Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M's

After a few days of searching the candy aisles, I found them.

“Dammit,” said WonderWife™ upon seeing the bag in the sack of groceries. “I really wanted to be the one to bring these home for you.” (I’ve said it before and I will continue to say it: she’s a good woman, that one.)


M&M’s Strawberried Peanut Butter flavor has been launched as a tie in to Transformers Revenge of the Horrible Movie That’s Inexplicably Made a Gazillion Dollars. These candies are the best thing to come out of that movie. Though strawberry/peanut butter has about as much to do with transforming robots as mint crisp did to last year’s aging fedora adorned archeologist.

I really love peanut butter M&M’s—though I’m a sucker for peanut butter and tend to love anything made with it. Expectations were high for this one. Unlike traditional M&M’s, these guys have a peanut butter center with a taste and texture similar to the kind in the center of a Reese’s. Underneath the candy shell, is a thin layer of chocolate with strawberry flavor. The strawberry is decidedly artificial tasting, which isn’t surprising. You usually find it in strawberry candy (think Skittles, Starburst or Strawberry Quick). However, the artificial flavor clashed somewhat with the natural peanut butter of the inside. The peanut butter gave the candy a salty finish.

Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M’s were decent, but not quite as good as I was expecting. That said, the opened bag was left on the counter and I couldn’t help but finish it handful by handful throughout the day.

Although these weren’t the slam-dunk that the coconut M’s were, I applaud the effort. It feels like this year the candy companies are trying a little harder to put out some interesting new flavors, even though they know people like me will always buy them.

Our Idealized Selves

Over at Hot Dads today, I compare being on line with being a parent. I think it kind of makes sense. Click on over and check it out. Here's a taste:

My friends tell me that I’m much funnier in my blog than I am in real life. I wish I could disagree with them, but they’re kind of right. In real life, it’s usually the most obvious joke that pops to mind and unfortunately for those around me, I lack the impulse control not to say it.

Coconut M&M's & Reese's Dark

Little did I know when I stopped at the ‘Sev for coffee this morning that there would be not one, but two new candy surprises waiting for me.

The first was Coconut M&M’s.


In the candy world, the combo of coconut and chocolate is dominated by Mounds and Almond Joy. While I like these bars, I am not a fan of the tiny coconut bits that are always left in the mouth after eating, no matter how much one chews. The coconut M&M’s, however, don’t actually contain any real coconut so I was optimistic that this would not be a problem.

The coconut M’s are plumper than the normal variety. It’s as if the M&M’s spent a weekend eating nothing but bags of M&M’s. Texture wise, they are pretty much the same as their plain cousins. Inside the shell is coconut flavored dark chocolate. Surprisingly, the emphasis of flavor is on the coconut. They tasted very much like a compact version of a Mounds bar...but without the tiny bits. Very tasty.


Next, I moved onto Reese’s Dark peanut butter cups.


The Reese’s Dark package wasn’t adorned with a “new” or a “limited edition” but I had not seen it before. Apparently, Reese’s has mixed dark chocolate and peanut butter sporadically in the past—most recently last summer as a tie in with The Dark Knight. Somehow I missed it. So to paraphrase an old TV slogan, if I haven’t eaten it, it’s new to me.

Peanut butter is one of my favorite foods and I actually prefer dark chocolate to milk, so I was exited to try them. Opening the package, the most striking thing is that the cup is the same dark color as the famous wrapper. The dark chocolate is a great foil for the peanut butter and makes for a richer taste. While they are sweet, they are slightly less sweet than the milk chocolate variety. The salt in the peanut butter was sharper. I’m happy that Reese’s Dark didn’t come with a “limited edition” because I dare say that I would pick these over the milk chocolate ones.

Amazingly in this round, I went two for two in good new products. Now if anyone could tell me where I could find Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M’s, I would be a happy, happy geek.

She Speaks...Kinda

I used to think that teaching sign language to babies was a bunch of new age hippie crap. That was, until the Bean started using signs at nine months and I was forced to admit to my wife that I had been wrong about the whole thing. I don’t know what I hate more, being wrong or having to admit to her that I was wrong.

Sprout has now started signing. I don’t know why, but I’m still kind of stunned that baby sign language works. I think this has been one of the only things that has truly surprised me the second time around. Sprout’s newfound ability to communicate has eased some of her frustration and brought a modicum of peace to our house. But she’s starting to get really pushy, constantly demanding, “Milk! Milk! Food! Food!”

Sprout has also started to speak. Her first word was “buh bye” which was soon followed by “hi” and “up.” She even has a special word for her brother. Yes, it seemed as if Sprout was on her way to a fairly substantial vocabulary, until she learned the word “doggie.” Everything now is “doggie” from an actual dog, to the cats, the Bean, me, a button on my shirt…

One Father's Day

A hearty breakfast and hanging out with the fam at the Getty is going to be a great way to spend the first half of Father's Day. But this afternoon, what I really want to do is show the Bean Kung Fu Panda for the first time.

Remember, there is no charge for awesomeness.

Happy Father's Day.

Flashback Friday: Adventures in Coffee

My love for 7-11 and new products has been well documented on the pages of this blog. This Flashback Friday travels back to February 2007, when I tried "Energy Coffee" from the 'Sev.


9am: Out of all of the unnecessary new products I've come across, this may be the unnecessariest: Energy coffee.

Yes that's right...energy coffee. Seen it for a week or two, but have been hesitant to try it. Anyone who's been on the receiving end of one of my caffeine fits will tell you that the less energy there is in my coffee, the better. But you can only withstand the pull of the weasel for so long so this morning, I'm having my first cup.

It's actually not bad. Kind of has that herbal taste that tea does, but it's a pretty good flavor of coffee.

But if you find me massacred on my office floor, you'll know why.


2pm: Made it past lunch without jumping out of my skin and/or annoying everyone around me. Looks like Energy Coffee has passed the test.

But would I buy it again...?


3:15pm: Digesting lunch and crashing hard. Beginning to question the wisdom of "energy coffee."

Roaming Table Settings

WonderWife™ and I sat in the cozy, romantic restaurant enjoying a rare date night as only two foodies could. The wine had been poured and we both had a nice buzz. After the waiter took our order, he paused and casually slid the candle holder and salt and pepper shakers that adorned the table to the upper right corner. Thinking this odd, WW™ said that perhaps he did it to cover up a small stain on the otherwise pristine white tablecloth. But upon closer inspection, we realized that all of the candles and shakers on the tables of our fellow diners were in the exact same corner.

WW™ smiled a mischievous smile. “Is this something that the waiters are required to do?” she wondered aloud.

She decided there needed to be more research on this subject. She moved the objects out of alignment, placing them towards the center of our table. Soon, the waiter returned to fill my wine glass and he once again moved them back to the corner.

WonderWife’s™ theory had been tested, but far from proven. Her smile grew wider as again she moved the candle and shakers out of place. We waited. Sure enough, after my appetizer was delivered, the waiter subtlety put everything back in its proper place.

WW™ wondered how long she could keep this going. So for the rest of the evening, she moved the candles and shakers around the table. And every time our waiter or busboy would move them back to the precise spot. After a while, it became hard for me to stifle my laughter. The entire night ended with the bottle of wine emptied and without either side mentioning anything about the roaming table settings.

This is why I'm crazy about my wife.

A New Game Becomes Old

My son is not the only person in my house who tries to eat cat food. His sister also thinks this is a fun game. And despite the fact that she crab crawls, she’s faster than the Bean ever was. It’s like a massive case of déjà vu, except for one difference. When Sprout makes a break for it, the Bean eggs her on.

“Eat the cat food, Sprout! Eat the cat food!” He screams with delight.

One day I got so sick of him taunting her that I placed a nugget of the dry pet food on his plate and said, “You want her to eat cat food, you have to eat some yourself!”

Of course, this sent him into hysterics. He started bawling, “I don’t want to eat the cat food. I don’t want to!”

I calmed him down and explained as rationally as one can to a pre-schooler why it was mean for him to want his baby sister to eat cat food. He only kind of got it, cause now when she darts down the kitchen he says, “Don’t…eat the cat food, Sprout! Don’t…eat the cat food Sprout!”

View From an Island, Part 3

Day 5: Eight is Enough
Today was the day when we realized that 8 days of vacation might be too much for a pre-schooler and an infant. Cries of, "I want to go home!" filled the air as we pulled back on some of our planned adventures for fear that we over-scheduled our kids.

However, the bittersweet knowledge that we wouldn't be able to do everything we wanted was easier to take by the gorgeous sunset.


Day 6: The Way the Whistle Blew
Because the ticket booth for the Sugar Cane Train was in the back of the gift shop, I had no choice but to buy the Bean a toy train. As the cashier was ringing it up, she said, “It plays music if you press this button.” Damn, I thought. She must not be a parent. She pushed down on the smokestack, but nothing happened. She offered to get me another one, but I quickly said the broken one would be great. She even took a few bucks off the price.

The next day, the Bean pushed the button and the train lit up and began playing highly annoying, tinny music and train sounds. It had miraculously been resurrected, much to the collective chagrin of WW™ and me. The Bean pushed that button over and over and over... Later, when he was out with WonderWife™, I took out the batteries and told him that it was broken again. The people on the plane ride home would've thanked me.


Day 7: “Yes, married.”
Oh yeah, we were there for a wedding. We had all but forgotten as the day approached.

It was held at a stunning oceanside plantation. I snuck off with my bride and we danced next to the waves as the sun was going down. This was by far the best moment of the entire vacation.


Day 8: As Luck Would Have It
Between check out and our flight, we had time to kill. A visit to the sugar museum did away with 20 of those minutes and resulted in the Bean getting a tablespoon worth of sugar in a small ziplock bag. He refused to put it away and carried it around, making it look like he was toting a drug stash. Later on the plane when he said, “I want sugar! I want sugar!” and I poured a little in his hand and he lapped it up, the drug metaphor still seemed apt.

The vacation gods were benevolent on this day as the plane was miraculously only a third full. I cannot remember a recently flight that has not been overstuffed to the gills. We spread our tired selves over six seats and had an uneventful, stress-free flight.

Every time we left the door of our condo in Maui, the Bean would ask, “On ramp?” (The kid loves going up on ramps. Don’t ask me why.) We would tell him that there were no on ramps on the island. In fact, there were no freeways on the island.

When we got in the car and headed for home the Bean told me, “I’m so happy there’s an on ramp.”

Welcome home, family. Welcome home.

View From an Island, Part 2

Day 2: “Lighten up, Francis.”
The Bean dubbed the Black Sand Beach “Coffee Beach”, which to me was actually a better and more accurate name.

After trying all of last summer to get the Bean to swim, he finally spent an enthusiastic 20 minutes in the pool at our hotel. Huzzah! He was captivated by a water jet which was aimed upwards and sent a geyser of water over the stairs. When the jet shut itself off, I joked to the Bean, “Why did you break the pool, buddy?”

His eyes got really big when he looked at me. They started to water. “I didn’t break the pool!”

The rest of the morning I was inundated with comments like, “That was mean, Daddy, to say I broke the pool. I Did. Not. Break. The. Pool. That was a bad trick!”

We got the swimming down, next we need to work on his sense of humor.


Day 3: This is Why I’m Fat
This was breakfast - the Loco Moco


A hamburger patty topped with an egg, sitting on a bed of bacon fried rice, covered with gravy. I can't begin to tell you how good this was.

View From an Island, Part 1

Day 1: “Now let us never speak of the shortcut again."
It took approximately 15 minutes into our Hawaiian vacation before I turned into Clark Griswold. I stood in the car rental line, slick from the humidity with the purple petals from a flower lei pasted to the back of my neck. On the counter, a Garmin GPS system was beckoning me...no, daring me. An extra 50 bones and it was soon mounted on the dash of the sweet rental car (no wait, it was a Chevy, not so sweet). It was an insurance policy that guaranteed we would never get lost on the island.

In what has become her signature move, WonderWife™ rolled her eyes when she saw it. I programmed it to speak in a voice called “Karen”, a saucy girl with an Australian accent who was oddly seductive for a computer.

“Make a left in 200 feet,” Karen prompted.

“Sure thing baby,” I replied.

“Oh this isn’t going to do.” WW™ said. Karen and WW’s™ relationship was off to a rocky start.

You have to understand that WW™ loves maps. She’s like Magellan with a map. So she wasn't thrilled that instead of a map, we had some gadget that the Bean called “the little TV”. But WW™ kept her opinions in check and we were on our way. Karen soon led us up a windy, fog covered road that made Lombard Street look like the 10 freeway. WW™ and curvy roads get along like WW™ and Karen. I could sense some tension coming from my wife.

An hour later Karen told us that our destination was in 500 feet, but there wasn’t anything remotely close to a hotel anywhere in eyesight, nor had there been the whole way up. Karen had taken us to the crater in the middle of the island.

Now I’m not going to say it’s my fault that Karen was incorrectly programmed. After all, the woman behind the counter of the rental car place had also touched a few buttons on the GPS screen. If our court systems demand proof beyond a reasonable doubt for somebody to be declared guilty, I think I deserve the same.

WW™ ripped the GPS from the dashboard, bolted out of the car, opened the trunk and started digging through the suitcases for the guidebook. She quickly determined that we had two options to get to the hotel: one was to keep driving forward until we hit an unpaved road not suited for automobiles or we could turn around and crawl back down the twisty road with the zero visibility.

It was right at this moment when the kids lost their shit.

I drove back down sitting next to a seething wife, listening to the tortured screams of a baby girl, and a boy who, after sitting on a plane for nearly 6 hours and in the car for another hour on top of that, was making it well known that he wanted out of the car.

As we pulled into the road of our hotel an hour and a half later, I made sure to put on my cheeriest grin and shout, “Look everyone, we’re here!” And with that, our vacation had officially begun.

Flashback Friday: A New Game

For this edition of Flashback Friday, I bring you another post from my old MySpace blog. This one was originally written on November 2, 2006. The Bean was nearly a year old.


The Bean has recently become mobile. And mischievous.

The kid has figured out where the cats' food and water bowls are. He puts everything in his mouth, so if he were to reach the bowls, he'd be eating cat food. While I'm pretty sure cat food isn't bad for him, I'm having visions of Future Bean on the playground getting people to dare him to eat cat food and dog biscuits. I don't want him to be that kid. Everybody is grossed out by that kid.

So I've spent every morning this week playing goalie.

It goes like this: He'll follow me into the kitchen, because he knows I'm going to be fixing a bowl of cereal (Frosted Mini Wheats--which is a bad choice because if you don't eat it right away, it gets soggy beyond all recognition and frankly isn't that good anymore). The Bean's still figuring out the crawling thing and moves like an army soldier with the speed of a lizard. When he gets excited about something, he pants like a dog. (He's a strange kid, I know, but look who his daddy is.) So I'm standing in the kitchen, shoveling large spoonfuls of cereal into my maw and behind me I hear "thump, thump, pant, pant, pant." I look up and he's making a bee-line for the cat food. I put down my bowl, pick him up and put him in the front room, as far away from the cat food as possible. I quickly resume eating only to hear the thumping and panting once again.

The Bean thinks this is a lot of fun. But he's never eaten soggy Mini Wheats.

The Wit and Wisdom of The Bean

Did you know that Spider Man doesn't like to chew gum? This little nugget of wisdom was told to me by the Bean, directly after he told me that Spider Man chews vitamins.

I had no idea that my son had such an intimate working knowledge of Spider Man. But that's not all he knows. Here is a brief collection of some of the things the Bean has told me recently:

“If a pirate is standing on somebody they turn into a pirate.”

Question: "Are the animals and pirates in the rides at Disneyland real?"
The Bean: "They are real because they move."

“At the airport, they make us take off our shoes to check for scary crabs in them.”

The Bean calls Spongebob "Cheesebob" because, "he looks like cheese."

"Christmas snails. They are just around at Christmas time."

"This (firetruck) is a cheese truck because it has a camera on the back."

"A capri shirt is a shirt made out of capri pants."

"My talent is sleeping with people."

Question: "When you grow up are you going to be a doctor?"
The Bean: "No, I'm going to be an adult."

The Coffee Cakeon

Summer officially begins when my buddy opens up his backyard pool with an inaugural BBQ, complete with his delicious and potent Red Lemonade. This year on the comments section of the Evite, WonderWife™ wrote that she was going to be debuting a new, secret dessert.

“Do you want to know what it is?” She asked me a few nights before the event. Her eyes gleamed with the excitement and mischief of somebody who has trouble keeping secrets.

How could I resist? “Please!” I told her.

“Three words: bacon coffee cake.”

Somewhere, WW™ found this recipe and since she’s said that it seems like it’s my mission to put bacon in everything, she could not resist. It was also a foregone conclusion that the gang was going to be receptive to this unorthodox dessert.

Arriving at the party, WW™ placed the cake on the table, where it went undetected next to the brownies and cookies. The bacon coffee cake (or “coffee cakeon,” as it was later dubbed after a few Lemonades) looks deceptively like a regular budnt cake. The cake itself was suitably moist and had a strong vanilla flavor. But inside there’s a layer of brown sugar streusel with bits of bacon. The bacon flavor did not permeate the entire cake, but combined with the ribbon of streusel, the smoky, salty bacon mixed with the brown sugar and oats and accented the cake nicely.

The cake was a hit at the party. At the most tepid end of the spectrum, people appreciated the gimmick of bacon for dessert and thought the cake was tasty. On the other side there were a few folks like me who had more than a few slices. The only person that didn’t like it was a vegetarian (thankfully I warned him about the cake’s secret ingredient before he sampled it).

Bacon coffee cake isn’t something you’d serve every day. But if you’re looking for a great dessert that’s also a conversation piece, you can’t go wrong with bacon.


(Because I know you'll ask...here's the link. You're welcome.)