What about candy cigarettes? That was my $.10 fix as a kid. The packages looked like actual cigarette packs, and I held them as if I was smoking a cigarette. I am not a smoker, but doesn’t it seem like a bit of “Lil’ Smoker in Training” going on there?

Baileys was always my family’s second stop after a movie. I always had the same thing: Butterscotch sundae with chocolate chip ice cream, nut, whipped cream, hold the cherry.

I was off chocolate for many years on account of acid reflux, specifically its interference with my operatic aspirations. (It can cause wicked hoarseness.) I sang (and was chocolate-free) until I was 8.5 months pregnant, and then I thought, “Heck, I’m not working, I might as well have a bit of chocolate.” I have so far had several bits, and while my chocolate use has slowed down since I resumed my career, I don’t think I could ever quit the stuff again.

I once got tipsy on a single rum truffle. As you might guess, I’m off booze too.

Delfa rolls were coiled ribbons of strawberry licorice sold four to a package!

Sadly, they are extinct now.

But I haven’t given up on finding the last box of them somewhere.

Thanks to everyone for a delightful show!

They used to serve the most wonderful sundaes at their lunch counter. The fudge would flow over the side of the metal dish onto the plate below.

It’s the penny candy that’s most evocative for me–the cheap, nasty stuff rather than the high-end chocolate. Especially during the summer, which was when we were free to roam free and buy illicit brown paper sacks full of penny candy. You had to get the right balance between the chocolate/caramel/peanut butter items–Squirrel Nuts, Reeses Cups, Bit O’Honeys, those silky Andes Mints–and the tart, trashy citric acid-laden ones–the lemon sours, Smarties, Pop Rocks, Pixie Sticks et al. And of course a few neutral go-betweens–the red licorice, the Gobstoppers, the Tootsie Pops.

Still feel the same about everyday American chocolate. I can appreciate a buttery little brick of Burdick’s extra dark, but it doesn’t evoke the same Proustian response as a gritty piece of Hershey’s Almond broken from that silver foil and paper wrapper. I can still remember the theme from the 1970′s ads–”the Great American Chocolate bar…” Which is now made in Mexico, I think?

btw, did we know that Nabisco is short for National Biscuit Company?

Have you ever met anyone who doesn’t like chocolate?

My wife actually gave up chocolate for Lent when she was a teenager, just to see if she could. She’s been chocolate free ever since. Amazingly, when she accidently has chocolate – say a little cocoa powder mixed into some coffee or something – she has a visceral reaction to it. When people offer her chocolate, she always says she’s allergic to it, and having seen the way she reacts when accidentally eating it, I’m certainly not going to argue with that.

Actually, I rarely ever eat candy. Maybe a couple of Lindt chocolate balls a month or a pack of Twizzlers a few times a year at the movies, but otherwise, my thoughts about candy are pretty much nostalgic from childhood, or very special occasions. When someone gives me candy as I gift, I always have to warn them that the majority of it will be eaten by co-workers. I think I appreciate it more the less often I have it – and I’m sure my scale appreciates it as well.