Andrea, over at A Peek Inside The Fish Bowl orchestrated Candy Swap 2006 and of course I had to participate. Of course, and had - words deliberately chosen.
My recipient, Melissa, a blogless candy-lover, sent me her questionnaire:
1) When I was a kid, Halloween was all about:
a) collecting as much candy as I could
b) collecting candy to eat as I go
c) sharing with my siblings
d) Who cares about candy? I was too busy egging my teacher's car.
e) Halloween was forbidden in my house and I've never gotten over it.
Bring it on!
Absolutely collecting as much candy as I could, although I was then picky about what I actually ate
2) What is more important to you: quality, or quantity?
Depends where I am on the scale. If I'm in a good place, then quality. But if I'm trying to drop a few pounds, then I crave all I can eat!
3) If you were on a desert island (haha, I wrote "dessert island" but that would be a totally different question now wouldn't it?) and could only have one sweet treat, which would it be?
This is a cruel question! How to narrow down to only one sweet treat?! I have a thing for anything with caramel, any sort of dark chocolate with creamy centers...but ultimately, if I'm truly honest, it would probably be rockets/bottlecaps/candy with the love messages on them type stuff. Sam (our 4 yr old) just found a left over rocket from his birthday pinata from a month ago and it was all I could do not to steal it while he was sleeping and eat it all up myself :) It's the only candy we give out at hallowe'en so we can eat the leftovers.
4) You arrive at "Dessert Island" – where you discover a river of pudding flowing freely through a swamp of Cool Whip. No one is watching. What do you do?
I don't think I could bring myself to actually dive in, but would certainly eat all I could, especially if I had a wooden spoon - any sort of cake batter on a wooden mixing spoon is impossible for me to resist
4) Sweet, sour, or savoury?
All of the above - although I'm not a big fan of things like chocolate covered pretzels
5) Sex or chocolate?
Can it both - in that order?
6) What kind of candy, if any, would you turn down if someone offered?
Turkish delight, jelly beans, occasionally licorice allsorts if I'm just not in the mood
7) You're at the grocery store, you're children/husband/pets have been The.Worst.Ever. They're throwing cans at each other, tripping little old ladies, taking bites out of the produce and putting them back in the bins, and piercing the milk bags with diaper pins. You feel yourself getting woozy. That vein in your forehead is throbbing. You need an immediate sugar kick before you do something crazy. What do you reach for?
Crispy crunch, Skor bar, or Crunchy
8) What are your feelings regarding Thrills gum, ribbon candy, scotch mints, and other "grandma candies"?
bleah bleah and bleah. I can't handle mints really b/c I have a long and sad relationship with motion sickness and everyone always gave me those round white mints after I was sick (on every freaking trip).
9) How adventurous are you? Do spicy dried mealworms or candy-coated crickets give you the willies, or are you willing to try anything once?
I'm semi-adventurous, but bugs are out, and probably chocolate covered meat would be out too :)
9) Do you have dentures or other dental issues? Do you have a good dental plan?
No dental issues and my plan is solid!
And so I chose:
I had fun shopping in the Chinese stores on Gerrard, and then at Suckers on the Danforth for the fun "quantity" stuff". But, because I was a day or three late in sending it (sent it on the Monday after instead of before the Saturday it was due - fine, make me eat grandma candy.), I enclosed some quantity. See it? The melty thing. Two truffles, from Dash Kitchen, priced about half the original budget - but what an amazing-sounding flavour: chocolate, with champagne, roses and black pepper. That fulfilled the semi-adventurous and quality preference categories. Sadly, they melted. Thankfully, the ones I chose for myself that day (to um, assess the quality) chocolate with vanilla, bourbon and lime zest were awesome, and I'd eat them melted, frozen, liquefied or in a sandwich. I also chose three glass candies as a souvenir. I hope she didn't try to eat them.
Her thank you was lovely:
"Woo Hoo! The delicious package arrived today! Here are two pics for you to post on your blog. The quality treat was awesome! Did you get one for yourself? What you can't really tell from these pics was that it did unfortunately arrive in an extremely flattened and melty condition after sitting in the mailbox all morning - but that just made it easier to cut in half to share with James :) We've already eaten half the candy dots and the rockets. It's like grown up hallowe'en.
Thank you soooo much! oh poopy. I'd hidden all the loot so my 4 yr old would not see it, and he just popped downstairs to procrastinate going to sleep under the pretext of giving us "one more hug and kiss". I know I should be strong but it's so hard to resist :) He wants to type his name: sam. He just saw all the candy - "ooooooh - where did all the
candy come from mommy?" I believe I draw the line at sharing this with him. It's all mine!!!! Melissa"
So it was with great excitement, that I anticipated mine. Funnily enough, it came on a day when the lovely Andrea herself was visiting! The night before, her charming family came over for dinner after an afternoon at Kew Gardens, and I got to demonstrate how I peeped in the mailbox every day waiting for my treats to arrive. It must have been a charm, the next day, on my way home from work, I rounded the corner up the walk and spied this:
Thank you mail carrier, for tempting all of the neighbourhood thugs. Would it have been too much to leave it in the wagon or on the glider, out of sight from the street? And out of the three hours of late-afternoon sun we get on the porch?
I had to open one to eat while I read the card and peeked at the rest. The outsides were fine, but the centers were like a warm river of chocolatey goo. The good thing about chocolate is that it tastes great even melty. I did have to lick it off the envelope in order to flip it over and open it. I didn't mind. And her card was sweet.
Nutella? Whatever made Hillary think of Nutella?
It is all wonderful, and it is all mostly gone now. Boo Boo has been playing with the crinkly wrappers, which is the extent to which I've shared it.
So, (mmmmfph mumble smear mmmmphf lick) thanks, Hillary!
And just remember: Each four hundred gram jar of NUTELLA combines the goodness of 56 roasted hazelnuts, one cup of skim milk, and a hint of delicious cocoa to provide energy! AND it's a source of vitamin E! E for ENERGY!
Nutella. The breakfast of candyswappers.
