Yoo-Hoo or boo-hoo?

One of the interesting things about shopping at Tractor Supply is that they have candy you don't see elsewhere. Your average gas station has to make room for the 98,000 varieties of Reese's, so they don't have space for Big Hunk Bar or Mallo Cup. Or this.  

As an adult who remembers Yoo-Hoo chocolate drinks fondly, I felt compelled to purchase this candy bar. I'm not sure Yoo-Hoo is well known outside the northeast, where it originated in 1928 (in New Jersey, to be specific). Yogi Berra was a pitchman for it for decades. In the eighties it was still considered a regional favorite.

Yoo-Hoo is not exactly chocolate milk, as its unusual composition allows it to stay fresh at room temperature, and its more watery consistency puts some folks off. But there's no denying it has a very particular type of chocolate flavor that most people enjoy. 

It that way it is like Hershey milk chocolate, and for the same reason -- bizarre American inventiveness. Milton Hershey was already rich from his caramel business when he decided to get in on the ground floor of the milk chocolate craze that was sweeping Europe. He went to Switzerland to learn the secret -- making milk chocolate is a lot more complicated than you'd think -- but the Swiss wouldn't tell him. So Milton just invented his own process, resulting in that unique sour-milk tang that sets Hershey's apart from all the other milk chocolate to this day. 

Similarly, juice bottler Natale Olivieri set out to make a chocolate beverage and just worked it out on his own, using canning methods to make a shelf-stable chocolate drink. Thus, nothing else tastes quite like a Yoo-Hoo.

Or does it? Does this Yoo-Hoo branded chocolate bar have the same taste? That is what I set out to discover. 

And the answer is -- not really. I kind of thought it did, and then maybe it didn't, so I bought a bottle of Yoo-Hoo to compare it directly. I have to say no; it's similar but not the same as the unusual Yoo-Hoo flavor. 

Here's why:  

Yes, the Easter candy giant Palmer of Reading, Pennsylvania, manufactures the Yoo-Hoo chocolate bar under license. Palmer chocolate is the sort that you give to kids, because they don't know enough to be discriminating in the least. It's fine -- but it's not great. And I think they failed to really capture the Yoo-Hoo taste. So while there's nothing wrong with it -- hey, even so-so chocolate is still chocolate -- I fear it does not live up to its label. But it’s still a break from the 98,000 Reese’s varieties.

So that's my report for today. It's been a while since I did one of these, taking a caloric hit for the team to help you spend your candy allowance wisely. You're welcome! 

Easter!

 It is Easter! 

I've written about my religiously ignorant childhood before, about how little I knew of Christmas (but not as little as my younger cousin, who thought it was the birthday of Santa Claus). I was so ignorant of Easter that I don't even know if I had any guesses as to its significance. Maybe I just thought it was one of those inscrutable adult things, like banks and insurance. I knew the Easter Bunny brought baskets of cheap chocolate and jellybeans that tasted of nothing but sugar, and those were fine by me. Years later I would learn two important things: 

1) What Easter really means.

2) That even poor chocolate can be coated with peanut butter and made into a tasty mock-Reese's treat. 

About eggs, I had no idea. The association with new life is obvious, but spring less so. Chickens don't just lay eggs in the spring, as other animals have their young in the spring; they pop out eggs all the time. Not a great symbol, but I guess we're stuck with it. 

I'm going to turn to Robert Lynd (1879-1949), an Irish writer who lived in London and wrote reviews, light ephemera, and pieces in favor of Irish nationalism. His 1921 collection The Pleasures of Ignorance contains an article on Easter eggs. It includes some wisdom on the topic that could have been written today, or at least before the Internet removed the necessity to go to actual books to look things up. Nevertheless, just as today, the author begins his search (in the Encyclopedia Britannica) and immediately becomes distracted:

The egg I was looking for was the Easter egg, and it seemed to be the only egg that was not mentioned. There were birds' eggs, and reptiles' eggs, and fishes' eggs, and molluscs' eggs, and crustaceans' eggs, and insects' eggs, and frogs' eggs, and Augustus Egg, and the eggs of the duck-billed platypus, which is the only mammal (except the spiny ant-eater) whose eggs are "provided with a large store of yolk, enclosed within a shell, and extruded to undergo development apart from the maternal tissues." I do not know whether it is evidence of the irrelevance of the workings of the human mind or of our implacable greed of knowledge, but within five minutes I was deep in the subject of eggs in general, and had forgotten all about the Easter variety.

But does he lose hope of finding out anything? He does not:

In order to learn something about Easter eggs one has to turn to some such work as The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which tells us that "the practice of presenting eggs to our friends at Easter is Magian or Persian, and bears allusion to the mundane egg, for which Ormuzd and Ahriman were to contend till the consummation of all things." ... Next Easter, I feel sure, I shall look it up again. I shall have forgotten all about the mundane egg, even if Ormuzd and Ahriman have not. I shall be thinking more about my breakfast egg. What a piece of work is a man! And yet many profound things might be said about eggs, mundane or otherwise. I wish I could have thought of them.

To be fair, the modern online Britannica has much more to say about Easter eggs, some of which you can find in this essay. Personally, like Mr. Lynd, I'm not very much interested in Easter eggs, and not just because, as when I was a child, I am much more interested in Easter chocolate. 

Now I focus on the true significance of Easter -- which, if I believe it, must be the most important thing to have ever happened on this Earth; and if I don't, is of no significance whatever. (But I do.)

Still, there's nothing wrong with Easter chocolate. Even the cheap stuff can be brought around with a little Jif. 

Eggcitement.

My wife saw this gadget and thought it looked like Easter fun. 

The Eggmazing Egg Decorator is a clever idea. You put your hard-boiled egg in the battery-powered device, and rollers spin the egg while you color it with the food-safe markers provided. A clever way to decorate Easter eggs beyond just dipping them in vinegary dye and splotching on stickers. It did look like fun. 

It also looked vaguely familiar. 

Back in the stone age, before electricity was invented, there was Dudley's Decoregger -- as seen on TV. (Our televisions were made of rocks -- haven't you seen The Flintstones?) This too was a lathe-type device that spun the egg while food-safe markers made the drawings. The difference is, instead of you holding the marker, you turned the crank to rotate the egg. The markers were held in a clamp. 

Read these dumb directions! 

They were advertised on TV heavily, which is why it was seen there (duh), pitched as a product from a man in a large rabbit costume named Dudley with a dopey voice. Can we find the commercial? Alas, we cannot. But we can find an ad for another Dudley product:

It makes McDonaldland commercials of the era look like an Avengers movie. 

Nevertheless, the Decoregger was not a bad product and worked as promised, although in the hands of small children hardly produced the beautiful results seen in the commercial. What ever did? So you got some eggs with lines drawn around them. Whee! And at least Mom wouldn't have to keep the art up on the fridge forever. Even hard-boiled eggs don't last that long. 

I don't want to sound jealous of today's tots with their electric decorating aids. The little cherubs will also fail to produce museum-quality art, as we know. The whole thing is, will they have fun? I say yes. I quite enjoyed egg-decoration day as Easter approached and remember it fondly. The smell of white vinegar would linger at the kitchen table for hours, but it was all worthwhile. 

Easter eats.

Hello, food fans! Yesterday turned out to be an exceptionally busy day all around, so I'm afraid I have nothing prepared in advance for you. I feel a little like Woodstock this morning...

... a little dazed, headachey, and like Easter hit me all at once and by surprise. 

However, I thought I'd share my crowd-pleasing recipe with you, that is if your crowd likes lamb. I did ultimately find lamb shanks this year, thanks to the help of the local ShopRite butcher, and it was worth the trouble. 

This recipe was adapted from a cookbook, and I would credit the author if I had a clue which book it was. I only have my scribbled note, though, and didn't think to write down even the title of the book, which I do not own.

Slow-Cooker Lamb Shanks

1 chopped onion

2 chopped carrots

2 chopped celery ribs

3 crushed cloves garlic

4 lamb shanks

2 tsp. salt

½ tsp. pepper

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. dried thyme

2 bay leaves

1/4 cup dry white wine

8-oz. can tomato sauce

Place onions, carrots, celery, and garlic in slow cooker. Season lamb with salt and pepper. Add to slow cooker. Add remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on Low 8 to 10 hours. Serve over rice.

😋😋😋

I'm telling you, this makes an excellent, elegant dish for any occasion. If you give it a try, let me know how you like it. And if you're the author of this recipe, drop me a line so we can give you credit. 

Happy Easter!

Not much to say beyond this -- I hope you have a wonderful day! And here's some levity for you. Even the Weight of Glory needs some lightness in its light. 

Just in case you do the cooking on the holidays

If you like flavored coffee and jelly beans, Dunkin's iced coffee
jelly beans are for you. My wife looooves them. Frankford, who
makes them, is the same outfit that makes the hot chocolate bombs.

Christians don't decorate for Easter the way
we do for Christmas, but some families will
go the extra mile. 

Sick day.

Not much today; trying to take it easy. It won't help, though. I believe I have a case of gastritis. My stomach has been off since Friday, but without the explosive or cemented effects one might have from gastroenteritis. 

How did I get this? Oh, who knows. I have two dogs with powerhouse immune systems who like to snack on wildlife poop; maybe that had something to do with it. You forget to wash your hands once....

At least it's not Chinese Death Virus. 

Although I have managed with some difficulty to procure lamb shanks for the Easter feast, and I would hate to be unable to enjoy it. On the other hand, feeling poorly makes the Good Friday fast easier. 

Well, I'll check in tomorrow. I still have to work, but I'm letting other things go light. The dogs can walk each other for all I care. Blarg.

Here comes non-Santa!

I always felt a little bad for the Easter Bunny. 

No, really. He's always way behind Santa Claus, the Christmas Kahuna. Even kids in families that don't celebrate Christmas love Santa, but there's no love for the Bunny there. 

There are a lot of reasons for this.

1) Santa comes to visit at Christmas, when Jesus was a baby. Christmas is fun! The Bunny comes at Easter, after we killed Jesus with agonizing, brutal torture, but He returned from the dead to save us. Kids have a tough time grasping that. Hell, adults have a tough time grasping that. 

2) Santa's got the tunes. I cannot begin to count all the pop songs that mention Santa. What does the Bunny have? "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." There are others, but they're hardly well known. And they never bother to play them on the PA at the supermarket.

3) Santa's mythos is much better developed. We know where he lives, who is married to him, who works for him; we know how he gets around, and even the names of his animals; we know what he does and why he does it, and the methods used in his distribution; we know what he wears, how he keeps his hair, and what he likes to eat. As for the Easter Bunny, we know he brings eggs, hard-boiled or chocolate, and other candy because... I'd have to look it up.* Where does he live? Who are his friends? What's with the Technicolor hen fruit, anyway? Bizarre.

4) Santa is fat and fuzzy when you see him around. On the rare occasions you see people in a big bunny suit, they look like freak show golems made from old bathmats. With those big, dead eyes. Children scream and run. Santa is almost never scary.

5) Santa's got the loot. The Bunny may bring such toys as can fit in a basket, but Santa can come through with a bike. Maybe even a BB gun. On car commercials it seems like Santa might drop off a BMW. Easter Bunny can't do that! He's just a bunny! He can't even drive!

I guess EB will always have to be number two, but he tries plenty hard. So do his helpers. A friend of mine was putting together Easter baskets with his wife for their various grandchildren, and right at the end they found a sawbuck that did not make it into a plastic egg. God forbid all the children got a ten spot and one didn't! So they had to go through the baskets and open every plastic egg that didn't rattle until they figured out which kid had almost been slighted. It's hard work, being an Easter Bunny.

So we salute you, Easter Bunny! As thankless as the job may be, at least you're not the Tooth Fairy, dealing with old teeth. Or the Great Pumpkin. Now that's a crummy gig.

🐰🐇🐰🐇

*According to Dr. Wiki, "Originating among German Lutherans, the 'Easter Hare' originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide." There's a lot more at the link, but it's all weird.

Fast acting.

I don't have much to say today, Good Friday, that I didn't say yesterday in cartoon form, except to add: I'm HUNGRY!

Well, all right, I'm not hungry, yet. But as an American who has never had to go a day without food because there was no food available, I'm not used to the fast that falls on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I'm totally spoiled that way, and I wish everyone on earth that privilege. 

The rules are, as outlined by the bishops: 

For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards.

If possible, the fast on Good Friday is continued until the Easter Vigil (on Holy Saturday night) as the "paschal fast" to honor the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus and to prepare ourselves to share more fully and to celebrate more readily his Resurrection.

I didn't know this latter part about the fast continuing to the Saturday Vigil, which usually begins around eight in the evening here. Dude, that's like, four meals I'm missing, with just one meal in between! And no snacks! And no meat! Do I look like John the Baptist to you? Camel hair is not my color!

Of course, fasting has been a crucial part of Christian teaching, and that of every major religion. Self-denial is paramount in learning obedience to God, and to putting our egos in their proper and healthy place. What the Catholic church urges us to do is nothing compared to the Ramadan fast observed by Muslims, where not even a drop of water may be consumed from sunup to sundown. Because it is keyed to lunar cycles, it is celebrated (if that's the word I want) at different times of the year each year. When it falls in June or July, it must be murder. And it goes on for a month. 

Some people these days fast for bodily rather than spiritual health. Harvard Health has some good things to say about this practice, and it has shown great promise, especially in fat rats. And I say: It's about time those rats got off their tails. 

Along those lines, today, April 2, happens to be the feast day (so to speak) of St. Francis of Paola, founder of a strict order in the 15th century. 

Humility was to be the hallmark of the brothers as it had been in Francis' personal life. Abstinence from meat and other animal products became a "fourth vow" of his religious order, along with the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Francis instituted the continual, year-round observance of this diet in an effort to revive the tradition of fasting during Lent, which many Roman Catholics had ceased to practice by the 15th century. The rule of life adopted by Francis and his religious was one of extraordinary severity. He felt that heroic mortification was necessary as a means for spiritual growth.

He lived to the age of 91. Some might suggest that he felt like he lived to the age of 391 with a diet like that, but that wasn't what he was about. 

Meanwhile, back home, our parish has had some outstanding pastors, but they seem to have had different takes on food. The one we had when we moved here looked like he'd never missed a meal in his life; one after him looked like he'd never eaten a real meal. The current one is somewhere in the middle. 

Well, I am sure I can endure this hunger situation, and could even if it went until Saturday night. There is a world of difference between hunger when you don't know where your next meal is coming from and hunger when you see Snickers eggs and braised lamb shanks at the end of the tunnel. 

I feel like a guy playing at being needy, but maybe that's better than never giving the state and consequences of true need any thought at all. 

Didn't see that coming!

 

Feaster.

Every Thanksgiving, turkey becomes a huge deal -- every American has to comment on the turkey he or she is having for dinner, or explain why something else was on the menu. Eating kosher or halal is no excuse, of course, unless you're in some area that can't provide those butchers, but veganism, vegetarianism, poultry allergy, and just a strong dislike of turkey are acceptable excuses, although the excusee may harbor doubts about the excuser's devotion to the holiday and, by extension, America. The only non-turkey excuse that really works is the argument of authenticity, that the Pilgrims likely did not eat turkey on the first Thanksgiving, and thus one is instead having truly traditional dishes including eel and deer. 

Other holidays are not so steadfast on the entrée. Usually Easter boils down to ham or lamb, but it's a toss-up. A lot of people don't like lamb; they find it gamey, or they just don't want to eat young animals (these would avoid veal as well). The significance of lamb to the holiday is obvious, from Jesus the Lamb of God, but I'm not sure how ham got into the act. Unless it was to prove that, thanks to St. Paul, Christians can eat pigs and it's all cool. Sort of. 

You don't have to be Christian to love ham!

It may be that some families go with turkey for Easter, and I wouldn't be surprised. My preferred supermarket, the one on the five-story hill, has an offer that goes as follows: If you spend $400 in the store in the weeks leading up to Easter, you can use your loyalty card to get a free half shank smoked ham, store-brand turkey, frozen lasagna, kosher chicken, turkey breast, Tofurky, Gardein vegan "holiday roast," or deep discounts on other hams and turkeys. Going by this it looks like people eat ham, turkey, or spurious fake meat. But there are no lamb discounts. (I understand that people celebrating Passover would probably not be getting ham, and often will serve chicken, but where are the brisket discounts?)

Well, as for me and mine, we're having lamb shanks. What's on your menu? 

The Peep of doom?

Easter is nearly here -- tomorrow is Palm Sunday -- and so the Peeps are everywhere. Not that I have a problem with that. Longtime readers will know I've reviewed all sorts of Peeps products on this blog, even weird combo items like the Peeps Oreos. 

I would say that they have overrun the Easter aisle a little, but it's their main time of the year -- it would be like complaining that there are too many candy canes at Christmas. 

Look at this! Giant Peeps! Chocolate-dipped Peeps! Decorate-Your-Own Peeps! Hot cinnamon and birthday cake Peeps! Fruit punch and chocolate pudding Peeps! It's a Peep-for-all! 

And yet none of that makes me fear we have gone too close to the edge. But PEPSI x PEEPS? Is this a sign of the aPEEPcalypse? Oh, yes -- this may indeed be the last Peep.

From the press release: 

Fans can submit photos of themselves enjoying the spring with PEEPS® Marshmallow Chicks and Bunnies by tagging @PEPSI, #HangingWithMyPEEPS and #PepsiSweepstakes on Twitter and Instagram for the chance to win a coveted limited-edition three-pack of PEPSI x PEEPS®.

"After what has been a very difficult year, many consumers are looking for new things to smile about.  So, to celebrate the start of springtime, Pepsi collaborated with PEEPS® to develop a limited batch of its first-ever marshmallow cola.  This PEPSI x PEEPS® collaboration will be available in three bright colors through a distinctive mini-can design and will most certainly have fans buzzing all season long," said Todd Kaplan, VP Marketing – Pepsi. "We know our consumers love our limited product drops, and we believe that PEPSI x PEEPS® will deliver an iconic and delicious pairing that has the potential to become a fan favorite." 

Yes, you read that right -- Pepsi is putting out a marshmallow soda in conjunction with Peeps. 

Would I try this? Are you crazy? Of course I would try this! I would be letting the Internet down if I didn't post a review! But I'm a little confused as to whether this product is going to be available in stores or just through the sweeps-- uh, PEEPstakes. 

I'll let you know if I find it. A nice cold glass of marshmallow soda might be just what the doctor ordered, even if it is somehow another sign of the Armageddon. In which case, we will know that this Peeps soda was a fridge too far.

Easter candy thoughts.

I guess by this point in the week the Easter baskets have all been emptied. Any little toys have been broken. All the candy has been consumed, maybe even the black jelly beans.

I could never stand those. Any licorice candy turned me off. Mom would eat them. She said she liked them. Maybe it was the only candy in the house she knew she could enjoy in peace.

My aversion to black licorice has lasted from childhood until this very year, when I tried some Gimbal's Scottie Dogs, which were purchased along with dog food at the Tractor Supply. But even though Gimbal's Scottie Dogs are shaped like dogs, they are not dog food.

This is black licorice that tastes good. Not mean and bitter and astringent, but delicious, a perfect balance of the anise flavor with the sweetness. I have always found black licorice to taste like anise seeds and wallpaper, with the consistency of the latter, but these are really tasty. Unfortunately for me, or fortunately for my waist, I must forgo them as they will pull every filling out of my face.

I guess I've always just eaten cheap, lousy black licorice before. But I never minded cheap, lousy chocolate Easter bunnies. They always were a mild disappointment, though.

Having grown up with pretty good Hershey's and the like, and even sometimes really good chocolate, the cheap, waxy Easter bunny was not too exciting. But I found the secret to enjoying it -- get the jar of peanut butter and make your own Reese's. The quality of the chocolate is almost irrelevant when mixed with PB. You can even break up the chocolate and make a sort of Reese's Peanut Butter Sandwich for lunch. This is what we used to do before Nutella was all over the place, children.

But back to the Easter bunnies. If you were really lucky you got a solid chocolate bunny, but of course most of them were hollow. This has led many people to use an Easter bunny for a metaphor for their lives -- cheerful and appealing on the outside but completely empty on the inside.

See, my life is not like that. I'm grumpy and scared on the outside, and it goes straight to the bone,

The Easter Bunny is a loon.

Yesterday turned out to be a little crazy, even though we had no guests and went nowhere. So I am afraid I have only a couple of quick hits for you this morning. A small dose of VitaminFred, as it were.

1) The Easter Bunny is a loon.

Maybe that's not fair to that well-known lagomorph. because I don't actually know who did this:

Actual hard-boiled eggs along the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. They appear to have been decorated by youngsters with crayons. There were a number of them along the street. Two of them were out in from of my house. Why?

If someone was hoping to spread Easter joy, this is not a particularly good way to do it. In these pandemic times, no one wants to pick up food other people left around. And no one wants to eat something that's been left on the devil's strip. My dogs like to use that to leave little "eggs" of their own, so to speak.

Was it part of an Easter egg hunt? If so, the hunters were not too swift. The eggs outside my neighbor's house are still there this morning. I disposed of the ones outside my house. This is how you get ants. And maybe bears.

2) I just wanted it stated for the record, that even if I come down with COVID-19, a.k.a. Wuhan Flu, I do not want to go on the cart. I feel happy.

I think I'll go for a walk!

Wait for it.

Lent is a time of testing and trial and waiting, but Easter is the great celebration at the end. Well, it may be a celebration spiritually, but physically, we're still enduring testing and trial, and most of all we're still waiting.

I had high hopes in the president's earlier wish that things would be normalized by Easter, but my wife was less optimistic, and also correct. This is bad for the churches, of course, and businesses that rely on a boost from Easter. I think I feel worse for all the families for whom the holiday is a time to get together and do fun things like brunches, Easter egg hunts, and run screaming from men in scary bunny suits. Traditions!

We would have gone to the vigil last night, although I was beat by the end of the day and would have had to slug down an enormous mug of coffee. It's worth it. Even our medium-size parish is home to majesty at the Easter Vigil. The church is dark, the pews are full, the candle light works slowly up from the back as the announcement is sung that Christ is the light that has broken the darkness, and soon the whole place bursts into light singing hallelujah. I love it -- even though it plays heckin' heck with the dogs' schedule and makes me stay up past my bedtime.

Instead we will watch Mass online today. Although sometimes it feels like I'm isolated, I know we all are; the priest will be almost completely alone, maybe with a lector present.

Oh, well. Lord give us patience, and let's pray as hard as we can that we can get back to our lives, and that this damn Chinese coronavirus will be gone for good long before Christmas. Amen!

Rock candy bottom.

No matter how big the Easter basket,

eventually you hit the bottom.

(Worse when the bottom comes up to hit you.)

Bunzooka!

The Easter Bunny reports significant improvement for Techinicolor Henfruit
targeted distribution using the tactical Bunzooka 3000. 

Redeem here.

Went to the Easter Vigil last night and it was beautiful -- plenty music from the choir, a powerful homily, and lots of good ol' fashioned Catholic smells & bells. A little sad because the archdiocese has reassigned the pastor and he'll be leaving us, and we don't know what's going to happen next. But we can't be sad on Easter. God bless you, all who happen on this page, and may we all have reasons for rejoicing.

Tough chicks.

NO SLEEP. ALL PEEP.

Sweet eats.

I'm trying to give up sweets this Lent, except for an upcoming birthday party for which Pope Me has already given dispensation. Still, that's going to mean an unusually long time for me to go without sugar. Can I survive without this key food group?

Meanwhile, though, I can live on the ghost of sugars past, like:

I've ridden Oreos' case for their weird varieties in recent times, such as the Peeps Oreo and the Pop Rocks Oreo. But Pistachio?

Yep -- and although this photo doesn't show it too well, the filling is green.

I expected to dislike the Pistachio Oreo Thin and revolt against its nuttiness, but I was wrong. It's delicious. Chocolate and nuts are a great combo, although one sees the pistachio/chocolate duet far less often than, say, almond/chocolate. My wife was not so enthused about it, but I say, if you like Oreos and pistachios, you'll probably like these.

On the topic of Peeps, though: With Easter coming, the folks at Just Born continue to surprise us with new variations on the Peep theme:

The Orange Sherbet Peep (I always wants to spell "sherbet" as "sherbert") is an interesting take. The orange flavor is pleasant, not forceful like the "fruit" flavors of a Jolly Rancher. The marshmallow candy is usually improved by dipping in chocolate, which adds depth and texture; here they've used "crème flavored fudge," which is not just a sweet hit like white chocolate, but more milky. Really makes it a Creamsicle Peep. Good job, Peeps people.

Getting back to Oreos for a moment: One of the more successful Oreo types I reviewed in 2017 was the Dunkin' Donuts Mocha, and I mention that now because A) the spreading of the Dunkin' Donuts brand continues and B) they are clearly still determined to drop the Donuts from the name.

Yoplait released these four Dunkin' Donuts-inspired flavors, and I as much as I hate to keep on this positive note today, these are pretty good too. The French Vanilla Latte is excellent if you're a fan of coffee yogurts; the Apple Fritter has a strong and tasty apple flavor, like the classic Dannon Dutch Apple back in le jour. The Cinnamon Coffee Roll is flat-out cinnamon and nothing wrong with that. The Boston Cream may be the least successful, first because chocolate is not a great blend with yogurt, and second because the subtle flavor of Boston cream is lost in translation. Still good, though.

Anyway, if you want mild disappointment, I always say you can't beat a McDonald's shake. And now is the time of year to join Uncle O'Grimacey for a Shamrock Shake. 

Still minty. Still greener than the inside of a Pistachio Oreo Thin. McDonald shakes are okay if you're really jonesing for a shake, but there's very little ice cream texture or flavor to one; really, they're so marshmallowy they should work with Just Born on a line of Peeps shakes.

So that's my tour de sweets for now; although our Lenten sacrifices are not supposed to be for selfish reasons, I wouldn't mind if my pants fit better by Easter. I hope Pope Me won't mind.

Pancake Day!

It's Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Carnival, Pancake Day! Woo! Break out the pancakes, boys, let's get eatin'!

Of course we know Lent begins tomorrow in the Roman Catholic Church, and the day before is often celebrated with a feast to get rid of all those fabulous foods we're denying ourselves until Easter. Thus Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) and Carnival ("Italian carnevale, alteration of earlier carnelevare, literally, removal of meat, from carne flesh (from Latin carn-, caro) + levare to remove, from Latin, to raise" per Merriam-Webster's). But what about the shroves?

Webster's has an fascinating explanation of the word shrove, related to confession of sins and freeing from guilt:

We wouldn't want to give the history of shrive short shrift, so here's the whole story. It began when the Latin verb scribere (meaning "to write") found its way onto the tongues of certain Germanic peoples who brought it to Britain in the early Middle Ages. Because it was often used for laying down directions or rules in writing, 8th-century Old English speakers used their form of the term, scrīfan, to mean "to prescribe or impose." The Church adopted scrīfan to refer to the act of assigning penance to sinners and, later, to hearing confession and administering absolution. Today shrift, the noun form of shrive, makes up half of short shrift, a phrase meaning "little or no consideration." Originally, short shrift was the barely adequate time for confession before an execution.

So Shrove Tuesday meant a day of confessing of sins. Which is curious, because when a Catholic refers to doing his "Easter duty," they usually mean going to Confession and receiving Communion during Lent, not before Lent begins. However, "Easter duty" is not a term of law in the church, and it's all somewhat complicated. The Church advises three things for a good Lent -- alms-giving, prayer, and fasting -- and while going for Reconciliation is not among those three, it is highly encouraged, especially for those who have not been in the booth in a while, and absolutely for those who bear mortal sins (in fact, they should never wait for Lent if they can help it).

What about Pancake Day?

Pancake Day brings me back to Will Cuppy, the late humorist and book reviewer, author of The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody and other tomes with irresistible titles like How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes and How to Become Extinct. Cuppy died before Decline and Fall became a national best-seller, and his publisher, being the greedy sort that they are, threw together a book based on Cuppy's short pieces and notes called How to Get from January to December. It took me years to track down a copy of this in the pre-Amazon days. The editor arranged the pieces in calendar format, so the reader could get a dose of Cuppy humor each day. Here, on the entry for February 3, I first encountered a mention of the holiday Pancake Day, and the even more obscure Collop Monday, as follows:

This is as good a time as any to start thinking about Collop Monday, so called from the old English custom of eating collops, or pieces of salted meat and eggs, as a sort of preparation for Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, when everybody would switch to pancakes. After eating all the collops they could get, the boys of the village would go around singing the following song:

Shrovetide is near at hand 

And I be come a shroving;

Pray, dame, something--

An apple or a dumpling.

Most of these boys grew up and became the ancestors of thousands of people alive today, and yet you wonder why things are the way they are. 

Which leaves me to ask: If on Collop Monday and Pancake Day they ate up all the meat and eggs and fats, what did they eat during Lent in those days? So many filling edibles are made with these things. Now we're only asked to abstain from meat on Lenten Fridays and to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Sounds like our ancestors were starving but for odd bits of fish and whatever nuts they could get wangle.

Talk about penance. No wonder they sang such lousy songs.