NEW- Reese's Crunchy is back!

So cool- they brought my favorite Reese's back- Crunchy! Filled with yummy crunchy peanut butter, they were last seen more than 10 years ago I think- and I always wondered why they were discontinued? Crunchy rocks! Welcome back!

NEW- Stirs the Soul Organic Raw Chocolate!

Here is a product from my hometown- Portland, OR, that is as special, exciting, and unique as that great city! In true Oregon fashion, this chocolate is Organic and Raw- meaning it is very simply un-roasted cacao beans (preserving the maximum antioxidants & nutrients), raw cocoa butter, raw amber agave nectar (for natural sweetness), vanilla, and Himalayan crystal salt. And it is Fair Trade certified, vegan, low glycemic, and allergy free. This is chocolate for the purist and those trying to break an addiction to refined sugar sweetness (like me, sad to say). It is just a very wonderful, intense, strong, healthy blast of real chocolate flavor, and they have 5 or 6 different varieties- see the entire line at STIRSTHESOUL.COM - available in Natural food stores and by mail order. Thanx mom!!

More Halloween M&Ms and fun treats to make!

Here are some very specially packaged Halloween M&Ms -10 packs of the regular size bags. And some very fun colorful treats you can make with all the M&Ms you get for Halloween- Rice Krispy Treats made with cereal, marshmallow, REFRIGERATED M&Ms, and butter. Just take a BIG plastic or glass bowl, put 1 TB butter in the bottom and fill it with one bag of marshmallows. Heat in microwave till its all puffed up to top of the bowl. Add 1/2 box of crispy rice cereal and mix, then when its all coated in marshmallow, add the cold M&Ms (if not cooled they will start to melt & break apart), mix it all up- then spread it out in large greased pan and cool for a bit- then cut in squares & enjoy!

The M&M Halloween collection is here!

So here they are in all their various designs & glory- M&M Halloween/ Autumn packaging from this year and last...plus one much older from the 80's (bottom left corner). As you can clearly see there are LOT of different designs issued for the same product, and the differences depend on the store they come from. For each major holiday, M&M puts out a "mass market" design for all the grocery and standard stores, but they also have special designs contracted for mega-store Walmart and another set just for Target. You can see them grouped together and clearly tell the differences, it's really quite striking! But inside the product is the same and the M&Ms are all new fall colors- this year is great with orange, purple, black, and green- what they call "New Electrifying" colors and "Cool Ghoul's Mix". Plus there's and "Autumn Mix" of maroon, mustard, and brown tones, in dark chocolate only. I really hope they keep doing all this great packaging, I love to see what they come up with- it's an extra treat with every holiday!

Chocolate Shampoo & Conditioner!

My wonderfully amazing Brazillian friend Adriana brought me these hair products all the way from Brazil! They both contain "theobroma cacao extract", which comes directly from the "chocolate" cacao bean and of course, anything with cacao added must be good for us (in my mind anyway...) So you can see its not nearly as dark or chocolaty looking as the bottles, but it smells yummy and really does clean nicely. LOVE, love, love it- thank you Adriana for this exciting, exotic addition to my blog and collection of choco-products!

Vintage Red M&M dispenser!

My awesome good friend Linda gave me this adorable vintage red dispenser from 1991- love, love, love it! It still works, just put M&Ms in the door in back, pull the arm, and out they come in his hand! You can tell the vast difference in his character's face from what's on the packaging and tv now- this is back when 2-D animation was the norm, before computer FX made cartoons look so real. I love his innocence and cute face. Thank you Linda- he will be treasured in my collection always!
PS-if you compare this one with the current Red character,it looks like him as a little chubby baby boy M&M,with his sweet innocent babyface-now he looks all adult with an attitude-he grew up just like us :)

NEW- Vintage classic Hershey favorites!

Just found these in a display at CVS, of course had to get all 4! They are a reissue of the original packaging for these bars from waaaay back in the early 1900s and wow are they cool looking or what? This is back when Hershey created the "original 5 cent chocolate bar" and made it affordable to the masses- which in turn made him a very rich man. Of course nowdays the wrapping is plastic, not foil & paper, and unfortunatley if you read the Mr. Goodbar its "made with chocolate" which means it's got cocoa beans in it but has some other cheaper oil in place of cocoa butter. Yes this does affect taste but most consumers won't notice or care (I persoannly cant eat it like that...)Fortunatley they DO still use real cocoa butter for the other items shown! And always will if they are smart enough not to mess with their best sellers formula....