearly each pack of 5 should be individually wrapped and then both wrapped together. As we all know, Peeps are notorious for going stale really quick. I somehow avoided this; granted it was only 24 hours since opening, but that is still plenty of time for Peeps to harden up.
Had to do another Cadbury Creme Egg too. I got a pack of 4 and originally promised my roommate half, but that's clearly not gonna happen now. At the moment I'm scheming on eating this last Marshmallow Rabbit in bed while I watch tv but that may be a bit too much...
Lunch:
So I broke into the Solid Chocolate Rabbit and discovered why it costs so cheap. Really probably some of the worst chocolate I've ever had. It is much too sweet and does seem to confirm the suspicion that there has got to be something funny about your product when it is labeled "Milk Chocolate Flavored." It's so sweet that it almost tastes... perfumed. Like a weird super sweet that is semi–acidic to your tongue. Ate half today. I'll finish it, but I won't enjoy it.
Dinner:
Banged out the second row of 5 peeps that come in the duo-pack. This duo pack is set up all wrong. Clearly each pack of 5 should be individually wrapped and then both wrapped together. As we all know, Peeps are notorious for going stale really quick. I somehow avoided this; granted it was only 24 hours since opening, but that is still plenty of time for Peeps to harden up.
Had to do another Cadbury Creme Egg too. I got a pack of 4 and originally promised my roommate half, but that's clearly not gonna happen now. At the moment I'm scheming on eating this last Marshmallow Rabbit in bed while I watch tv but that may be a bit too much...
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Weekend Action 3/14 - 3/15/09
I was craving some Junior Mints on Friday night so I decided to make a trip to the Rite Aid down the street from me with the intention of making an investment for the weekend. I had forgotten that this Rite Aid, incredibly, does not sell Junior Mints. Nonetheless, I went in with the goal of stocking up and I wasn't going to come out disappointed. Once I got in the Rite Aid, I noticed that they had started stocking up candy for Easter. You know, the type of deal where they dedicate an entire half aisle to Easter candy. Bong bong.
Let me break it down piece by piece:
Peeps:
I'm a yellow Peeps type of guy. I know that it's just food coloring and there's no difference but still. I feel less disgusting eating yellow Peeps than when I eat the pink ones. The pinks, for obvious reasons, just seem unnatural. Now, I know Peeps are a very divisive type of candy. You kind of either love them or are insultingly disgusted by them. I'm really no different, but I've seen both sides of the issue. When I was younger I just couldn't deal with Peeps. I'm sure it was something about the fact that they're ridiculously sweet and I think I used to have a hard time thinking about the texture of the outer coating in my mouth. But, I got over them, in much the same way I've had to get over other treats that I previously didn't like. There was a time when I NEEDED something candy-like and sweet and there was nothing but Peeps. Your mind has the amazing capability to bury grievances when you feel like you are backed into a corner. I downed a full row of 5 Peeps tonight.
Cadbury Creme Eggs:
Same thing with these as with Peeps. As a kid I just couldn't stomach them. To me they were just TOO rich. There was something about the center that intimidated me. The fact that you could only portion a small amount of the chocolate shell combined with the "soft fondant center" in each bite really turned me off. It was too much of an overload. Of course now that's the exact reason why I worship them so much and find myself longing for them at random moments throughout the year, waiting for Easter to come. But the transition here was something different than the Peeps revelation. I think I was always attracted to Cadbury Creme Eggs, and I always wanted to be able to take them on. I remember trying them again and again, even though I would have successive experiences of failure. Then, sometime in my early teens, I finally just started to completely enjoy every experience of eating a Cadbury Creme Egg. I had one of these tonight. It's do-able, but even The Snackmaster has a tough time eating two in one night.
Russell Stover Marshmallow Rabbit:
This may actually be the first time I've had something like this in Easter season. Typically, it's the Marshmallow Santas during Christmastime. My mother e-mails me before every Christmas asking what type of candy I hope Santa would leave for me in my stocking and the Marshmallow Santas are first on my list. These Rabbits are exactly the same. Perfect. I really can't think of any other product where you can find this type of marshmallow texture and flavor. It's really soft and really chewy and can melt quickly from just a touch of your finger. It has the consistency of a lightly roasted camp-fire marshmallow, but at room temperature. This may be the real treasure of my adventures this weekend, and I fully expect to go back to Rite Aid later this week to stock up again.
Palmer Solid Chocolate Bunny:
This was only a buck, and a 7oz bunny at that. That was a no-brainer. This can last me for a day or two. Palmer is not a name I would recognize if I just read it, but their logo is instantly recognizable to me as a classic Easter Candy company. The strange thing about this product is the wording on the package. Word for word it reads: "Palmer Happy Easter Milk Chocolate Flavored." I mean, I can tell it's a solid milk chocolate bunny so I guess they don't need to write it right there on the package; but most companies do. Also, Milk Chocolate "Flavored" got me a little worried. That makes it sound like some weird composite food that has been flavored "milk chocolate". Luckily, the ingredients list a normal mix of a chocolate recipe.
I haven't broken into this one yet. Solid milk chocolate is obviously not the main attraction of this ensemble. It's just a great back up to have around.
Let me break it down piece by piece:
Peeps:
I'm a yellow Peeps type of guy. I know that it's just food coloring and there's no difference but still. I feel less disgusting eating yellow Peeps than when I eat the pink ones. The pinks, for obvious reasons, just seem unnatural. Now, I know Peeps are a very divisive type of candy. You kind of either love them or are insultingly disgusted by them. I'm really no different, but I've seen both sides of the issue. When I was younger I just couldn't deal with Peeps. I'm sure it was something about the fact that they're ridiculously sweet and I think I used to have a hard time thinking about the texture of the outer coating in my mouth. But, I got over them, in much the same way I've had to get over other treats that I previously didn't like. There was a time when I NEEDED something candy-like and sweet and there was nothing but Peeps. Your mind has the amazing capability to bury grievances when you feel like you are backed into a corner. I downed a full row of 5 Peeps tonight.
Cadbury Creme Eggs:
Same thing with these as with Peeps. As a kid I just couldn't stomach them. To me they were just TOO rich. There was something about the center that intimidated me. The fact that you could only portion a small amount of the chocolate shell combined with the "soft fondant center" in each bite really turned me off. It was too much of an overload. Of course now that's the exact reason why I worship them so much and find myself longing for them at random moments throughout the year, waiting for Easter to come. But the transition here was something different than the Peeps revelation. I think I was always attracted to Cadbury Creme Eggs, and I always wanted to be able to take them on. I remember trying them again and again, even though I would have successive experiences of failure. Then, sometime in my early teens, I finally just started to completely enjoy every experience of eating a Cadbury Creme Egg. I had one of these tonight. It's do-able, but even The Snackmaster has a tough time eating two in one night.
Russell Stover Marshmallow Rabbit:
This may actually be the first time I've had something like this in Easter season. Typically, it's the Marshmallow Santas during Christmastime. My mother e-mails me before every Christmas asking what type of candy I hope Santa would leave for me in my stocking and the Marshmallow Santas are first on my list. These Rabbits are exactly the same. Perfect. I really can't think of any other product where you can find this type of marshmallow texture and flavor. It's really soft and really chewy and can melt quickly from just a touch of your finger. It has the consistency of a lightly roasted camp-fire marshmallow, but at room temperature. This may be the real treasure of my adventures this weekend, and I fully expect to go back to Rite Aid later this week to stock up again.
Palmer Solid Chocolate Bunny:
This was only a buck, and a 7oz bunny at that. That was a no-brainer. This can last me for a day or two. Palmer is not a name I would recognize if I just read it, but their logo is instantly recognizable to me as a classic Easter Candy company. The strange thing about this product is the wording on the package. Word for word it reads: "Palmer Happy Easter Milk Chocolate Flavored." I mean, I can tell it's a solid milk chocolate bunny so I guess they don't need to write it right there on the package; but most companies do. Also, Milk Chocolate "Flavored" got me a little worried. That makes it sound like some weird composite food that has been flavored "milk chocolate". Luckily, the ingredients list a normal mix of a chocolate recipe.
I haven't broken into this one yet. Solid milk chocolate is obviously not the main attraction of this ensemble. It's just a great back up to have around.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
March 12, 2009
Lunch:
Nestle Crunch "New Richer Chocolate!". To be fair it did taste different. It didn't taste worse. I can't really determine if I care enough to say that it tasted better than any other Nestle Crunch bar that I've had. It kind of tasted like those small chocolates wrapped in foil that you get around Christmas time. I know thats vague but I can't think of a name brand to cite. What it didn't really taste like is richer chocolate. It tasted more like minutely heightened flavor. If I could be naive to have expectations of such marketing schemes, I would imagine the chocolate to be on par with Cadbury Milk Chocolate bars imported from Europe. This did not taste like Cadbury Milk Chocolate bars imported from Europe. Nonetheless, it was a Nestle Crunch bar, and that's what I wanted then; it worked.
Dinner:
Man, I had breakfast for dinner tonight. Cereal, which certainly did not prepare me well for the mini-bag of Knott's Berry Farm Raspberry Shortbread cookies that I ate. Oh yeah and a 50 cent bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
Word.
Nestle Crunch "New Richer Chocolate!". To be fair it did taste different. It didn't taste worse. I can't really determine if I care enough to say that it tasted better than any other Nestle Crunch bar that I've had. It kind of tasted like those small chocolates wrapped in foil that you get around Christmas time. I know thats vague but I can't think of a name brand to cite. What it didn't really taste like is richer chocolate. It tasted more like minutely heightened flavor. If I could be naive to have expectations of such marketing schemes, I would imagine the chocolate to be on par with Cadbury Milk Chocolate bars imported from Europe. This did not taste like Cadbury Milk Chocolate bars imported from Europe. Nonetheless, it was a Nestle Crunch bar, and that's what I wanted then; it worked.
Dinner:
Man, I had breakfast for dinner tonight. Cereal, which certainly did not prepare me well for the mini-bag of Knott's Berry Farm Raspberry Shortbread cookies that I ate. Oh yeah and a 50 cent bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
Word.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
March 11, 2009
Lunchtime:
Copped out and got a Butterfinger bar. Really wanted Reese's Pieces but the corner store didn't have them. Didn't really enjoy it all that much so I'm not going to go on about them. However, I have to take this opportunity to mention the pizza place I get lunch at. NY Pizza Suprema on 8th ave and 31st street is hands down the best slice in Manhattan. Luckily, it's right around the corner from where I work. The workers are friendly, service is always fast even during lunch hour rush and the plain slices are slammer. You can tell that the the owners/management are not just some regular New York Italian schmucks who are completely bored with the idea of working at their pizza shop. These guys sincerely take pride in their superior pizza. I've gotten my lunch there about 3 times a week for around a year and a half and still go back. In that time I've NEVER had a problem with the service or the food. Check them out.
Dinner:
Couple of those same chocolate wafers... meh.
Copped out and got a Butterfinger bar. Really wanted Reese's Pieces but the corner store didn't have them. Didn't really enjoy it all that much so I'm not going to go on about them. However, I have to take this opportunity to mention the pizza place I get lunch at. NY Pizza Suprema on 8th ave and 31st street is hands down the best slice in Manhattan. Luckily, it's right around the corner from where I work. The workers are friendly, service is always fast even during lunch hour rush and the plain slices are slammer. You can tell that the the owners/management are not just some regular New York Italian schmucks who are completely bored with the idea of working at their pizza shop. These guys sincerely take pride in their superior pizza. I've gotten my lunch there about 3 times a week for around a year and a half and still go back. In that time I've NEVER had a problem with the service or the food. Check them out.
Dinner:
Couple of those same chocolate wafers... meh.
Hostess Pudding Pies
These are ridiculously impossible to find.
Rumors are that they stopped making them, however I have found 2 stores that sell them in the last 6 months.
Hostess Pudding Pies entered into my world in my pre-teens in the form of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pudding Pie. In fact, it’s quite possible that this was my first Hostess product experience period. I came upong the TMNT pies during a very focused phase in my early years when I spent my meager allowance every weekend on nothing but snacks and candy. I’m not going to lie and say that it wasn’t the fact that this was a TMNT product that made me first pick it up. If it were now, this kind of marketing would be the decision maker for me to NOT buy it. But thankfully, at that age, I did. These pudding pies were unbelievable. I would usually buy one to accompany an assortment of other random snacks and save the rest of my money to rent a VHS down the street with my buddies. If I remember correctly, this was also around the same time I would down the 1 pounder bag of Twizzlers that were frequently on sale at CVS for $1.29. These pies were weird, I will admit. They were green. They had unknown cream in them (I had never before in my life eaten pudding in any form). But they hit the spot. They were awesome. It was often a dilemma for me to figure out at what point in the sequence of snacking that the TMNT pie would be enjoyed. Naturally it was the highlight, the dessert of desserts; so often I would save it to the end as the real treat. But sometimes I just couldn’t wait and it would be the first treat to get taken down.
What's also unique about the Pudding Pies is their packaging. They are wrapped in a wax paper that is noticeably thicker than the wax paper used to package Hostess' other Pies. Hostess' Fruit Pies are wrapped in a significantly thinner, more translucent wax. The Pudding Pies have no opacity to them at all. The stiffness of the wax paper feels like if you folded it, it might crack. Holding them in your hands, you know you have a different product.
I can’t remember what it was that made them disappear from my routine. I’m betting it was a mixture of me getting sick of them and the store not carrying them. Frankly I had not even thought of them until 6 months ago when I saw a regular style Vanilla Pudding Pie at a convenience store and a flood of nostalgia swarmed over me. Of course I picked it up. Unfortunately I cannot remember now where I got that one pie from.
However, last week I found two Hostess Chocolate Pudding Pies in a corner store on Bedford and North 7th in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and immediately snatched them up. Now I’m not really a big fan of the chocolate ones; I grew up on the TMNT ones that had vanilla filling and the outer cake was really just vanilla (plain?) dyed green. But nevertheless I had to have them.
So the question is what happened to them? They are definitely out of major circulation. If you do a quick google search on them you come up with several pages asking the same question. Some go as far back as 2004, but I’m pretty sure they were out of major circulation long before that. There’s even a site where you can sign an e-petition requesting their return. But this doesn’t explain how I found these 3 pies in the last 6 months. Sure, the joke with Hostess products (Twinkies in particular) is that their shelf life is ridiculously long. But what really are the chances that there are some distributors that have a stock of Pudding Pies that have sat in their warehouse for at least 5 – 10 years? Surely there most be more out there, and you better believe I’ll be back on Bedford and North 7th next week to check for more…
Rumors are that they stopped making them, however I have found 2 stores that sell them in the last 6 months.
Hostess Pudding Pies entered into my world in my pre-teens in the form of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pudding Pie. In fact, it’s quite possible that this was my first Hostess product experience period. I came upong the TMNT pies during a very focused phase in my early years when I spent my meager allowance every weekend on nothing but snacks and candy. I’m not going to lie and say that it wasn’t the fact that this was a TMNT product that made me first pick it up. If it were now, this kind of marketing would be the decision maker for me to NOT buy it. But thankfully, at that age, I did. These pudding pies were unbelievable. I would usually buy one to accompany an assortment of other random snacks and save the rest of my money to rent a VHS down the street with my buddies. If I remember correctly, this was also around the same time I would down the 1 pounder bag of Twizzlers that were frequently on sale at CVS for $1.29. These pies were weird, I will admit. They were green. They had unknown cream in them (I had never before in my life eaten pudding in any form). But they hit the spot. They were awesome. It was often a dilemma for me to figure out at what point in the sequence of snacking that the TMNT pie would be enjoyed. Naturally it was the highlight, the dessert of desserts; so often I would save it to the end as the real treat. But sometimes I just couldn’t wait and it would be the first treat to get taken down.
What's also unique about the Pudding Pies is their packaging. They are wrapped in a wax paper that is noticeably thicker than the wax paper used to package Hostess' other Pies. Hostess' Fruit Pies are wrapped in a significantly thinner, more translucent wax. The Pudding Pies have no opacity to them at all. The stiffness of the wax paper feels like if you folded it, it might crack. Holding them in your hands, you know you have a different product.
I can’t remember what it was that made them disappear from my routine. I’m betting it was a mixture of me getting sick of them and the store not carrying them. Frankly I had not even thought of them until 6 months ago when I saw a regular style Vanilla Pudding Pie at a convenience store and a flood of nostalgia swarmed over me. Of course I picked it up. Unfortunately I cannot remember now where I got that one pie from.
However, last week I found two Hostess Chocolate Pudding Pies in a corner store on Bedford and North 7th in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and immediately snatched them up. Now I’m not really a big fan of the chocolate ones; I grew up on the TMNT ones that had vanilla filling and the outer cake was really just vanilla (plain?) dyed green. But nevertheless I had to have them.
So the question is what happened to them? They are definitely out of major circulation. If you do a quick google search on them you come up with several pages asking the same question. Some go as far back as 2004, but I’m pretty sure they were out of major circulation long before that. There’s even a site where you can sign an e-petition requesting their return. But this doesn’t explain how I found these 3 pies in the last 6 months. Sure, the joke with Hostess products (Twinkies in particular) is that their shelf life is ridiculously long. But what really are the chances that there are some distributors that have a stock of Pudding Pies that have sat in their warehouse for at least 5 – 10 years? Surely there most be more out there, and you better believe I’ll be back on Bedford and North 7th next week to check for more…
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
March 10, 2009
Lunchtime:
I did today what I warned against yesterday. I ate a little too much for my dessert. I went to this sandwich shop down the street from where I work, and since it is not close enough to a corner store with a decent selection of treats, I usually buy one or two cookies from the sandwich shop. Today I decided to get the large, 6 inch diameter chocolate chip cookie. It was pretty good and it went with the flow of that lunch; I had ordered a fairly large and overstuffed turkey sandwich. So you know, if you're gonna do it, you might as well really do it. Indeed, I was annihilated going back to work after lunch, and seeing that I have to stand up all day at where I work, my digestion process is certainly not coddled.
The cookie was good though. This sandwich shop gets its pastries and cookies and such from a bakery on 8th ave and 30th street, and while I don't frequent them much, this cookie hit the spot. The edges were semi-crisp and the center was not too soggy or doughy. This is a frequent concern of mine with large cookies. Not over-cooking the edges and not under-cooking the center is a tricky task.
Dinner:
Just finished a Chicken Parm sub and Cheesy Bread from Dominoes. Both were meh. Left feeling pretty stuffed and seeing that it's already about 10:30 I may have to skip tonight's treat. Although I do have some Reese's Peanut Butter Filled Hearts that I picked up on sale after Valentine's Day that I may partake in if my stomach feels like it can handle more later.
Not a very exciting day for The Snackmaster.
I did today what I warned against yesterday. I ate a little too much for my dessert. I went to this sandwich shop down the street from where I work, and since it is not close enough to a corner store with a decent selection of treats, I usually buy one or two cookies from the sandwich shop. Today I decided to get the large, 6 inch diameter chocolate chip cookie. It was pretty good and it went with the flow of that lunch; I had ordered a fairly large and overstuffed turkey sandwich. So you know, if you're gonna do it, you might as well really do it. Indeed, I was annihilated going back to work after lunch, and seeing that I have to stand up all day at where I work, my digestion process is certainly not coddled.
The cookie was good though. This sandwich shop gets its pastries and cookies and such from a bakery on 8th ave and 30th street, and while I don't frequent them much, this cookie hit the spot. The edges were semi-crisp and the center was not too soggy or doughy. This is a frequent concern of mine with large cookies. Not over-cooking the edges and not under-cooking the center is a tricky task.
Dinner:
Just finished a Chicken Parm sub and Cheesy Bread from Dominoes. Both were meh. Left feeling pretty stuffed and seeing that it's already about 10:30 I may have to skip tonight's treat. Although I do have some Reese's Peanut Butter Filled Hearts that I picked up on sale after Valentine's Day that I may partake in if my stomach feels like it can handle more later.
Not a very exciting day for The Snackmaster.
Monday, March 9, 2009
March 9, 2009
Today's treats:
Lunchtime's snack was a two-pack of Pepperidge Farm Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies (something like that.) They were kind of stale; definitely much stiffer and less chewy than packs of the same brand that I'd bought in the past. Definitely disappointing. You really only get one shot at a lunchtime treat. If the first one sucks you really can't eat another treat without risking getting too stuffed and pretty much ruining the entire lunch experience.
Real-deal snack time is at night for me. This is when snacks can truly be fully enjoyed. Tonight brought a No Sugar Added Fudgsicle into my world. Now I'm not really that big on pop/fudgsicles so I can't really say what a regular, non-No Sugar Added fudgsicle tastes like, but these are certainly adequate. It's not a product where you taste a lack of sweetness due to "No Sugar" b-s. Also downed a few Nestle "Amor" "Waffer" (chocolate wafer crisps). I live in a predominantly Latino neighborhood so this is a Central American product. Tastes just like you would expect any chocolate wafer to taste, however these are a bit thinner than the majority of wafers I've eaten.
This was not a big night for me. These sweets felt like a compromise. I didn't have much in the house and didn't want to go to the store to make an investment in snacks that would surely spill over into the rest of the week.
Lunchtime's snack was a two-pack of Pepperidge Farm Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies (something like that.) They were kind of stale; definitely much stiffer and less chewy than packs of the same brand that I'd bought in the past. Definitely disappointing. You really only get one shot at a lunchtime treat. If the first one sucks you really can't eat another treat without risking getting too stuffed and pretty much ruining the entire lunch experience.
Real-deal snack time is at night for me. This is when snacks can truly be fully enjoyed. Tonight brought a No Sugar Added Fudgsicle into my world. Now I'm not really that big on pop/fudgsicles so I can't really say what a regular, non-No Sugar Added fudgsicle tastes like, but these are certainly adequate. It's not a product where you taste a lack of sweetness due to "No Sugar" b-s. Also downed a few Nestle "Amor" "Waffer" (chocolate wafer crisps). I live in a predominantly Latino neighborhood so this is a Central American product. Tastes just like you would expect any chocolate wafer to taste, however these are a bit thinner than the majority of wafers I've eaten.
This was not a big night for me. These sweets felt like a compromise. I didn't have much in the house and didn't want to go to the store to make an investment in snacks that would surely spill over into the rest of the week.
Inception and Mission Statement
So here begins the first blog of The Snackmaster.
I think it's important to start out by explaining what my intentions for this blog are.
I don't take the title "The Snackmaster" lightly. I am very passionate and dedicated to eating snacks. I like to consider myself a man who has a very expansive knowledge of a very diverse range of snacks, treats, sweets and candies. My feeling is to start this blog out in a very organic manner. I will post as frequently as possible, giving updates on the snacks I've eaten. While my first passion is to express my personal connection and history to the snack, hopefully I can impart some information outside of my own musings about these snacks.
Thanks for reading and check back soon!
The SnackMaster
I think it's important to start out by explaining what my intentions for this blog are.
I don't take the title "The Snackmaster" lightly. I am very passionate and dedicated to eating snacks. I like to consider myself a man who has a very expansive knowledge of a very diverse range of snacks, treats, sweets and candies. My feeling is to start this blog out in a very organic manner. I will post as frequently as possible, giving updates on the snacks I've eaten. While my first passion is to express my personal connection and history to the snack, hopefully I can impart some information outside of my own musings about these snacks.
Thanks for reading and check back soon!
The SnackMaster
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