Almond Joy

Near noon hunger strikes and I reach for the Almnd Joy. It was fantastic. Once I saw a special on the Food Network about Almond Joy and how its made. Ironically not on the Discovery Channel show "How Its Made". Anyway, they get some coconut and some almonds and some chocolate and neatly put them together. Not the most thrilling TV special ever. However....

A lot of people detest coconut. Many of my friendly coworkers moods go from happy to brutally enraged whenever the (fruit? nut? rock?) is mentioned. One time I stole a coconut (from my college dining hall...not from a store...that's wrong....if its in a dining hall you technically paid for it already). It was the week the Red Sox were in the ALCS (2003) and I was planning on eating it as a celebration coconut. But Grady Little and Pedro Martinez happened and I instead threw it out of a sixth story window. My point being, coconut is a fickle F.N.R. (fruitnutrock). Its pretty one day, gone the next and I undertsand why some people are sour on it. Sure, it takes 18 minutes to chew, once you chew the flavor off of it its like eating plastic, it has a strange texture, and it occassionally jinxes the Boston Red Sox. Fine. But its delicate. When I eat coconut I think that it is the food of the future. One day we'll all be eating plastic (what else are we gonna do with all of it?) and I figure you might as well start to enjoy it now. So coat it in some chocolate and add two almonds to it AND DIG IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But while I'm on the subject of the two almonds, why? Why only two? I would prefer an Alomnd rich experience.

Exciting prospect, there might be an O'Brien's beef stick buyout this week. Which one would only hope could lead to better snacks for all.

YES WE CAN!

Stacy's Parmesan Garlic & Herb Pita Chips

Sick sick Friday.

I broke code today and dialed the vending company to request Payday.

Additionally, O'Brien's Beef Sticks have taken over my floor. They are now in the second row. scary.

Pita Chips. Back again. I love them, even though the bag is 74% air. I call that the B/A.P. (Bag/Air Percentage). In a normal snack chip the bag is only around 57% air. Which means these pita chips have a substantially higher B/A.P. Are they worth it? Is this a vending machine blog?

They go great with Diet Coke. Its like they were meant to be together. True love. When eating them together I refer to the Pita Chips as Romeo and the Diet Coke as Juliet. Unfortunately, lately the vending machine has gotten all Capulet on my steez and made it nearly impossible to unite these young lovers. They are together now, in harmony, in a futile tastebud party. They are not meant to be together permanantly, as one comes in an air tight bag and the other in an aluminum can.

And Trans Fat Free!!

York Peppermint Pattie

Wednesday morning. 10:45 a.m. Went for the York Peppermint Pattie, which is low in fat (70% lower!....lower than what, I couldn't tell you). Its been too long.

The silver packaging makes it look special. I sincerely believe that. Its not just any candy, no no. Its a York. Damn straight! I got the sensation!

I think almost anything looks good in silver packaging. Look at the Oakland Raiders for example. horrible team, stupid organization, but they always look good. Its the silver. I know my critics will argue if this whole silver packaging thing is truethen why didn't anyone go see "Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer", I'll tell you why, because it looked horrible. And they didn't have a cross promotion with York Peppermint Pattie.

Today was vending machine maintenance day and it looks like in addition to adding York Peppermint Pattie back into my life, they have also added Snackwells cookie sandwich and Oreo six packs. I applaud the vending machine workers for adding conflict to my daily life. The Snackwells is low fat, the Oreo is...an Oreo...One is light, one is dark...the drama is astounding!

The York Peppermint Pattie is sweet and exciting. Its chewy and satisfying. It's sort of like a low fat minty Reese's cup. But even more chewy. However, it does not go well with Diet Coke, and that is a near fatal flaw in my eyes.

You know what does go well with Diet Coke? Stacy's Pita Chips. The machine is fixed. People all over the office are rejoicing.

York was a pleasant surprise. I'm sure we'll meet again.

Kelloggs Mixed Berry Fruity Snacks

The story of fruit snacks and their impact on society and culture may never be fully understood. Most scientists attribute the origin of the fruit snack to Charles Darwin. It is said that he created the first fruit snack while study turtles in the Galapagos Islands. He found that when you boiled together the livers and tails of various unnamed lizard and then added sugar the mixture would settle into a round red or blue shaped snack. For whatever reason these snacks tended to be shaped like real objects and contained several times the necessary amount of Vitamin C to ward off scurvy. Historiticians have concluded that the most likely cause of the great depression wasn't the repercussions of the industrial revolution, but rather the crippling shortage of fruit snacks available to city dwellers (due to the abundance of lizards in the rural areas there was no shortage) Its is also said that Albert Einstein thought of his famous theory of relativity while chewing on fruit snacks. In fact early versions of the theory revolved more around the speed of flavor being constant than the speed of light. Fruit snacks have had such a glorious and substantive history that it would be difficult to list everywhere they've had an impact.

Though the history of fruit snacks is always interesting it isn't entirely necessary for this analysis of the fruit snacks in our vending machine. The bag of fruit snacks weighs in at a hefty 2.5 oz which makes it one of the best values in the machine (popcorn still holds the record). Inside the bag is a mixture of raspberry, strawberry and blueberry shaped and flavored fruit snacks. In my opinion there are two main parameters that make a fruit snack delicious. The first and most obvious is flavor. The second, and in my opinion the more important, is the consistency.We could debate forever about which one of the flavors is best (rapsberry), but I think that this review should really be of the snack as a whole and not its individual components. The flavors of any individual piece of fruit snack is fruity and delicious. The flavor of all three mixed together can at times be a bit overwhelming for one's senses. Every bite has a the nice combinations of fruitiness and sweetness. The snacks are reminiscence of both a delicious piece of fruit and a satisfying candy.

The consistency of fruit snacks is often overlooked or ignored, but its really what makes the candy fun to eat. Fruit snacks can range in constancy from hard snacks that are very difficult to chew and often become stuck to your teeth to overly soft snacks that quickly dissolve in your mouth before you are satisfied. The trick is to find the spot in the middle that is ideal. Without question the best conistency fruit snack in history is the great white shark fruit snack found in Shark Bites. When biting down on it there is a nice resistance that makes you aware that you are eating something but doesn't get in the way of enjoying it. A truly good fruit snack should have the same feel a slightly undercooked piece of al dente pasta. As you squeeze one between your teeth you first feel the snack compress in the middle and spread out to the sides. As you continue biting down you reach a critical point where the internal tension in the fruit snack is too high and it tears in half. These Mixed Berry Fruity Snacks are do have a very fine consistency but they do not quite live up to The Great White. They are soft at times such that I find myself eating them just a bit too fast and not slowly enjoying them like I would prefer.

Kit Kat Extra

Tuesday. Nearly noontime. Pita Chips still not functioning. Why is that?

Days like today i wish our vending machines had Payday. I enjoy a Payday. Its salty and has no chocolate and everytime I eat one I think of Bukowski.

But today I purchased what is now called "Kit Kat Extra". it is a large Kit Kat. Essentially it is four of the standard sized bars in one.

A couple of weeks ago, a discussion arose on the 6th floor in regards to the chocolate to crunch ratio of the larger Kit Kat. I can't say I didn't enjoy the Kit Kat Extra, but I will say that the larger than normal amount of chocolate you get per bite is slighlty disconcerting. I refer to this statistic as the C.P.B.O.K.K. (Chocolate Per Bite Of Kit Kat). If the C.P.B.O.K.K. is slightly off, it just doesn't seem like a Kit Kat to me.

Also, the name change. When this Kit Kat was originally introduced it was called "The Big Kat", which at the time was Colorado Rockies Slugger Andrés Galaragga's nickname. Always confusing to me. Did I want to eat Andrés Galaragga? Did he have a delicious chocolate to crunch ratio? I doubt it. So maybe the name was fitting.

Tomorrow is vending machine maintenance day and so, I will leave notes requesting the Pita Chips and Cheetos slots are fixed and also making a special request for Paydays in the future.

T.G.I. Friday's Potato Skins

Monday. 12:15 p.m.

You get through the morning with only one Diet Coke and you need a pick me up...bad.

You look to the vending machine for grace in the form of Pita Chips. Last week that slot stopped working. Somehow you hoped Friday was a fluke and the pita chips would be restored by Monday. You were wrong.

You scramble for something salty. Something crunchy. Not some subpar potato chip crunch. That might be fine for a Thursday afternoon. But midway through a Monday?!?! "I'd rather eat a bag of cinderblock shavings!!" you think to yourself.

You settle on the T.G.I. Friday's Cheddar Bacon Potato Skins. They taste like bacon bites and have a satisfying crunch. You could have done worse.

Only the bag looks different now. T.G.I. Friday's is no longer a good place to go with friends (due to gangfights and hurricanes) and all you really wanted were some Pita Chips.

You crawl back to your desk in shame.

Introduction

Welcome to the future.

And by future I mean present.

This is a vending machine. For 50 cents it gives you a reason to keep going.

There are many types of vending machines. The ones here are similar but not quite as new as this one (notice the Dorito bag in this vending machine, which leads me to believe it is from the '89-'94 era).

50 cents buys you something. O'Brien's Beef Sticks, Pita Chips, Candy Bars, Oysters...

Allow me to chronicle the world of vending as I know it.

Also, the image to the left was completely stolen from another blog, so if it disappears, whatever.

This is snacking.

This is OUTBREAK!!!!