Articles about candy

2012 Holiday Gift Guide: Celebrate With Candy Made in DFW

posted by Carol Shih | December 3rd, 2012 11:06am | filed under 12 Days of Food Gifts, candy | 9 Comments »

Every year on SideDish, we like to devote our energy to supporting small local food businesses that make DFW a better place to live. For twelve days, we’ll be highlighting jams, jellies, pies, classes, wines, coffees, teas, and basically any food product made locally on Dallas (or close to it) soil. Today is Candy Day. If you’ve got a product that you want included, send me an email with your information and a picture. This list will often be updated, so don’t fret about deadlines. We’re here to serve you guys.

On the second day of Christmahannukwanzadan, my true love gave to me…

photo by Sarah Reiss

OMG S’mores

Every time you buy an OMG S’mores kit, part of your proceeds goes toward the North Texas Food Bank. Each kit comes with quality, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate, puffy marshmallows perfect for roasting, graham crackers, and long sturdy sticks so you won’t burn your hands off making s’mores. All the DFW Whole Foods stores have these kits available for $19.99, and so does Swoozies in Preston Center. If you want your own magical s’mores delivery, call 214-501-3337.

Stacy Fawcett, the inventor behind this genius holiday gift, dropped by our office to give us a taste and left us with an original s’mores kit to give away. The seventh person to tweet out a link to this post (be sure to include @DSideDish so we can see it) wins an OMG S’mores kit, which comes with 35 graham crackers, 12 marshmallows, and 2 divine chocolate bars. The lucky winner will be tweeted back. (Also, you have to pick up your prize from our office.)

Continue reading "2012 Holiday Gift Guide: Celebrate With Candy Made in DFW"

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Dead Can Eat: The Foods of Dia de los Muertos and Where to Find Them in Dallas

posted by Nancy Nichols | October 18th, 2012 9:10am | filed under Bring it!, candy, Holidays, Regional Mexican Cuisine |

Sugar skulls.

Don’t be alarmed if on Nov. 1 and 2 someone wishes you “Feliz Día de los Muertos,” or Happy Day of the Dead. The Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos is a sacred time celebrated for millennia (In the modern era, the Day of the Dead corresponds with the All Souls Day and All Saints Day). But it’s by no means macabre. Día de los Muertos, with its roots in Aztec tradition, is a joyful time. Beloved ancestors return to the realm of the living to mingle with loved ones—and eat. The journey from the afterlife works up an appetite.

Like any holiday worth its salt, Día de los Muertos is heavy on the feasting. And, like the energy spent during the trek from the hereafter, the ritual preparation of the food associated with the holiday is labor intensive and best undertaken with family.

Tamales, an Aztec staple, are perhaps the most significant of the Día de los Muertos comestibles. Its elements (filling, masa, and cornhusk or banana leaf wrapper) correspond to the innards and skin of the individual and his/her petate, a straw bed-mat. In pre-Hispanic times the petate represented a death shroud. Simply put: Death nourishes. I say, find said nourishment at tamale factories across Dallas-Fort Worth.

The tamale’s piping hot deliciousness is matched by a big pot of mole, the most common of which, at least stateside, is the dark mole poblano, a complex sauce of chilies, nuts, spices and chocolate of legendary origin. It can take up to a day and whatever number of ingredients you care to use to make a mole, and they can be green, red, yellow, black, or any color of the earth to which we will all return.

Jump for  more. Continue reading "Dead Can Eat: The Foods of Dia de los Muertos and Where to Find Them in Dallas"

Trader Joe’s Second Dallas Location to Open at North Central Expressway and Walnut Hill

posted by Carol Shih | May 21st, 2012 11:32am | filed under Breaking News, candy, ChirpyChirpy | 21 Comments »

from Provident Realty Advisors

The DMN reports that Trader Joe’s is planning to open a second location in Dallas on the corner of North Central Expressway and Walnut Hill Lane. It’s set to open next year in a 14,000-square-foot store once construction begins late this year or early 2013. This means that in a year (if all goes well), I will be able to buy my precious Trader Joe’s Cat Cookies (the ginger flavor is the snappiest) at not one, but two locations in Dallas. Those cookies are extremely addicting, and a tub always disappears quickly when it’s around me because I snarf them down without even realizing.

Liz Johnstone is just as gleefully excited, since she has a thing for Gummy Tummies – these little penguin characters with fruit juice that bursts from their belly pouches. Talking about Trader Joe’s snacks makes me want to pick up a construction tool and start working on that building myself so it’ll be ready sooner.

Who else has a particular Trader Joe’s food they dearly love? Share your wealth of knowledge below. Let’s plan our grocery list before the Plano store opens later this summer.

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See’s Candies Opens Tomorrow at Stonebriar Mall

posted by Carol Shih | April 26th, 2012 10:54am | filed under candy, Chocolate | 6 Comments »

See's Candies storefront (photo by Carol Shih)

There are two things in life you can’t criticize, or you risk getting pounced: In-N-Out and See’s Candies. When I told this to my mother yesterday, she gently reminded me of the first time I’d ever had See’s Candies. I was six. My parents took my older brother and me to Las Vegas for Christmas Eve and left us in the hotel room for an hour while they donated money to slot machines. When they came back, they discovered us staring out the window with guilty chocolate smudges on our fingers and faces. We’d been watching the night sky – waiting like little children often do – to catch a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh, and we’d demolished a box of See’s between the two of us.

So, I get it. When you open a box of See’s, you open a box of nostalgia, and there’s something kind of sweet about all that. Continue reading "See’s Candies Opens Tomorrow at Stonebriar Mall"

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See’s Candies Opens its First Texas Store in Frisco

posted by Carol Shih | April 17th, 2012 2:06pm | filed under candy | 16 Comments »

I could never see the big the deal about See’s Candies, a California-based company, but I see from a very recent press release that See’s is opening its first Texas location inside Stonebriar Mall. There will probably be a sea of people at the Grand Opening celebration taking place on Friday, April 27 starting at 9:30 AM, and I bet the line will curve around to form a letter “C” once See’s fans find out they get a Texas Candy Sampler with every $25 purchase. Lots of other giveaways will be happening that entire weekend as well.

I think that’s all the see-crets I have on See’s Candies for now. More info coming see-oon. Maybe. If there are any.

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Somebody Help This Girl: Walnettos in Dallas

posted by Nancy Nichols | April 4th, 2012 1:38pm | filed under candy | 3 Comments »

She rough and tough but clueless. Hear her worst-mother-of-the-year plea:

My kids no longer eat jelly beans and malted milk eggs, but I still want to create a nice Easter basket for them.  They love Walnettos, the old-fashion walnut chew.  Does anyone know where I can buy them in Dallas?  There’s no time to get them from my usual source, Vermont Country Store.

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