Managing Editor
Did you ever hear the one about the kid in the candy store? Well, I’m certainly no longer a kid in terms of physical age (although some family members will disagree with that assessment in terms of mental maturity) but I did find myself last week in the Easter candy aisle of a big box store and my how things have changed.
When I was small, the size of jellybeans was almost about as
large as a prospector’s gold nuggets and the plastic bags they were sold in appeared
to contain about 50 percent of black licorice-flavored ones. Now there are so
many kinds, shapes and sizes of jellybeans that it makes it a difficult choice
to select one specific kind or brand.
There are Starburst jellybeans in mini and regular sizes,
Jelly Bellies in specific flavors, jellybeans the size of Chicklets chewing gum
and even SourPatch Kids and Warheads jellybeans. Not to be outdone by the
competition, apparently this year there are new marshmallow Peeps jellybeans, Lemonheads,
Jolly Rancher, Lifesavers and Sweetarts jellybeans up for grabs.
And as an aside, can anyone answer why jellybeans are not
affected by supply chain shortages and manufacturing delays like many other
grocery products? This year it seems there is so much Easter candy available in
a post-pandemic economy rife with inflation and rising food costs that it may
leave you scratching your head.
Last year my Easter candy shopping excursion for our 2-year-old granddaughter Olivia in Connecticut was a major hit. Along with a few of the other treats that made it into the shopping cart was something called “Krabby Patties” which sent her into a sugar-rush Nirvana being an avid SpongeBob Square Pants fanatic.
I decided to see if any other Sponge Bob-related Easter candy
is available this year and hit the proverbial jackpot at the store I visited.
This year Olivia and her new baby brother Leon (although at
just five months old he’s much too young to appreciate Easter candy) will soon
enjoy a multitude of Sponge Bob sugary delights when the package arrives in the
mail.
For 2022, along with Olivia’s favorite Krabby Patties, I found
her Sponge Bob peanut butter eggs, Sponge Bob milk chocolate eggs, Sponge Bob
gummies and something called Sponge Bob gliders which resemble small cheeseburger
sliders except made up of marshmallow and chocolate layers.
When I was a child growing up in the 1960s, it used to be such
a treat to find my Easter basket included a Cadbury cream egg. Now Cadbury has
been joined in the Easter candy extravaganza by Reese’s, who are offering white
and dark chocolate peanut butter-filled eggs in various sizes and Snickers,
Almond Joy and York Peppermint Patties who are also selling candy shaped like
Easter eggs. At the store I visited, the intricate and detailed box that “Star
Wars, The Mandalorian” Easter eggs comes in caught my attention and surely will
be a collector’s item someday.
As a kid the best part of my Easter basket always turned out
to be the solid chocolate bunny but on this shopping trip solid chocolate
bunnies were impossible to locate. I did see a plentiful assortment of hollow
milk chocolate bunnies including such monikers as “Bunny Big Ears,” an “EB
Hopsalot” or “Binks” and even “Peter Rabbit.” I did find it curious to see a
Fred Flintstone Fruity Pebbles cereal bunny and wondered if the Easter Bunny
existed way back in Stone Age Bedrock.
Among the most unusual Easter candy I looked at this year were
Dunkin’ coffee-flavored jellybeans; Kit Kat and Chunky’s soft caramel popcorn
flavored eggs (also comes in cookie dough flavor); something called Whoppers’
Bunny Tails; Jelly Belly’s Sparkling Bunny corn (rainbow-colored easter candies
shaped like Halloween candy corn); and Pancakes and Syrup Marshmallow Peeps.
For fans of the music of Prince, Brach’s is selling bags of
Tiny Purple Jellybeans, and Brach’s also has bags containing nothing but red
jellybeans. Butterfinger, Tootsie Roll, Skittles and Swedish Fish and Oreos
also had egg-shaped products in plentiful supply in the Easter candy aisle for
sale on the day I made my visit.
After some concerns about potential pollution and a nationwide
shortage during the pandemic, plastic Easter basket grass is back in an
assortment of colors in 2022 much to the dislike of environmentalists. They
recommend using colored shredded paper as Easter basket lining instead of the
plastic variety that they say ends up polluting the ocean.
I picked up and looked at a package of pink-colored paper
Easter basket grass and was unaware until I read the label that it could also
be used as confetti for birthday, anniversary and graduation celebrations.
Of course, there were baskets of Easter candy ready made for
those who find it challenging to select individual candy items from the vast
variety available. I like to pick and choose what goes in the grandkids’ Easter
basket and prefer doing it that way.
My mother had a tradition every year where she would buy a Paas Easter Egg coloring kit and our family would dip hardboiled eggs in colored dyes at the kitchen the night before Easter. Ah, those were the days. <
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