when Hamptons wasn't cool

The Penny Candy Shop has gone out of business, reports my sister. She was visiting one of my favorite places on Earth, the east end of Long Island and saw the sign in the window. According to the real estate listings, the former Penny Candy Shop is for sale. The price? 200 million pennies.

The P.C.S. now joins Kathleen's Bakeshop on my list of former favorites in the Hamptons. Kathleen's sold the famous Crutchley's Cruller hearts (doughnut holes), which you would drop into a bag of powdered sugar and shake. Like the original Crutchley's Bakery, Kathleen's is closed now, as we discovered when we were in the area last summer. I saw online that Kathleen lost the rights to her own name. She has a new business called Tate's Bake Shop but there's no mention of whether she still sells the hearts.

One of my parents favorite restaurants in the Hamptons was Herb McCarthy's. It closed in the '80s. The microbrewery now in that location named a beer after Old Herb. It was the least they could do.

As far as I can tell, the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton and Sip 'n Soda in Southampton are still open and doing fine, even after the recent death of one of Sip 'n Soda's owners. And so is our local choice for pizza, La Parmigiana in Southampton.

for peeps' sake

The amount of publicity that Marshmallow Peeps receive every Easter is mind boggling. Most of it seems to be fan-generated rather than coming from the company's press releases. As a lifelong Peeps lover myself, I can honestly say that I was a big fan before it was cool. For example, I once brought a package of purple Peeps to a glacier near Mt. McKinley in Alaska.



The Peeps will be featured tomorrow on CBS News Sunday Morning. Rita Braver's report will include a film I told you about in April 2007 and an artist that I told you about in March of last year.

Mary Constantine of the Knoxville News Sentinel posted a video showing how to use Peeps and chocolate chips to decorate a Peeps Sunflower Cake.

Meanwhile in Washington, the WMATA is using Peeps to get baseball fans to ride the Metro to the new Nationals Park.

Speaking of DC, the Washington Post got some tremendous entries in their second annual diorama contest. Out in Washington State, the readers of the Seattle Times created some great Peeps art.

When I showed my wife a cute picture of a Peeps costume for toddlers, she honestly asked if it came in my size.

When my daughter celebrates Easter tomorrow, she'll have a care package that my wife mailed to her. It contain some of the brand new Peeps Tulips.



A New Jersey columnist writes that he can't eat just one Peep. Can't say that I blame him.

unflattering imitation

Like Jimmy Durante used to say, "everybody wants to get into the act." Since Marshmallow Peeps are the top selling non-chocolate Easter candy, it makes sense that other companies want to compete. I'll cover the copycats today and save the real deal for tomorrow.

A while back I wrote about a similar Christmas candy called Marshmallow Pals. They are also made in an Easter version. I saw more sugar coated marshmallow things at Wal-Mart this week. Palmer now makes a Marshmallow Baby Binks in addition to their chocolate bunny with the same name.



Nestled among the Peeps, I spotted some animal-shaped marshmallows made by Barton's Candy. Their Barn Yard Buddies looked more like Barn Yard Blobbies to me.The creatures pictured below are supposed to be cows, pigs and frogs.



The odd shapes reminded me of an old Bob & Ray bit about a warehouse that stored its chocolate Easter rabbits too close to some steam pipes. My radio idols did a fake commercial for Chocolate Wobblies. Each one was guaranteed to have a ribbon hidden somewhere inside it.

yuck boo yum

Supermarket shelves are currently stocked with a variety of Easter candy, including a couple of items that I hadn't seen before. Sam's Club had a big stack of Edible Easter Grass made by Galerie au Chocolat. If you've ever ended up with plastic grass stuck to your jelly bean, edible grass seems like a fine idea. However if it's made of white chocolate, it could end up as a melted mess in the bottom of your basket. Yuck.



Milk chocolate fans usually want their bunny, whether hollow or solid. The package for Palmer's Too Tall Bunny amused me while I was at Food City the other day. You see, his ears are so big, they don't fit in the box. My enthusiasm quickly waned when I saw some guy with annoying sound effects prove on YouTube that the bunny is not too tall at all. The box has a false bottom. Boo!



I'm more of a dark chocolate and marshmallow fan. The folks at Candy Blog have described a Lindor Truffle Egg that sounds pretty good. I couldn't find any of them but I did see a different holiday treat at the Food City on Morrell Road. Until now, I had always thought that people who keep Kosher were denied the pleasure of eating marshmallows. That includes Marshmallow Peeps which are not Kosher even if they are "always in season" nowadays. It's because marshmallows are made with gelatin and gelatin is made from animal bones and connective tissues, hence the non-Kosherness. Anyway, this store has a pretty big selection of Passover products. Wedged in among the Manischewitz were packages of Granny's Toasted Marshmallows by Rokeach. So how does a bag of marshmallows get a Pareve insignia on the label? Turns out that these coconut-covered treats are made from "kosher fish gelatine." Yum?

call Dr. Nick for a refill

After seeing a movie at the Regal Riviera the other day, we took a walk over to the Mast General Store. In hindsight, we probably could have done it the other way around and picked up a piece of classic candy to eat during the film. They had an unusual set of Pez dispensers on display featuring the King of Rock 'N Roll. It made me proud papa when my son was the first among us to deliver the descriptive pun: Elvis Pez-ley.

straight and twisted

Twizzlers or Red Vines? Your answer probably reveals whether you grew up near the East Coast or the West Coast. My favorite reward in the children's summer reading program at the Crestwood Library was a pack of Twizzlers. When I moved to Burbank, I acquired a taste for Red Vines. To me, they weren't as sweet as Twizzlers but enjoyable nonetheless. The Vines have devoted fans. There was a former KROQ program director who moved to New York to take a job at MTV. Every couple of months he had someone ship him a big tub of Red Vines from Smart & Final. If Easterners like Twizzlers and Westerners like Red Vines, what about people from the middle of the country? When we were in St. Louis, I noticed a supermarket display of a red licorice I had never heard of. Are Midwesterners just as loyal to Switzer's Licorice?



At the other side of Dierbergs Market, I saw a fairly impressive display of chocolate covered pretzels made by Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Company. The pretzels were topped with bits of Butterfinger, Heath Bar, Reese's Pieces and other confections.

best little candy in Texas?

The Mast General Store opened in downtown Knoxville several weeks ago. My son and I finally stopped by on a recent Saturday afternoon. I was amused by the balloon powered toy boats and toy cars and puzzled by the "Forest Faces."



They had 500 types of old-fashioned candy displayed in barrels, including ginger, clove, anise and Horehound. I had never heard of Horehound candy before. You can make your own jokes.

fluffy puffy time

Do a Google search for the word "marshmallowaholic" and it will lead you to my website. It's probably because the word is one that I made up, but that's beside the point right now. Thanks to my recent weight loss, I guess you could say that I'm a marshmallowaholic in recovery. It's been tough these past few days.

On Friday I told you about the Marshmallow Fluff festival in Somerville, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe and Boston Herald both had articles about it yesterday. I also found a blog with some good photos of the festival. The same blogger photographs a tub of Fluff in front of landmarks around the world. What a great idea! Other bloggers posted video of the Fluff Volcano Cake, photos of the Flufferettes, the Fluff Science Fair trophy and more photos of the Flufferettes.

As I was looking for all the online Fluff stuff, I found a site called Candy Blog that has a marshmallow category. While visiting the Mast General Store over the weekend, I saw many of the candies featured on the website including Goo Goo Clusters, MalloCups and something called Valomilk. I resisted the urge to buy any of them. I don't know that I would have been able to keep from buying either of the limited edition products I read about. According to Candy Blog, two appealing products were spotted at a 7-Eleven in Hollywood. Has anybody seen Marshmallow Take 5 or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with Marshmallow in Tennessee?

Before walking across the street to the Mast General Store, my son and I went to the Hola! Knoxville Hispanic Heritage Festival at Market Square. At a booth selling Bimbo and Marinela products I saw some Sponch! marshmallow cookies.



Sponch! wasn't as tempting as something I had seen a day earlier. I went to Wal-Mart to buy some double fiber wheat bread and other healthy foods. As I walked through the store, I was drawn as if by a magnetic force to a display of bright yellow boxes that I remembered from childhood. I immediately reached for the phone and called my sponsor (and by sponsor I mean my wife). She barely had time to say hello before I started repeating, "They have Mallomars! They have Mallomars!" My wife talked me down and kept me from buying any but not before I snapped some pictures with my camera phone.



The Mallomars sighting means that Fall is in the air. I may still go back to Wal-Mart to buy a box but tonight I ate a S'mores bar from LA Weight Loss instead.