Happy New Year candy lovers!! I’m sure everyone is out celebating, unfortunately I have a virus so I’m in bed thinking about resolutions. Every year people make the same resolutions. Go to the gym. Finish a book. Save more money. And every year people break this resolutions about a week into the new year.

So I have come up with a new plan. I have found a resolution that I think is much easier to keep then anything listed above. Once a week (or month depending on your budget) try a new candy. It can be anything. Even if you think you won’t like it, just give it a try! It’s 2006! Why not celebrate with something new? And there are so many choices that it’s almost impossible to fail!

So once I knock this virus out of my system, I will be perusing www.candyfavorites.com for new and exciting candy that I have never tried. Come on, you know you want to make this one of your resolutions! So good luck to you all in the new year, and be sure to let me know what new candy you discover!

Until next time, this is Kandy K……stay sweet!!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays candy lovers! Hopefully you all received some sweet treats this holiday season. I know I did. I spent the past few days baking dozens and dozens of cookies. And of course eating them as well! After making so many different kinds of cookies, I have decided which one is the ultimate holiday cookie.

Before I tell you, I of course have to list all the competition. I made yummy chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies with a hershey kiss in the middle, and butter cookies in holiday shapes with sprinkles. Now ALL of these cookies are wonderful tasting and are great holiday cookies. But only one can take home the prize of “ultimate cookie”.

After careful taste testing, I have decided that the winner is…….the peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses! These cookies are so incredibly good! Of course I’m a little bias because I LOVE hershey kisses, but still! Everyone should have these cookies around the holidays. So stop whatever you are doing right now, and make a batch of these AMAZING cookies. And of course, have a happy holiday!

Until next time, this is Kandy K……stay sweet!!

Need Hershey Kisses? Click Here

My roommates and I have a weekly tradition. Every week when we go grocery shopping, we buy a bag of chocolate to eat for the week. Last week, my roommate got miniature Hershey Smores bars. None of us had ever tried them before, so we thought why not?

They were pretty good. Milk chocolate, marshmellow, and graham cracker bits. But something was definitely missing. We finished the bag off in a week, and we of course enjoyed them thoroughly. But I decided that they just couldn’t compare to REAL smores. You know, a graham cracker bottom, a piece of a Hershey bar, a toasted marshmellow, and another graham cracker to top it off. They are just so good!

Of course, you are probably thinking that it’s so much easier to eat a smores bar, then make a real smore. Well, I’m hear to tell you that you don’t need a bonfire to make your smore. My roommates and I live in an apartment. We don’t have a fireplace, let alone a bonfire. But we do have candles! And it works just as well. Just stick a marshmellow on the end of a knife (or if you really want, grab a stick from the backyard) and toast away.

My point is that while a smores bar is good and will satisfy your chocolate craving, if you’re going to have a smores bar, you might as well just do it right. Buy the graham crackers and the hershey bar, and toast your marshmellows! It can’t be beat! So have a smores this holiday season with your family or friends. You will all enjoy it!

Until next time, this is Kandy K…..stay sweet!

Need a Hershey bar for that smore?click here!
Too lazy to buy the separate ingredients? Really you are missing out! Smores bar

So I’ve been at this whole “Candy Critic” thing for a few years now and I’ve put a whole lot into it. I’ve traveled around, harassed people that travel to buy me candy and eaten things I don’t even want to talk about. One of my travels took me to the National Candy Expo in Chicago, don’t even try and go because you have to be invited. But it does exist, a convention completelly dedicated to the love of candy, or so thought.

You see the candy industry is a billion dollar machine; these fun little snacks we eat are big money to people. Now I don’t want to start by putting down all those in the candy industry, but I have to say that most of them are dull or even mean. To make it public I don’t get paid for doing Candy Critic, sure I’m interested and I have some plans in the works, but I started this site because I love candy, not because I thought I’d be rich. So I’m not really a member of this great machine, well not yet.

What I came across at the National Candy Expo was a bunch of suits that wanted to know how giving me a sample would help their sales. Now I can’t say I didn’t expect people to not think about the bottom line in a trade show, but it’s candy. Relax a little and remember that your bottom line is about how fun life can be, and maybe you should focus on fun a little more. Maybe I just want to believe in the world that Willy Wonka projected, or maybe I just like candy more than business.

Either way I welcome all candy companies to contact me and let me know what you’re up to. Send me samples and I’ll review them, tell me cool stories and I’ll read them and maybe put them up on the site. I just can’t promise that a review will increase your sales quota for the next quarter.

Chris Stewart
www.candycritic.org
chris@candycritic.org

I spent the summer after my senior year of high school in Africa. Everyone thought I was nuts. I was giving up my last summer of freedom to live in a tent without showers or bathrooms. I had to get multiple shots and take malaria pills for a total of three months. And of course the food situation was different. There were about 20 of us that went, and we each had to carry 30 pounds of food in our backpacks. There was no room for candy or chocolate.

I spent the majority of the summer working with AIDS orphans. It was such an incredible experience, and extremely humbling. My team members and I spent the first week grumbling about not having such edible pleasures like candy anymore. But when we saw how happy these orphans were with nothing, it made us think twice. On one of our last days in Zambia, we were able to give the children some blow pops that our team leader had gotten. The joy that spread across the faces of the children is just impossible to describe. A lot of them had never had candy, but they immediately fell in love with it. I will never forget the looks on their faces as they happily received just one blow pop.

The trip seemed to end too quickly. The last week of our trip was spent in Ethiopia. The last week was a time for us to relax and shop (and shower!) before going home. Well, as much as most of us had forgotten all about candy, the first thing we all bought was chocolate bars. They had weird names, but they were soooooo good. I think that once you are addicted to candy, there is no going back. Even though I went two months without it, the minute I was able to have it, I was addicted again.

Of course there is a moral to this story. You can’t take everything you have for granted. And while I find myself slipping in this moral every so often, I know that I’ve gotten a lot better at appreciating everything I have. I’m sure no one wakes up every morning and give thanks to the fact that they have a toilet. Well, let me tell you, live without a toilet for a few months, and you will really start to appreciate it. Also, don’t underestimate the effect that candy can have on people’s lives. You might just make someone’s day by giving them some candy. So next time you find yourself buying a box of candy, spend the extra buck and buy another one for a friend. They will be happy you did!

Until next time, this is Kandy K……stay sweet!