The Girl Who Ate Everything

If you lived in Japan, you could get Kit Kat flavored with green tea, azuki, and condensed milk. Well, I guess they don't shove it all in the Kit Kat but it's supposed to taste something like that. Dude. DUDE. This makes me weep at the thought of candy in America. Here are our Kit Kat choices. It's not crappy but it's not all that innovative.

Not that making candy is easy. I absolutey loved Candyfreak. Something strange about my food preference (maybe, considering that this website is called "The Girl Who Ate Everything) is that I've never been really into candy, aside from chocolate, but even with chocolate I don't eat many chocolate candy bars. While I can recall the popularity of gums like Bubble Tape, Extra, and that weird shredded gum crap in a bag, I hardly ever ate it. Why the hell did people chew so much gum? I remember during elementary school people asking me if I had gum or if I wanted it. NO! WHY WOULD I HAVE GUM? (If I may reminisce, the most gum I ever ate was in Taiwan, called Playgum. It was in every convenience store and always resembled a white block with a colorful center that was probably fruit flavored. For some reason, I can only remember the purple one. It was extremely soft and sugary.) Today it seems like many people carry around mints. Mints...*shudders*. I also remember during my raw food diet how a few friends told me that they could never give up candy. Now, there are a lot of things I can't imagine giving up (wheat based substances, mainly) but candy? Plain ol' candy?

I have a greater respect for the candy industry now, or rather anything that isn't Mars, Hershey, or Nestle. The old family candy businesses are at risk of dying out, as many old food-related practices are, such as raising cows that eat GRASS (indeed, a novel idea). Candy making may not be as needed as say, sustainable agriculture, but it's...it's tasty. And it smells good. Is that not enough justification for eating highly processed concoctions of multiple types of sugar mixed with multiple types of fat enrobed in some other mixture of sugar and fat?

If there's one candy I like the most, it would have to be chocolate bars. Because...there's chocolate in it. I don't want any of that peanut and caramel crap; there must be chocolate. I remember many years ago trying a Payday, which I THOUGHT would have chocolate but instead was a log of caramel with peanuts on top. What the...honestly, what the fuck is that? I thought everything Hershey made had chocolate in it but apparently not. Anyway, what's going on with candy these days? Check out this information from Payday's website:

2005 Hershey introduces PAYDAY PRO, a high protein energy bar with 15 grams of protein and 14 vitamins and minerals. The PAYDAY PRO energy bar provides a great tasting, nutrient dense snack.

No offense, but if you eat a candy bar for nutrients, you're stupid. Basically. Perhaps because you probably ate too much candy.

Out of all the old timey candy Steve Almond mentioned, I had only tried the Goo Goo Cluster. I know that I can't possibly turn into a candy freak because I don't ...get insane satisfaction from eating candy, it seems. I enjoy it, yes, but I thought the Goo Goo cluster was "alright". Not bad, but not really something I'd need to eat again. Overall, anything with peanuts doesn't scream "eat me again". My favorite nut and chocolate mixtures involve hazelnuts or almonds. Hazelnuts are perfect with chocolate in my opinion, yet quizzically taste kind of crappy on their own. I know because I've eaten loads of plain ones (even though they don't taste great, I still eat them...hm). Almonds on the other hand are always good plain, especially raw. Mmm.

(I don't know if I've ever mentioned my nut addiction, but I can eat lots of nuts. Lots. Half a pound in a day, easily, if I allowed myself to do so and didn't mind going into a protein coma. When I started reading the news "alerts" informing people that eating a handful of nuts a day was healthy, I thought, "A handful? You have to tell people to eat a handful of nuts a day? You have to tell me to STOP at a handful of nuts a day! And by stop, I mean shut my jaw closed." Anyway, I've stopped eating nuts ever since I started eating grain products again...er. Yeah, I overeat that too.)

A chapter was devoted to 5 Star Chocolate Bars, which I at first thought I had never tried. Upon seeing the photo, I remember that I HAVE tried the hazelnut one, perhaps 4 years ago. It was really good. Considering that I still remember it, it must've been pretty damn good, and after reading Steve's praise for the bars I feel the need to try the other flavors. What I remember about the hazelnut bar (and this was before I started eating artisan chocolates) was its incredibly richness and meltyness. And hazelnutyness. I didn't chomp it down like a regular chocolate bar but savored it by eating it slowly. I can't believe I remember this.

Anyway. A trip to Economy Candy is an absolute necessity right now. Anyone want to go? I'd love to buy a few candy bars and split them with someone. A plus is that the store is close to Sugar Sweet Sunshine, or Teany if you want...tea. But wouldn't you rather have cupcakes?

...wow, someone remind me that my arm is expanding and growing every more squishy so perhaps I'll stop this food madness.

Oh, if anyone is wondering, the most candy bars I've eaten over the past year (as in 12 months) haven't been American, which was my excuse for eating so many. I gorged on chocolate bars (and biscuits) while in England and I sampled some Scandinavian goodies I found in Brooklyn. I had a few random things from Economy Candy but my candy bar consumption has mainly been British. I think they had a lot more stuff that wasn't peanut-based, thus leading to my hoard-age. I remember Topic being especially good (although what kind of name for a chocolate bar is that?).

If I may include some signs of semi-health in my diet, today for dinner I ate jasmine rice and a stir fried vegetable mix of swiss chard (grown on a farm just a few miles from my house) and onions, flavored with salt, olive oil, and some raw coconut oil. I tend to only cook vegetable because it takes the least amount of time and I actually think it tastes good

...And for dessert I had an orange, strawberries, a Chinese pineapple cake, some chocolate covered almonds, a dark chocolate mendiant square, and a slice of pear and strawberry pie. Wow. I suck.