Homemade Devil Dogs and Store Bought Snowballs

A couple of weeks ago I was given a homemade Devil Dog from Priscilla, my friend Jen’s mother. She hails from Connecticut.  I haven’t seen her mom’s original recipe but I found another one for Devil Dogs in my old Junk Food Cookbook by Lydia Sager.

Her individually wrapped Chocolate home baked Devil Dog snack cake tasted really good.

I’m serious.

I couldn’t find commercial Devil Dogs in the grocery store. Here are some coconut marshmallow skin covered chocolate Snowballs snack cakes filled with probably hydrogenated fat.

I purchased these at Weiland’s Market and Kroger in Columbus a few weeks ago.

Thanks Steve got helping taste these. I think you can keep these indefinitely and they don’t get moldy.

So would you eat one?

 

 

California Mandarins are Controversial

Recently a friend at my dinner table admired the centerpiece of bright orange fruit.

So refreshing in the middle of winter.

Easy to peel. A burst of taste on the tongue. Seedless, too. MMmmm.


But did I know that certain brands are irrigated with wastewater from oil production? she asked.

Was my brand the contaminated brand?

I’ve been thinking about these concerns as I admire the pretty orbs. Looking at the little stickers on the peels. Reading the minimal print on the package. Wondering.

There are stacks of boxes of these mandarins at the markets. Piles and piles of bags of this particular produce.

Thinking I was getting some vitamin C.

Yikes

 *Stanford weighs in on mandarins- link

 

I put them in pretty Spode bowls.

*Here’s what fact checking Snopes Report oh my Quarreling Clementine says


I worry about food safety.

*There’s been a bill proposed to require labeling

*Labels may be required on produce irrigated with refinery wastewater 
*There was an intense marketing campaign to get kids to swap candy for this particular fruit.Swapping Sweets for Fruit

Perhaps you knew all this already.

I did not.

Growers say the are not genetically modified.

*Four links in blue above -covering the controversies.

I read one about California beekeepers being upset, too.

Thanks R for inspiring this post!

Out of Place

Today’s idea  for a post was Laura’s. She’s the one who spotted the bottle of  OJ by the Halloween candy display.

“This should be a blog.” she said, when we came across another example.

Once you start noticing the items out of place, they are EVERYWHERE!

Look as you go around a store and you will find your own examples.

People change their minds when they shop, sure.  But placing a refrigerated item on a shelf across the store?

At least take it to the register and state, “I decided to not buy this after all”  and it can be reshelved appropriately.

Tropicana OJ

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And then there are those who litter the shelves. With garbage.

 

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At the Grocery Store in the Meat Department. You Tell Me…..

The grocery store was packed and sales brisk, everyone stocking up on water, milk,bread. Batteries. Toilet paper.

Lots of shoppers dressed up from church and all the store workers sporting black and gold for the Steelers game that was about to start.  Carts filled with chips and dip for the football game today, in addition to preparation for the impending storm.  The high winds are to start tomorrow.

The power not affected yet.

Later at the gas station I saw a man at the next pump filling huge gas cans for his generator.

BUT    as I walked through the meat department looking for the rest of my family, this is what I saw on the floor.

There was no one to ask what this was or why.

A display gone wrong? Deflated?  Someone practicing balloon art on break?  You tell me.