Expelled from Snack Jail.

Who am I kidding? I'm never going to eat this fat boy. It's at least a year old, and that's just one of the several reasons not to eat it. 

Goodbye.

Another Pairing

Hey, does salty chocolate match with Turkish Sufi music?

I've got a new album called Folk Lute of Anatolia (Ali Ekber Çiçek, voice and bağlama) and one of the last treats from Vienna, Meersalz Schokolade by Leysieffer [This is a rich, dark chocolate with large grains of salt. It's quite the saltiest chocolate I've ever tasted, but it's delicious and melts beautifully on the tongue]. And then, in a little while, we're all going to watch Little Women (1933, with Katherine Hepburn as Jo). Isn't life grand?

Powercat

Rarr-rawr!!

Nestlé Lion: Chocolatey and knobby on the outside, crisp rice and nougatey/caramel-y on the inside. A bit thick, definitely chewy. It's got teeth!

Or: "Not unlike its namesake, kingly and yet lethargic," says an anonymous source.

I planned to eat it while listening to my new album of Bertolt Brecht's A "Man's" A Man, adapted by Eric Bentley (cool album illustration by Dan Snyder seen above), but I just got home from hanging out at a bar with a nine-day-old baby (I had wine; she had milk), it's late and I'm watching Veronica Mars episodes...so, there goes that plan.

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p.s. I'm having my teeth cleaned in the morning. This will help, right?

Someone knows me well.

That someone bought me a KitKat Chunky Peanut Butter bar while in Vienna.

Not as amazing as the peanut butter Twix bar, these pack a peanut-buttery wallop nonetheless. "Chunky" is a good adjective for this guy. The Kit Kat bar is hefty and contains a great wodge of peanut butter inside. The chocolate could stand to be a bit darker, but I'm not too mad at it.

Thanks also to Nestlé Deutschland AG.

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Today I learned that the expression is "just deserts" (as in he/she got his/her just deserts) not "just desserts." That's desert used as a noun meaning something one deserves. This is the same desert in the concept of moral desert, not the noun referring to a pudding course - which is spelled differently but pronounced the same way - or the noun meaning an area with little precipitation - which is spelled the same but pronounced differently.

The first person who used the spelling "just desserts" might have meant the pun, especially if he or she was naming a bakery with the phrase, but now I suspect many people don't know it's a pun (or simply incorrect) at all.

Mozart balls

(please open this link in another window while you read this post)

Some history may be found here. Apparently these are legally allowed to be called “Real Salzburg Mozartkugeln” but are not the "original Salzburg Mozartkugeln.”

Huh. Okay. You're not supposed to just eat these, I gather. You're supposed to look at the inside of the sphere. They have rings of flavor with a ball of green at the center. The wrapper says they contain praline paste, almonds and marzipan (it is pistachio marzipan in the middle).

I like the chewiness of the center and the chocolate coating has a nice flavor, but everything tastes like hazelnut to me now. I couldn't really find a distinct almond, pistachio or marzipan flavor in there.

p.s. Yes, there is also a Bach cube. I need to try it, obviously.

Pairings

Not unlike cheese and wine, some record albums and snacks set each other off to a fine degree.

Sound: The Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem
Flavor: Manner Original Neapolitaner (made in Austria)
Smells: Wafery, hazelnutty
I like: perforations, grids, layers, guitar, four-part harmony
Caveat: perhaps a bit stale. Yet it says "Best before March 13, 2009?" Well, one corner of the package got torn in transit from Vienna, so maybe the exposure to air depleted its life.

Both the music and the neapolitaner are thick and heartier than they look like they have any right to be. The music's boisterous tunes are brought out by the wafers, at once flirting with crisp, yet bendy. Ballads become e'en sweeter under the spell of this snack. It all seems a bit nonsensical, but there's substance there, no matter how folksy and bracketed by "fol de diddle rye raddy rye."

Like The Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem, this product is "tough-fisted and gentle-hearted." Original Manner Schnitten mit Hasselnusscreme and lilting folk singers -- nay, the very countries of Austria and Ireland -- I just know you're going to be the best of friends.

They came from Vienna

Clarky's Paprika

When I was a kid I did not realize the spice paprika has a flavor. I thought it was just red to sprinkle on deviled eggs. Maybe the paprika in our spice cabinet was really old. Now I know that paprika can be spicy, smoky, and/or sweet. It can also (still) be just plain red.

I am fond of Clarky's Kartoffelchips Paprika. They are like shorter shoestring potato chips and, yes, they have less flavor than I typically would appreciate. Yet I want to eat them by the handful even though they arrived in this country in an open bag with some of their number already having been consumed.

Fruchtgummi

Haribo Saure Pommes (Extra Sauer)

Procured in Vienna, these are sour gummy Belgian fries with grainy sugar coating them. The five colors have different flavors, but they all taste reminiscent of gummy grapefruit pieces to me. My flavor guesses are:

Yellow: grapefruit/lemon flavor
Green: grapefruit/lime
White: grapefruit/ pineapple
Red: grapefruit/cherry
Orange: orange (tastes least like grapefruit)



The fries are shaped like trapezoids -- so different sides have different thicknesses, which adds to the illusion of their being hand-cut -- and they "give" easily upon being bitten into. They seem softer than some gummy products. I enjoyed them a lot, but would be more likely to call them "sour" than "extra sour." The sugar on the outside of the fries is not as rough as on other sour gummy items. And I like the novelty of the Belgian fry design. If only I were eating them out of a paper cone.

Eaten while listening to: Isobel Campbell's album Milkwhite Sheets. I wish she'd added a little more sour to her sweet.

D: "These taste fresher."
J: "Than what?"
D: "Than American gummis. Don't you think?"
J: "Mmm."

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Idea: salty gummis

I don't need knickknacks

but I could put Lorenz Snack-World NicNacs on a few shelves ...



These "double-crunch peanuts" are like nut-covered nuts (as described by Dan). The outside is salty and extra-crunchy, with an unidentifiable light layer of non-nut flavor -- smoky or like a very, very mild BBQ corn chip. The brand's website calls this a "fiery coating." Fiery it is not.

I have only a few small snack packs to consume, but these taste like they'd be best in batches. Eat a bunch! Buy in bulk!

Although bought in Vienna, my research indicates NicNacs (or "NicNac's" on the English website, which I refuse to accept) are German. I wonder how they compare to the South African Nik Naks enjoyed by these gamers.


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Non-Contextual Quote: "I just hope that I die while hugging - and not while in a wine-drinking contest." - Baby Cakes (thanks to Brad Neely)