From a teacher standpoint, field trips work this way. You figure out a place that you’d like to go instead of being in school. You see if that place offers free tickets for group chaperones. If it does, you book it, and then you concoct some nonsensical explanation about how it will be “educational.” In this case, there are places in Epcot named after countries. Even though I don’t think most of the students could find any of those countries on a map (park map included), the trip was approved. Rarely is the field trip rationale challenged by the principal because the principal usually goes on the trip, too.

For evidence of the truth of this hypothesis, the last four trips that have taken place were as follows:

1. A walk to a movie theater to watch Beauty and the Beast in 3D
2. Legoland
3. Epcot
4. Universal Studios

I never plan field trips (though I am occasionally dragged along). Usually I use that time to, you know, teach children what those long strings of symbols are that are printed inside the pages of those things that line the walls of the libary.

So, the fifth grade teacher and my dear friend (we’ll call her Marie), asked me to have my seventh graders fill in for the indentured servants that she forces to helm the “safety” patrol. In this case “safety” means standing listlessly next to an orange cone, opening car doors, and making sure that the massive-backpack-carrying first graders don’t trip and get their heads wedged in the wheel well of their parent’s Audi.

I told her yes, my students could handle this, but that she had to return with a snack for me to blog about.

She brought me this bag of Hapi Honey Ball Cookies from the Japanese pavilion. She saw this bag and couldn’t resist as “Honey Balls” is her affectionate nickname for me because of a fairly recent incident involving myself, a field trip to a bee farm, my cutoffs, and a haphazardly discarded banana peel. It’s a little inappropriate but I like the attention.

Visually these cookies are beautiful. Just look at them. Little, delicate nuggets of smooth potato starch just ever so lightly toasted. I love the package as well. The bee is so adorable he doesn’t even have a stinger to menace you with. He’s just trying to help you with a cookie. “Here. Have mine,” he says. Though in Japanese it sounds much, much harsher.

Flavorwise, these Honey Balls taste starchy, a little sweet, and vaguely of honey. Nothing revelatory. Texturewise is where we encounter some interesting weirdness. The first couple of chews yield a dry crumbly sensation not unlike a finely textured shortbread cookie. However, after about the third chomp, these little spheroids (obloids?) break down into a fine powder which is then lost immediately in your saliva. You are left with a mouth coated in a chalky film that hangs around for quite a while. It’s unsettling, like some Ferran Adria experiment where you are presented with a cookie solid that only retains its physical properties for a second before becoming a cloud of dust.

I don’t think I’d pick up a bag of these if I were to stroll by them. The Japanese pavilion’s gift shop has way too much stuff for repeat purchases. But they were bizarre, I do love that bee, AND THEY’RE CALLED HAPI HONEY BALLS!!!

Ahem.

In closing, parents, remember, your child’s education is important. The best thing you can do to show them the importance of preparing for college or a fulfilling career is to go to Six Flags and ride rollercoasters with them. They’ll thank you later.

…teehee…balls.

It’s crazy to think that there was a time when people hadn’t thought to put chocolate and peanut butter together. There are people who were born, lived an entire lifetime, and died never knowing who Ross and Rachel were.

When we think of humanity’s major breakthroughs, it’s always the Wright Brothers this, Thomas Edison that. But what about the nameless pioneers that decided that peanut butter and jelly would go great together, or cinnamon and sugar, or gin and tonic (sounds mighty mighty good to me). Shouldn’t we have a day or something? A celebration for all of those whose identities were lost to history or overlooked by the masses? Of course we should. And yes, it would obviously be a three-day weekend.

So in that long line of famous pairs, we add ketchup and salt. While not generally thought of when one is listing famous food pairs, one must accept the fact that upon further examination, these two stalwarts of the dinner plate deserve their rightful places in those hallowed halls right alongside fish and chips, biscuits and gravy, and bagels and cream cheese.

If you are reaching for a bottle of ketchup, chances are you’ve already reached for a shaker of salt. Who doesn’t enjoy drizzling the tanginess of the crimson ecstasy (let’s start calling it that) atop a mound of freshly salted fries?

I find it kind of surprising that ketchup and salt were not combined into a single entity sooner. It seems so obvious in hindsight. Maybe we just weren’t ready for it.

So. J&D’s Ketchup Salt. From the same food mashup envelope pushers that brought us Bacon Salt and the iconic Baconnaise. (I can’t believe I haven’t tried either.)

When I found this product, I was imagining some sort of gorgeous salt crystals infused with the deep red essence of ketchup. I don’t know if that’s scientifically possible. It’s just what I pictured. Like that red sugar you buy in the baking aisle at the grocery store. The product itself is a little different. It’s a mix of very fine salt, dehydrated tomato powder, and some other stuff not worth mentioning.

The tomato taste is decent. It’s tangy and pretty close to ketchup. While it’s not identical to, say, a Heinz, they do a good job of zeroing in on that taste. The powderization adds something extra that’s just a little off. I don’t really know how to describe it.  It’s not horrible, just different enough to be noticeable.

Also, since the tomato powder is the main ingredient in the mix, this ketchup salt is surprisingly not overly salty.

One thing that weirded me out was that all through my tasting, I felt as if I was eating a middle step in the ketchup manufacturing process. I don’t know how ketchup is made, but in my head there is a giant silo of this powder and when the ketchupmeisters need to increase output, they turn a giant valve wheel and a vat is flooded with water. It’s mixed and viola! Ketchup. Seems reasonable.

All in all, this is a cool product. It’s not spectacular but it’s decent, and it is certainly interesting. Will it rise to the heights of Baconnaise? Probably not. But I think ketchup is the next big thing (based on nothing), and this is an ok place to start.

The number 180 looks great on paper, but it ends up being like the people whose religious beliefs prevent them from doing any “work” on the sabbath but who devote themselves to finding ways around God’s stipulations. You know, the people who have elevators that stop on every floor because pressing buttons is an abomination in the eyes of the almighty. Or the people who make their house keys into a belt buckle because then they become clothing and don’t violate the “thou shalt not carry” things law.

Unless I missed the part where the All Powerful loves a good loophole, I’m not sure we are being true to the original intent of the rules.

So we’ve got about four weeks left to satisfy our mandates. It’s too late to start anything new, reviewing for finals is boring, and the kids know that the end is nigh. Couple that with the fact that I am switching subjects next year (Language Arts to Science), and I just can’t motivate myself to do anything but watch Felicity and Perfect Strangers.

This lack motivation has been spilling into my blogging, and I don’t like it. It’s made worse by the current lack of interesting foods in my stash.

Which sort of brings us to today. Recently, friend of the blog @vonmanstein said that Fresh Markets were now carrying Hotlips Soda. I am a fan, so I headed down to the local, hoping it would lead to some other interesting purchases. I did purchase some Hotlips and enjoyed them with great relish.

Hiding in the same refrigerated section I found this box (?) of Coco Cafe Coconut Water Cafe Latte. This product has been on my To Buy list for quite a while. It wasn’t available in my area when I first discovered it, and it was only sold online in $30 12 packs, so it has been relegated to snack purgatory until now.

Coco Cafe is a blend of the beverage du jour that is coconut water, espresso, and milk. The espresso is fair trade and organic, and everything is “all natural,” whatever that means these days.

This drink is what happens when the final product equals far less than the sum of its parts. Coconut water, espresso, milk, and some cane juice seems like a home dunk (slam run?). But everything just turned out to be a bland concoction not unlike that canned Illy drink I had a while back.

In my head, I wanted this drink to be something great. I was hoping it would fill the void until I finally got around to making some Bulletproof coffee. I was hoping for some coconut taste and got none. I was hoping for some nice coffee flavors and got very little. I was hoping for refreshment, but with the unfortunate appearance of my arch nemesis carrageenan and his greasy mouthfeel that I hate so much, this was a disappointment all around.

It’s not a bad drink per se. It’s not gross. It’s drinkable, just very unremarkable. It tastes not unlike a bottle of Yoohoo that was left sitting open next to an espresso machine at Starbucks.

The box claims caffeination as a selling point. I don’t know how much caffeine is in one of these, but it can’t be very much. The coffee flavor is just too weak to be packing any kind of punch.

I’m sure it’s good for you and stuff, but who cares. My morning coffee and bottle of water have been doing just fine. Pick up some if you see it, but don’t go out of your way to find it.

That’s what I get for abandoning Larry and Balki.

So my first tentative step into a pop culture project has been to watch all of the Godzilla movies in chronological order. There are twenty-eight of them. Twenty-nine if you count the one where Puff Daddy pretends to have a shred of talent by talking over a classic rock song. And why would you count that one?

I’m a few movies in and have been enjoying them immensely. The original Godzilla movie from 1954 is a weird, dichotomous, and kind of horrifying experience. On one hand is a serious and very grim reflection of a country coming to grips with its recent devastation at the hands of atomic weapons, and on the other hand you have a guy trouncing around in a rubber suit smashing tiny models. I highly recommend it.

After that, the movies take on various degrees of awesomeness/ridiculousness. Random monsters are thrown together to battle it out for the privilege of either destroying Japan or saving it. Or in many cases they destroy Japan while trying to save it. I’m sure there’s a message in there somewhere.

The fifth film in the series, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, is a lot like these Sour and Butter Pringles. First off, I assumed there would be two main characters: in the movie, Ghidorah and Godzilla, and in the chips, sour cream and butter.  And yes, I believe they are just called Sour and Butter.

Also, just like the movie, there is a third unmentioned character that shows up. In the movie, it is Mothra. In the chips, it is vinegar.

Side note: I did find out later that the original Japanese title was Three Giant Monsters: Earth’s Greatest Battle, but come on, work with me. I’m metaphoring Godzilla and Pringles.

So these seemingly random elements are thrown in the mix together and we are left with the consequences.

The butter, like Ghidorah, has its ass completely kicked. But Ghidorah at least put up a fight. The butter in these chips is nowhere to be found. It is completely lost in the mix. Though I don’t know what Pringles butter flavoring would taste like anyway. I’m sure there’s a message in there somewhere.

The other two elements team up and triumph (half-century spoiler alert). These are essentially Sour Cream and Onion Pringles that have had their tanginess ratcheted up with the addition of a splash of vinegar. The vinegar presents very heavily in the nosegrope, but the flavor itself is surprisingly subdued.

Like Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Sour and Butter Pringles weren’t as crazy as I was expecting. They were familiar but enjoyable (bonus points for the can, which appears to show Mount Fuji erupting a river of butter).

You might not get a chance to try these chips, and importing them isn’t really worth the trouble or cost or smashingness of shipping.

Instead, just go four chips of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles and one Vinegar. That will do it.

And go rent Godzilla.

Now, I must admit that upon hearing of a ten dollar, all-you-can-eat buffet of pie, I was pretty excited.  The festival attracts the best pie makers from all around the country, so I was hoping to stuff myself with their delicious creations.  However, I quickly found out that the pie buffet is sponsored by larger, more corporate entities like Village Inn, and the pies on offer won’t be those tasty Midwestern mom pies.  My initial excitement waned a bit.  But a little research revealed that some of the smaller companies participating do indeed provide some good pie action, so my excitement is settling to an appropriate level.

It’s not like I’m going to pass up a pie buffet.  This kind of opportunity comes up once every…ok, once every year.  This is America after all.  And I won’t be eating only for myself.  I will be eating for each and every one of you who can’t make it. 

So to prepare for the feast, I have gone into training.

My rollerblading sessions have gotten longer, my workout shorts have gotten shorter, and my headbands have gotten more righteous.  I’m not playing around here. 

I researched “how to increase metabolism” on the reliable internet, as well.  So now I am drinking lots of coffee, ice water, and mate tea.  I am eating tons of ginseng, cinnamon, and chili peppers.  I’m on a constant B vitamin and magnesium drip.   And somehow I’m now subscribed to Women’s Health and Cosmopolitan (though as an added bonus, I have a deeper understanding of why I am attracted to bad boys).

I am also now eating nothing but tiny foods.  I think that will trick my stomach into…something.  I couldn’t find any hard science to back this up.  Sometimes you have just got to trust your intuition (Cosmo). 

My mornings start with a spoonful of sprinkles.  For lunch, I have a cocktail wiener and seven fresh peas.  Dinner is a single Lunchables cracker, cheese, and meat stack.  And for dessert I have one of these Meiji Apollos.

You may have noticed both the candies and the packaging are adorable, so yes, that means they are from Japan.  Competitive eating superstar Takeru Kobayashi is also from Japan.  It’s all lining up.

Each little cone is a layered mix of pretty ok milk chocolate and strawberry cream.  The strawberry tastes artificial, but it’s not horrible.  It works when paired with the chocolate.  It’s what you would expect from an inexpensive Japanese snack.  They’re pretty good.

These wouldn’t be bad to have on hand at home or at the office.  A small handful would yield a satisfying midday sweet fix, and they would be fun to pass around to increase workplace camaraderie and such.  And you know Pocky is so five minutes ago.

So enjoy a box of these until the next time we rendezvous, which will probably be post-buffet!  I’m already giddy with excitement.  Or perhaps that is the constant lightheadedness and nausea.  Either way, it’s time for some cinnamon ice water.

And they had donuts instead of a cake. I know!

They recently sent me this Cadbury Flake. I bet even their mailman has an ironic moustache.

Legend has it, and by legend I mean a Wikipedia article referencing a Cadbury website page that no longer exists, that the Flake was created in the 1920s when an employee noticed that when the excess chocolate from the molding process fell to whatever surface it fell to, the chocolate landed in this bizarre, wavy, flakey form you see before you.

As the Wikipedia link led nowhere, I just went to the Cadbury website and did a quick search for “Flake” using their stupidly corporate search function. The search query yielded eight results, three of which were links that led back to the home page, and none of which led directly to a page about Cadbury Flake.

When I finally tracked down the Flake page (Home Page > Our Products > Today (WTF?) > Bars > Cadbury Flake), I was treated to lots of helpful information about the bar and its history, and I walked away much more knowledgeable about the product.

Or I was given a 38-word paragraph about the Flake making process being a “closely guarded secret” that “no other chocolate manufacturer has ever managed to recreate” along with a picture that was measured less than 3 inches across.

When I finished punching my monitor repeatedly and replacing it with one from my backup monitor bin, I got to work on this review.

Cadbury Flake is milk chocolate poured out in thin ribbons, and then through some arcane act of wizardry, is folded back on itself. Somewhere during this process the bar takes on an unusual structure that is very crumbly and indeed flakey.

The chocolate is good. It’s Cadbury milk chocolate. You’ve had it. Though with the flakiness, it did seem just a tad dry. I guess you’ve got to make some tradeoffs when you’re dealing with such high level secrets.

The crumbling phenomenon is interesting. I’ve never had a chocolate bar that has behaved in such a way. When you bite, the chocolate collapses all over the bottom of you mouth, coating it in tiny flakes.

Another place the chocolate collapses to? EVERYWHERE ELSE!

I don’t know how you feel about candy bars, but when I decide to have a Snickers or a Twix, I’m not doing it while relaxing on a chaise lounge with an array of bibs, napkins, plates, and vacuums at my disposal. I’m usually eating them on the go or in the car, or occasionally as I’m paying for them at the gas station.

This Flake bar is by no means a mobile confection. It gets all over the place. I found myself eating it over the sink while assuming the Philly Cheesesteak Position: wide stance, butt out, and with a 45-degree forward lean. Had I been eating this as part of my usual home snacking routine, I’d still be picking chocolate shards out of my ample and luxurious chest hair.

I like this bar. It’s tasty and worth the texture experience, but it is a smudgy workplace disaster waiting to happen. I’d recommend going at it outdoors on a non-windy day while wearing dark colors. And if you can’t be bothered with all that, Just let it melt a little in your car. Then you can laugh at it, feeling all-powerful, having just taken away its only reason for being.

Sometimes you just feel like destroying something beautiful.

The Cadbury website is reason enough.

I had never been to Little Italy so I didn’t know what to expect exactly.  I thought we’d be landing in some old world alcove dedicated to the celebration of all things from the boot.  I thought there’d be washing hanging on clotheslines, the scent of meatballs in the air, night parades for martyred saints, Scorsese directing in the streets, and a lot of guys resembling those chef statuettes they sell at those horrible home decor stores.

I don’t know how it is nowadays, but at that time Little Italy could have been called Two Guys a Pizza Place and a Whole Lotta Chinatown.  I couldn’t believe how small it was.  And how touristy.  We had to search for a pizza place that was open late, and the only one we found was terrible.  I felt a little sad for those last holdouts refusing to give up the fort.  Pretty soon it’ll all be bubble tea and Buddha figurines.

Also, there was a leather enthusiast biker block party happening and my car was broken into.  I haven’t been back since.

But while we were there, we stopped at some big bakery place.  I forget the name but there were a lot of vowels.  Something along the lines of Luigi’s or Mamma Mia’s. Who can remember?

My friend bought a box of rainbow cookies that I quickly became obsessed with.  You know the ones.  Three different colored layers, raspberry or apricot jam in between, topped with chocolate.  So great.

When I returned to Florida, I started to research how to make them.  It was then that I had my first encounter with marzipan.  I’ve since found out that this almond candy paste is quite divisive.  I love it, my wife hates it.  The same ratio holds for my circle of friends.

I make the cookies every once in a while, and still love them.  They’re a little more labor intensive than your run of the mill chocolate chips, but they’re worth it.  And if you have to participate in a baked goods happening, show up with homemade rainbow cookies. They’ll go quick, and people will think you possess crazy advanced culinary abilities.

If you enjoy the rainbows and don’t have the time to whip some up, and don’t live near a good bakery, Ritter Sport Dark Chocolate with Marzipan is a pretty close substitute, minus the jam and cookie softness, of course.  They even have the dark chocolate snap you get when you bite through the cookie’s top layer.  Nothing says Italy like German chocolate.

I didn’t love this bar, but I did like it.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  It’s chocolate and it’s marzipan.  If you know those flavors, you know this bar.  I like both of those things well enough, but really, it just made me want the cookies.

(Cut to me in my Iron Chef apron sometime in the next couple of days.)

In the end, the bar was like my trip to Little Italy: a decent experience, but not one I’ll be revisiting anytime soon.

And happily it only cost me a few bucks and not a car stereo.

This past Saturday, my Batman cereal post landed on Boing Boing (blogged by Cory Doctorow no less).  I got a month’s worth of traffic in 24 hours.  My daily stats graph looks like Yao Ming in Munchkinland.

And today, as I was sitting at the DMV, feeling my life slowly ebb out of me, I got an email saying I was one of the six finalists for Saveur Magazine’s Best Food Blog Awards in the Best Food Humor Blog category.

There nestled among the classy wine blogs, Parisian café reviews, and recipe creations from talented culinary artists is a Star Wars action figure reaching for a shot glass full of Cheetos.

It’s madness.

I don’t know all of the other nominees, but I am a longtime reader of both The Food in My Beard and Anger Burger. They’re both good.  So if you wanted to vote for them, I’d be cool with it.

But obviously I’d love it if you’d vote for me.  Just keep in mind, that if I somehow I manage to win, one of you is going to have to make a very tiny tuxedo for my clone trooper.  So make sure your sewing skills are up for the challenge before you cast your ballot.

You can vote here.

You have to register first, but don’t sweat it.  Just use that dumping ground email you use to sign up for all of those websites you don’t want you significant other to find out about.

Thank you in advance!

Let’s back up.

A few months back, I heard about an interesting tome called The Great American Cereal Book.  I ordered it as soon as it became available because I love any sort of weird or highly specific pop culture ephemera.  The book is great.  I even felt compelled to write a review of it on my infrequently updated and oft-forgotten about catchall side blog.

While the old timey 19^th century cereals were fun to thumb through, for me, the real gold came in the section dedicated to the years between 1981 and 2010.  That is where all of the TV and movie tie-in cereals got to shine in all of their marshmallowy, sugar-coated glory.

Flipping through the book one late evening, iPhone in hand, I started perusing eBay listings for some of the cereal boxes featured in the book.  I noticed a few listings for unopened cereal boxes!  Recalibrating my search formula, I added “unopened.”  Then I filtered out “Wheaties” because I could give a Care Bear’s stitched butt crack about professional athletes.

I learned some things through my new search query:

#1 I want to start collecting cereal boxes.

#2 People have no idea as to the value of things.

#3 I think my mom held too much purchasing power in my home, and as a result, I feel I squandered my prime childhood cereal eating opportunities.

I thought to myself, “Gentlemen! Let’s broaden our minds.”  I decided I needed a box of old cereal to eat for the blog.  Then I quickly became lost in a fantasy about a series of escalating vintage cereal reviews involving my fellow junk food bloggers that would ultimately end in one of our deaths.  No that’s not a dare.  It’s a double dare!

I saw a few boxes from the 80s that were totally awesome and that I would have LOVED to own, but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend hundreds of dollars for them…yet.  If anyone would like to discuss an Indecent Proposal style trade of some kind, I am up for anything (anything).

I settled on this box of Batman cereal (featuring a creepy sticker-faced plastic coin bank) from the 1989 Tim Burton movie.  It was made my Ralston, who was the undisputed king of pop culture cereal stuffs (Ghostbusters, Transformers, Bill & Ted, and Urkel-Os to name a few).  The Great American Cereal Book lists the production years of this cereal from between 1989 and 1991.  We’ll date it to 1990 just to be fair.

My wife, ever the buzzkill and The-Sky-Is-Falling-ite, told me I would probably die if ate 22-year-old cereal.  I gave her a rousing speech about tyranny and freedom (not unlike Mel Gibson in Braveheart).  Then I did a little research and concluded that if the cereal was kept adequately dry, I’d probably be ok.

When the box arrived, everything looked great.  There was no visible damage and the whole thing was sealed in shrink-wrap to keep the bank attached.  I love the design work (including the origin story that runs down one side).  Who doesn’t have fond memories of that bat symbol?  It was everywhere.   The box is an awesome artifact.

So how does Batman cereal hold up after 22 years?  Just like its film counterpart, it’s a little dated.

I was hoping for some kind of honey nut aroma remnants upon opening the bag.  Sadly, the villain in this issue is The Plastic.  He has taken over virtually all of Gotham.  The thick plastic inner bag held up perfectly (take that Earth!) and did a great job of keeping the cereal dry and crisp, but the air inside was thick with chemicals.  And not the kind that would put a cool maniacal smile on your face.

The Plastic co-opted the cereal’s taste as well.  It laid waste to all of the little yellow multigrain bat symbols.

You can taste the sweetness, but the original honey nut flavor is barely recognizable.  It’s there, but it’s not worth diving into this vat of toxins to get to.  The plastic tang is quite powerful and lingered in my mouth for quite a while until I was able to defeat it with a little help from the always helpful sidekick, A Spoonful of Peanut Butter (Jif Wonder?).

I added a little milk and things only got worse.  Giving The Plastic a liquid assault vehicle with which to wreak havoc was a bad idea.   It sort of felt like suckling on the end of a caulking gun.  I stopped after a few bites, as I was convinced I could feel the bat days being torn from the end of my bat life.

I can’t say I am surprised by the outcome, but deep down, I was really holding out hope.  Think of the cereal experiences that would have been opened up if this experiment had worked!  But once again, we must wait patiently for the invention of time travel to enjoy our favorite things.  I mean I’d stop all the wars and stuff, too.  I’d just eat the cereal after that.  Probably.

Sadly, I guess it’s back to the storage shed and the pallet of High School Musical cereal I’ve been hording.

Have you ever danced with Zac Efron in the pale moonlight?

But what Disney does do really well is make things look good.  Main Street, princess pajamas, the castle, candy, animatronic presidents, I am a sucker for them all.  Walking through the parks, or a store like the World of Disney, is an exercise in color and sparkle.  The eye strains to take it all in.  As does the wallet.

Take this package of Milk Chocolate Peanut Candies.  It looks fantastic, and I think we can all agree that the monorail is the greatest thing ever.  My wife asked me why I liked it so much when I enthusiastically showed her this candy.  I said, grandly, that is was because the monorail was part of the promise of a better future which never came!  It was the original EPCOT project! It was PeopleMovers, pedestrianism, and the Green Belt!   It was Walt’s vision of a model community.

Then I caught my breath and said less grandly, that it was because the only time I am ever on a monorail is when I am going to Disney World.  And I love Disney World.  If I hopped a monorail to the dentist every month, I might not love it so much…ok, I still totally would!

If it can be considered a ride, then it is one of my favorites, up there with the Tomorrowland Transit Authority and The Land.  I know.  I can’t help it.  I have a thing for non-thrilling narration-based rides that cover a lot of ground.

When you couple said monorail with vintage Disney colors and design, well, things just don’t get much better.

For those out of the know, the quote on the box is a reference to the announcement played on the monorail politely telling passengers to stand clear of the doors, which are powerful and have been known to cleave tourists cleanly in half (not true).  If you can recite the announcement in English and Spanish, you are probably a big fan of the parks.  And if you can do it with the gravitas of Jack Wagner, then you are awesome, and I give you much mouse respect.

Awesome box aside, there is no mystery here.  These are just generic Peanut M&Ms.  They taste good, of course, but are just ever so slightly off.  Nothing I can put my giant foam-suited finger on, but it’s there, and you notice it, maybe subconsciously.  But who cares?  Chocolate-covered peanuts are always great.

Now sure you could bring your own M&Ms into the park to stuff in your kid’s gullet, but come on, these come with the monorail on the box.  The monorail!  You’ll need something cool to look at when waiting for your Mark VI Teal to arrive that’s not the sweaty armpit of the tank top-wearing Iowan man in front of you.

Watch your head and step, indeed!