Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Candy Freak

I have to be honest. This book made me hungry reading it. On every sugar infested page there were mouth watering descriptions of various candies. The way he described them I could almost taste them. I had to make several trips to the store to stock up on candies. Not good for my diet.
The author Steve Almond (his last name is a testament to his love of candy I think ,and yes it is his real last name) is a self professed candy freak who “has eaten a piece of candy every day of his life”  and decided to see how the “underbellies” of the candy trade were doing. There are the “big three'’ of the candy trade then there is the small independently owned candy factories.
Almond visits  various independent candy factories. He tours the factories and he gives accounts of what it is like. I had to admit at times I was jealous of all the free candy he received. Almond goes into glorious detail of various candy bars. It was almost as good as being there.
Of the various candies I am to young to know of any expect the goo goo clusters since I am from the south.
I loved his humor. It is sprinkled out in appropriate dosage. Even when he was writing about his brief period with depression he still conveyed it in a way that made the reader feel that it was not all that bad and hey he got free candy!
There were even some facts that I did not know before i read this book. For example, candy companies have to pay a shelving fee to have their candies displayed in stores. An independent candy company cant compete against the “big three’ so they have to find alterative avenues like the dollar store. That explains why you see the same candies again and again in almost every store you go to.
There was also a history of candy making that I found fascinating. I now know that my love for milk chocolate is because the big three use milk chocolate so that what you taste most of the time. It is what your taste buds grow accustomed to. If however we were to acquire the taste of real chocolate then according to the “experts” we would have a much more distinguished palate.
This little book provides an entertaining and insightful look at the candy making industry. Just be sure that you have plenty of candy while you are reading this.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Sunday Salon

TSSbadge2

First for those who want an update on my read a thon. It was horrible. I kept getting distracted then I fell asleep. I have a plan for the next read a thon though. I am going to lock myself in a hotel room and dare anyone to bother me.

In other news I have checked out a total of 10 books from the Library. I told myself that I will not check out anymore books until I get those ten read but then I remembered that Halloween is coming and I want to do a Halloween themed post. I need to decided on a book and soon if that is to happen. Any Ideas?

I am still reading Women; An intimate geography. I have an excuse for reading so slow though. I was at the Library and I took a wrong turn and found all the periodicals. The book reviews periodicals that I have wanted to read but did not have access too and was to broke to subscribe are all there. The New York Review of books and others. I was like a little kid in a candy store. I sat down and read all of them for hours.  I hope that by reading them m own reviews will improve drastically.

I will definitely finish Woman today though then I will start on Flow which was recommended to me from a trusted friend. He has never recommend a book that i did not end up liking so I trust his judgment.

For once in my life I will be reading two books at the same time. I decided on a whim that I was going to learn how to knit so checked out Knitting for Dummies. I usually hate reading more than one book at a time so we shall see how it goes.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...