it's another shelf halloween candy review

Last week was a rough one. Sick kids, working overtime and fulfilling prior commitments made it near impossible to get out our candy review last week. Being fat and lazy didn't help either. Better late than never, though. Today will actually be last weeks installment of the candy review and this week's edition will hit the Shelf before the end of the week. As I said, last week was somewhat of a doozy in the old personal life. Reality kicked in again and I took a little break from cyber life to tend to husband/father/employee duties. These things also narrowed down my candy hunting options. You may want to check the previous candy reviews and get caught up if you haven't already done so. Since I didn't have time to go and look for anything special or different, I was forced to make my selection at a major chain retailer while on a 2AM baby food run. I found something that isn't all that unusual but is something I hadn't seen before. It's Hershey's chocolate covered orange marshmallow pumpkin. There are a few chocolate covered marshmallow pumpkins out there every Halloween, but Hershey's stepped up to the plate this year and did more than just lay down a bunt. They actually tried to get on base. The taste testers for this unbiased, scientific event consisted of myself and one Wolf J. Flywheel Jr. Our team first inspected the packaging only to find that it offered nothing more than the usual Halloween colors with a pumpkin's picture on front. The next step was to breach the packaging and inspect the contents. As chocolate pumpkins go, the shape of this one is mediocre at best. It appears more like the view if you were to look straight down on Mr. Magoo's head with his nose sticking out a little. As the main portion of our examination would involve the consumption of said 'Magoo pumpkin', this did not bother us much. It was in the general shape of a pumpkin so that was good enough for us. Next came the tasting. This is where we seperate the pumpkins from the .......uh......other pumpkins. I watched my assistant ,Wolf Jr., pull away a portion of this confection with his teeth which ,if filmed in slow motion, is remeniscent of a lion tearing at the flesh of a freshly fallen gazelle. Yup. It would be just like that, except this is marshmallow with chocolate and not the meat of an African mammal. At any rate, Wolf Jr. bit off a section and revealed the orange marshmallow interior. As the photographic evidence shows, they weren't lyin' about it being orange. They could've gone with the plain white, but decided to get in the spirit of the holiday and go orange. What threw me off when I took a bite was that it had a very sweet orange flavor. For some reason I imagined it to be only orange in color. I can only handle so much sweetness so the flavor was somewhat overpowering. I could only handle a couple of bites. Wolf Jr. seemed to like it as his responses were muffled as they tried to crawl out of his full mouth. All in all, it was not an unpleasant experience and it only set me back about $0.69. If you have a taste for sweet things and enjoy the combo of orange and chocolate then you have found your 'holy grail'. Otherwise it's OK and best consumed in small bites over a length of time. I definately give the Hershey company an 'A' for effort in this particular venture, but possibly a 'B' or 'C' for an overall grade. It's one of those that you probably shouldn't make a special trip to get, but if it's staring you in the face while waiting in line at 2AM to buy diapers and baby food then you might as well try it.

P.S.- Don't forget to check out JC's guest post at Cinerati.

Please feel free to comment if the need strikes you.

A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween. ~Erma Bombeck