Candy

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I have written about Apollonia and her sister Augusta. There is also a third sister, named (for the purposes of this blog) Agrippina.  

 

 

(All great comedy groups come in threes. Think of the Ritz Brothers. Think of the Marx Brothers. Think of the Three . . . well, you know who I mean.)

 

 

Anyway: “So we’re in the hospital,” Apollonia says. “It’s very late. Agrippina says, ‘Go get me some candy. Licorice. I want licorice.’ I said to her: ‘It’s after midnight. Where in the hell am I going to buy licorice for you?’ And, very calmly, she says: ‘Go to a movie theater.’”

 

 

Apollonia and I are silent for a moment. “That’s brilliant,” I said. “I never would have thought of that.”

 

 

“Yeah, well,” Apollonia said wearily, “listen to this. I said: ‘You think I’m gonna go out to a movie theater and get you licorice?’ And she says: ‘Yeah. And I want that kind – you know? – with the pieces that are all different shapes. You know. With the little candies stuck to them.’” Apolllonia goggled at me. “What in the hell was she talking about?”

 

 

“Allsorts,” I said, quick as a flash.

 

 

“What?” Apollonia croaked.

 

 

I was sitting in front of my desktop computer at the time, so I quickly Googled an image (see above). “Licorice allsorts,” I said. “My favorite. I loved them as a child. Not commonly available. Buy them when you can.”

 

 

“Oh my God!” Apollonia moaned. “You know about this stuff too!”

 

 

That same day, I went to two CVS locations, and a Bed Bath & Beyond, and a RiteAid, and two other places, and I’m still looking for licorice allsorts. (I’m sure they’re available online, but that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I want to find them in the wild, in their natural environment.)

 

 

When you’re a child, what do you want? Candy. But adults won’t let you have it.

 

 

The most wonderful thing about adulthood is that you can buy yourself all the candy and toys you like, and no one can stop you or say no.

 

 

I will find licorice allsorts. And I will buy a package for Agrippina, and five or six packages for myself, and maybe some bubble gum for Apollonia (she’s a big Bazooka fan, though she will settle for Dubble Bubble).

 

 

And we will all be childishly happy.

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The Idaho Spud

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There is a nice website called Hometown Favorites, which markets grocery items from around the country: items that are generally only available locally.  In Rhode Island, for example, we’re talking about Eclipse Coffee Syrup, and Kenyon’s Clam Cake Mix, and New England Frozen Lemonade (sorry, kids, I don’t like Del’s). 

 

 

And sometimes I long for the candy bars of my Pacific Northwest childhood, and Hometown Favorites has them.

 

 

They have Mountain Bars.  They have Rocky Road bars (my favorites: chocolate-covered marshmallow bars, with bits of cashew in the chocolate).  They have Zero bars (white chocolate).  They have bags of Brach’s Chocolate Stars, which, inexplicably, you can’t buy in the Northeast.

 

 

And they have the Idaho Spud.

 

 

What?  You've never heard of it?  It’s only “the candy bar that made Idaho famous.”  It’s made in Boise (I checked the wrapper), by the Idaho Candy Company.  It’s an ovoid-shaped bar, rather like a used bar of soap, and it has a nubbly chocolate-coconut coating.  The inside is marshmallow mixed with something else I've never quite figured out. I gave an Idaho Spud to a coworker not long ago, and she described it this way: “The outside was delicious. The inside was – just flavorless.  Like a husk.”

 

 

And yet: I still buy them, five or ten at a time, and I eat them, or I give them away. I tell people: “Even if you don’t like the candy bar, the wrapper is a novelty.”

 

 

But, sincerely, I like them.  They remind me of my childhood, for one thing.  And there’s something profoundly simple about that brown wrapper.  And I like giving them to people who’ve never seen them before, who invariably say: “What is this thing?”

 

 

Why, it’s an Idaho Spud, you silly goose.

 

 

Just close your eyes and surrender to the experience.

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Halloween candy

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 I don’t know about you, but my memories of childhood are not wonderful.

 

 

Take Halloween, for example.  As I recall, I loved the idea of it: pumpkins, dressing up, getting free candy.  When it came down to it, however, dressing up was a little embarrassing, not to mention uncomfortable (those 1960s-era plastic Fred Flintstone masks really didn’t allow you to breath very well).  Also, going to strangers’ houses to ask for candy – in the dark, yet! – was sort of scary.

 

 

So I was pleased to hear this story from a coworker:

 

 

Her little boy, three years old, went out with his father to go trick-or-treating. They were gone for a suspiciously brief time; it turned out later that they’d gone to a total of five houses.  But the little boy was deliriously happy.  “I got so much candy!” he crowed. 

 

 

And he dumped out his plastic bucket –

 

 

And he’d gotten maybe ten or twelve small pieces of candy.

 

 

But, to him, it was a windfall.

 

 

My friend is apparently very strict about her son's candy consumption, so he was very circumspect about eating anything from his bucket.  “Can I have one piece now?” he asked.

 

 

“Sure,” she said.  “But just one.”

 

 

He pulled out a fun-sized Kit Kat, unwrapped it, ate it, and went into a kind of satori.  “Mamma,” he said, “what was that thing I just ate?”

 

 

“It’s called a Kit Kat,” she said.

 

 

“It is,” he said dreamily, “the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.  Can I have another one?”

 

 

“One’s enough for now,” she said.  “Maybe if you’re good tomorrow, you can have another.”

 

 

“Okay,” he said.  He took another Kit Kat out of his Halloween bucket and laid it on the table.  “I’m going to put this right here,” he said.  “And it’ll be right here waiting for me tomorrow.”

 

 

That’s the nicest story I’ve heard in a long time.

 

 

And now I am going to have a Kit Kat.

 

 

But just one.

 

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