Category Archives: Things I Eat

Thanksgiving, Third Grade Lunch Style

Here we are, a few days before Thanksgiving, a holiday we have apparently forgotten exists in our death march toward Christmas. I remember when we used to make fun of the people and stores that put their Christmas stuff up before Thanksgiving. Now we barely shudder when it’s up during back to school.

But I haven’t forgotten you, Thanksgiving. I love your carbs. I love your football. I love your pies. I love your hips. What? Oh wait, that’s something else.

At its heart, Thanksgiving is about a feast taken to a higher art form. The dining room table is the canvas—the succulent bird an anchor at center, cranberry like rubies on the right, mashed potatoes like lush mountains on the left. Perfection of the art has eluded and even maddened many artists. Birds have been burnt. Cranberry sauce has been barfed. Pizzas have been ordered in sworn secrecy.

To pregame Thanksgiving, I decided to make my own feast. Third grade lunch style. I’d re-create an actual elementary school cafeteria lunch, only without hairnets and punk-ass third graders. That’s the age when they get really mean. Really mean.

Up through the 1950s, most American children went home for lunch, with only the lowest of income students provided meals at the schools. School lunches were made in house. Communities sponsored the programs. But by the 1980s, populations and school lunches had outgrown budgets. For the first time, schools turned to outside vendors to provide meals and additional income. Pizza and soft drink companies led the way.

That’s where my generation steps in. We’re Reagan administration babies. We’re immune to rampant, unchecked commercialism and cost-savings greed. In fact, we have a misplaced and unique nostalgia for all of it, even school lunches. We have fond memories of gristly chicken chunks and round plops of taco meat shaped like scoops of ice cream. These were lab-created and politicized foods from a time when Congress tried to list ketchup as a vegetable.

Of those foods, there is one that sticks out most in my mind. Fiestada.

A Fiestada is a Mexican pizza specifically created for school lunch programs. Some of us may remember it fondly; some of us may remember it as cardboard with a pile of vomit on top. It is actually a trademarked entity created by the Schwan Food Company.

For those of us who have been craving a Fiestada since third grade, there has always been the option of buying them directly from the distributor—in cases of ninety six. And believe me, if you look this up on the Internet, there are people out there doing it. The rest of us have our sanity—or don’t have the extra ice chest to store ninety-six shitty Mexican pizzas. One or the other.

But to call it simply a mexican pizza would be wrong. The Fiestada contains multitudes. It contains mysteries—the strange hexagonal shape, the gloomy orange color, even the word itself: a bizarre conglomeration of the words “fiesta” and “tostada.”

My friend Beckner decided to go all DIY and invent his own secret Fiestada recipe, which in a world-exclusive, I’m going to share on the blog. He helped to plan last November’s McRib-Together.

Somehow or another, we decided we were going to re-create a legit school lunch with Fiestada as the main course. But because feasts are an art form, me and Beckner became obsessive about taking this thing to the next level. We’d use sporks. Where the heck do you buy sporks? Hell, we’d rob a Taco Bell for ‘em. We’d eat it on Styrofoam trays. There would be canned peaches! And not only would we have tater tots, but we’d have undercooked, mushy tater tots. Like, we’d put that shit hastily in the oven before it was fully pre-heated. The keyword is haste. We weren’t just preparing a school cafeteria lunch; we were preparing it with the unique flavor of public school lunch lady indignation.

Afterwards, we’d wash it all down with chocolate milk and Good Humor Bars! Oh yeah, and then somehow we got the idea to make Ecto-Cooler on top of it all.

Hi-C Ecto-Cooler was a product tie-in with the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters back in 1987. Remember that thing I said about misplaced nostalgia and rampant commercialism? Yeah, we’re obsessed with even this, the ghosts of discontinued juice boxes.

It was going be a lot. The wife works late on Thursdays, a ten hour day. We usually have Thursdays marked as “fun dinner night” on the calendar, which means I’m in charge, and by fun, it means we go out to eat. Or I make frozen mozzarella sticks and dump bag salad in a bowl. Fun dinner! Mozzarella sticks are really FUN and completely cancel out the utter sadness of bag salad.

But I had to prepare her for this. I decided it would be best to deliver the news with the impassiveness of a doctor, nothing negative, nothing positive—just cold, clinical, normalcy.

“Beckner’s coming over tomorrow night and we’re making Fiestada.”

“What is that?”

“You know, the mexican pizza that exists only in school cafeterias.”

“We didn’t have that at my school,” she said, skeptically.

“We’ve having tater tots with it,” I said.

Her face was blank as a sheet.

“And we’re eating it with SPORKS!” I added, desperately.

“What the hell is a Fiestada, again?”

Now it’s time to unveil the secret recipe:

First, buy the plainest, cheapest, sketchiest ingredients. Shop at Food Lion, if you must. You’ll need pizza crust, salsa, cheddar cheese, and ground beef.

Here’s my full disclosure: many of you already know I’m a vegetarian. So we substituted with the Morningstar Farms soy version of “ground beef.” You’re totally free to call party foul on me. A true Fiestada experience involves chewing on fatty, gritty, oily meat. This Thanksgiving, I’d like to acknowledge that many cows have died for Fiestadas. Consider it my version of pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkey.

First, there’s the crust. You want something thin that doesn’t have much flavor on its own. The Fiestada’s flavors are all about the gloppy toppings—not the crust. Next, spread the salsa across the crust like pizza sauce. Thin, generic salsa works best. The key is to buy not just the cheapest salsa in the store, but the cheapest salsa IN LIFE. Then cook up the dead cow or soy product. Season it with taco seasoning. Generously cover an entire pizza crust. Then dump a whole bag of yellow cheese on that. Seriously, the whole bag. It’ll be liberating! Finally, according to Beckner, the secret is to dice up Roma tomatoes and pile them on top.

Throw it in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust is beginning to brown. Meanwhile, you got to start hastily thinking about the tater tots. Rip open the bag, dump ‘em on the pan, and don’t even bother to spread them out evenly!

Most important step – SALT THE LIVING HELL OUT OF THEM.

While our Fiestada and tater tots were cooking, it was time to whip up a batch of Ecto-Cooler.

Even after The Real Ghostbusters cartoon went off the air in 1991, Ecto-Cooler was so enduringly popular that Hi-C continued to make it through 2001. Eventually, it was renamed Shoutin’ Orange Tangergreen and Slimer was replaced on the packaging by a similar-looking blob of green lips. In the mid-2000s, it was re-branded again as Crazy Citrus Cooler, up until it was finally put to bed altogether and discontinued in 2007.

A few weeks ago, a recipe for Ecto-Cooler began circulating online on the geek websites, and rumors had that it was for real, tasting exactly like the original.

The recipe is for a gallon:

1 Packet Kool Aid/Flavor Aid Orange
1 Packet Kool Aid/Flavor Aid Tangerine
3/4 Cup Orange Juice (No Pulp)
3/4 Cup Tangerine Juice
1/3 scoop Countrytime Lemonade (Reg or Pink)
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
Green food coloring for color
Add water

We substituted Tang for Tangerine Kool-Aid because, well, good luck finding that shit. And for that matter, good luck finding a gallon-sized pitcher. We had to use a half-gallon pitcher and therefore do math. This is where it began to get murky.

Somewhere in that concoction is Ecto-Cooler. It’s absolutely in there. But my math was off. There was an overpowering lemonade slant on it. (UPDATE: After letting it sit in the fridge overnight, it tastes significantly better and like the Ecto-Cooler I remember! Serve CHILLED.)

Note the visible particles of sugar just floating and sparkling in the mixture. I wouldn’t give this to children. It would make them crabwalk horizontally across walls. You’d be better off letting them drink battery acid.

You’ll see the one glass in the photo is not as full as the others—that’s the point at which my wife screamed, “I REALLY DON’T NEED THAT MUCH!”

Finally, it was time to slice the Fiestada, plate the peaches, and hastily serve up a spatula full of limp tater tots:

Thanksgiving, Third Grade Lunch Style. It really did feel like we were eating real school cafeteria food, too. The flaccid Fiestada, the gelled tater tots, the peaches. It was salty and heavy, and began to mix in our stomachs on top of the glass of BRIGHT GREEN sugar water we had just chugged. It was a nostalgic feeling of discomfort, one sporkful at a time. Damn you, idiot spell check, sporkful is a word. It is.

And Christ, there was still dessert:

For authenticity, I insisted we must eat the ice cream bars and chocolate milk immediately after our meal. After all, in the cafeteria, you only get thirty minutes to consume everything. So we did. Ice cream and milk on top of it all. Our nostalgic discomfort shifted to utter disgust. No wonder we begged our parents to buy us Lunchables.

Still, re-creating a school lunch is something I’ve always wanted to try. Food as art. I liked my colors, the neon green and cheddary orange. I liked my textures, the thickness of the milk, the chewiness of the tater tots. Art must inspire strong feelings, and if those feelings are milky and phlegmy, so be it.

This Thanksgiving, may you experience art, whether you’re cooking a masterpiece trying to live up to great artists and grandmothers before you, or whether you’re just admiring a damn pretty pumpkin pie. It’s a feast. It’s a holiday. It’s a drag. It’s a lot of work. It’s just another day. It’s a party. And it’s a damn shame if your football team loses.

Halloween Countdown #6!

I’ve got Ghoul-Aid—a thing I haven’t been able to say since at least 1992. Scary Blackberry is once again back in 2011. Ghoul-Aid is the classic seasonal Kool-Aid of our childhoods, the seminal product of Halloween tie-ins. Everything about it is perfection—the font, the colors, the Kool-Aid Man, beloved anthropomorphic frosty pitcher dressed as a vampire. And I’m telling you, this is a pitcher who comes prepared—not only a pitcher himself sloshing with Kool-Aid, but he also has a glass full of it in his hand.

To say this packet contains the Halloween spirit itself would not be over-exaggerating. Back then, we waited for the leaves to change, for the candy displays, for the carved pumpkins, but most of all we waited for Ghoul-Aid and the once-a-year blackberry flavor. And we have waited a long time.

My world hasn’t been this rocked since they introduced the blue flavor in the 1980s. I’m sure it had a fancy name like the “Great Blue-dini,” but to me, it will always be simply, lovingly blue. I love drinking blue.

When I heard Ghoul-Aid has re-emerged in the grocery aisles, I went on a mission. It was actually somewhat difficult to find, but I was able to turn up a few packets after a few grocery store stops. My advice is to check the Halloween sections, too.

Alright, let’s do it. Let’s make Ghoul-Aid.

Except I’m forced to DO IT ALL WRONG by not making it in a pitcher. We married last month and received approximately 359592348 gifts, half of which are kitchen things. So I’m little flabbergasted that we own things like miniature knives for only cheese and multitudes of plates for different meals, seasons, and warp zones, BUT NOT A SINGLE FREAKING PITCHER.

Actually, we did get a pitcher. But it’s made from fine Romanian hand-blown pure crystal. And I’m not touching that. I’m not even breathing near it.

Christ, I’m tempted to just mix it up in an empty plastic bowl reserved for Halloween candy, and then I’ll just dip my entire head into it. Pretend I didn’t write that.

Picnic thermos it is!

And now I’m going to commit the cardinal sin of Kool-Aid by not making it with sugar. I’m going to use Splenda. Forgive me. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson, for instance when I made Jiffy muffins the other day without the egg. I was too impatient to go out and buy eggs, so instead I mixed together vegetable oil and water as a substitute. Didn’t work. Instead of Jiffy muffins, I had Jiffy dry-desert crumble. Which convinces me that eggs must be magical.

For what’s it worth, Kool-Aid itself has caught up to the obesity epidemic with alternative instructions for using Splenda. We’ll call it the Not-As-Scary Blackberry.

My God, it takes about two hundred of those little packets.

Random thought while I was ripping open two hundred tiny packets one by one—remember when the Kool-Aid man didn’t wear clothes? Yep, they put pants on the guy sometime in the late 90s. And isn’t it better this way? I mean, I’m all for the retro, true look of my icons, but wouldn’t you rather drink Kool-Aid from a clothed pitcher rather than a naked one?

I’ll have to think more about this one.

Take heart, readers. Although Scary Blackberry powder is the disheartening color of chili powder, the end result is still spooky.

There she is, a glass of Ghoul-Aid. A classic. A beauty. A syrupy sweet refresher. The flavor is more like chemical grape than it is blackberry. Still, it’s good, and mixed with Splenda, it doesn’t make me feel like I’m racing towards kidney failure. I reward Ghoul-Aid a million points for execution, style, and taste.

Better yet, I believe my review can be summarized by the quote of a wise pitcher:

“Oh yeah!”

The Surfing Pizza Reviews Lazy Cakes

There’s a new snack cake on the shelves that’s eliciting a public health outrage, alarming local poison control centers, and terrifying schools. They’re called Lazy Cakes, and they’re brownies laced with Melatonin.

Melatonin is naturally produced in the body in response to the perception of light. One Lazy Cake brownie contains a whopping eight milligrams of Melatonin—a natural sleep hormone—about 25 times what the brain normally produces at .3 milligrams. The cake also contains a cocktail of other herbal supplements, including Rose Hips and Valerian Root.

Lazy Cakes ain’t right. Never trust any brownie that looks like a whack Little Debbie labeled “NOT FOR FOOD USE.” According to the label, the brownie isn’t really a brownie. It’s a dietary supplement, one of the scariest phrases in the English language, alongside church retreat and potluck dinner.

The mascot is droopy-eyed Larry the Lazy Cake, contentedly stoned on over-the-counter sleeping aids. The Lazy Cakes website states their product is about relaxing. “We think the secret to a long life is being laid back and Lazy Cakes is the way to do it. Easing you down with natural ingredients to help you relax. All this magic is baked in a delicious chocolate brownie to put a smile on your face. This is living, my friend. Grab a box today and let your problems melt away.”

The Lazy Cakes folks are clearly an icky—yet brilliant group of people. They sell faux-pot brownies to stoners, who pay a hilariously marked-up $6 per brownie. In comparison, a 60 tablet bottle of Melatonin costs $2. But as these things will happen, somewhere, an innocent and unsuspecting toddler gets a hold of one, stumbles around lethargically, and causes a mass panic. In fact, several states have already outright banned them. The makers of Lazy Cakes response: “The product is clearly marked as being intended for adults only. We trust they will make educated decisions about what they choose to consume.”

I don’t think anyone who purchases a Lazy Cake is capable of making an educated decision. Except me, of course. I’m all about banned snack cakes packed with hormones and herbal cocktails. I immediately ordered a 3-pack online for $9.99 from the Lazy Cakes website. I was ashamed of myself, but I’ve bought worse snacks at the dollar store.

A few days later, this package arrived in the mail:

It didn’t come in a brown box or wrapper or anything. It was shipped just like this for all the world to see my shame, a purple package labeled “relaxation brownies.” I’m not sure I can ever look the mailman in the eye again.

Here, I just can’t resist a good druggy pun. I suggested to the girlfriend that she eat a Lazy Cake as well, and we would do a “joint” review. Her response: “Did you really just make that joke?” Me: “Yes,” feeling ashamed of myself again. I take back my earlier statement. This is the worst snack I have ever bought.

“So will you eat one with me?” I asked.

“That looks like something that’s going to cause diarrhea. I work with PEOPLE you know,” the girlfriend added.

She’s no fun.

Half of a brownie is the recommended serving size. The label says to take 1/2 brownie, twice a day, I suppose to stretch out the feelings of lethargy and drowsiness all day—or more likely, to cover their asses when some moron teenager overdoses on Melatonin brownies. Overdose is possible, with side effects including headaches, upset stomach, trouble waking, and slurred speech.

Melatonin is generally considered a safe supplement, though there have been instances where these non-regulated health supplements have been found contaminated with toxic metals or other drugs. Herbal/health supplements should always be purchased from a reliable source to minimize the risk of contamination.

Folks, is this the face of something reliable?

He’s a brownie, and he’s baked! Get it? I admit, Lazy Larry is kind of cute. He just likes to nap and watch TV, though it sucks when the remote is on the other side of the room. So he just watches what’s on. For hours.

Alright, it was time for me to try this thing.

Sure it looked like a dry brick, but the taste was not bad. It was whatever. It was a freaking chocolate brownie. I admit, I liked it. I love snack cakes. I thought the dryness worked in its favor—it wasn’t overly oily and didn’t get all over the place.

Then I sat back and waited for the effects of blissed-out laziness. After about half an hour, I began to feel drowsy. I didn’t enjoy the feeling. Drowsiness is the worst. After an hour, my head and eyeballs felt heavy. I felt crappy and tired. I actually felt vaguely nauseous. I guess that’s what I get for pounding down 8mg of Melatonin, 30g of sugar, and 300 calories right before bed. The whole thing wasn’t nearly as “take you down” like a few Benadryls, but then again, Benadryl is a helluva drug.

In the end, I have no fucking clue why someone would buy this. Personally, I have no problem being lazy on my own. I certainly didn’t need this dreadful sleep aid cake to help me. The Lazy Cakes experience was a vicious cycle of shame, lethargy, and chocolate.

If you’re interested in reading more about the relaxing snacking lifestyle, two years ago I also reviewed DRANK, the anti-energy drink. The end results were the same. If this is a relaxed lifestyle, give me the one with the caffeine shakes and heart palpitations.

The Surfing Pizza Takes On… Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pudding Pies

They came from the sewers. They were packed with vanilla pudding power. They were deep-fried and glazed with sugar, and they came with a free sticker. They were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pies, and they were legendary. If there is a single food item that could unite the entire generation of 80s-born kids, these pies would be it.

Online demand for the pies is staggering. Hell, it’s an entire movement. Gaining traction since 2005, the “Bring Back The Ninja Turtle Pies” Online Petition has garnered a whopping 3,499 signatures. And counting, I’m sure. There’s a Facebook group demanding that the pies be brought back, and it has over 200 members. 212 to be exact. But wait—there’s yet another Facebook group devoted to the pies! It has 104 fans.

Alright, so these aren’t exactly the numbers of a revolution. So let’s just call it a cult following, and count me in. I’ve had this idea that I wanted to re-create the Turtle Pies, to make them myself. I’m not the first person to think of this; there are a few recipes online and other blogs that have attempted it. I read one where a guy bought Hostess chocolate pudding pies, spooned out the chocolate, and replaced it with vanilla pudding—an intriguing idea, but I wanted to do it the right way.

But first, I needed to study up. I needed to know my Hostess history.

Hostess are sorcerers behind the Twinkie, Sno Balls, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, and the ever elusive Chocodile. Then there’s the line of fruit pies with fillings like cherry, lemon, and of course, apple. In 1986, Hostess introduced the pudding pie, for those of us who want nothing to do with something with the word fruit in the title.

With flavors in chocolate pudding and vanilla, Hostess had clearly achieved total snack cake domination. Little Debbie couldn’t compete—not even her “Cosmic Brownies” could stand up, and those things are cray-cray-crazy with those rainbow-colored chocolate chips. Seriously, they’re like whoa dude.

I remember there was a bizarre commercial on television advertising the Hostess pudding pies featuring a boy, a girl, and a pie. The ad, with some vague and creepy undertones, had the girl losing control of herself over the creamy pudding filling in the center. I mean, she like completely submitted herself to this pie:

Yeesh. That’s the only fitting word for that. Whatever that is. But let’s try, in vain, to put aside the fact that this commercial was completely disgusting. Because these pies were incredible. In 1990, Hostess branded the vanilla pudding pie as a Turtle pie, dyeing the outer crust green. It was a promotional tie-in with the first Ninja Turtle film. The vanilla pudding would now be known as “mutagen goo.”

The Turtles endorsed them in a silly commercial where they rapped and sliced the pies in mid-air with swords. I was in love. Then again, it really didn’t take much to win over my heart.

That’s no radioactive pickle, folks. That’s a photograph of actual Ninja Turtle pie. They were hefty little pies, like grenades, and these packages of doom packed in over 500 calories, over 25 grams of fat, and 50 grams of sugar. There’s a lot of debate out there about what made the pie so great—and actually this debate is only taking place in my head—but let’s examine anyhow. Was it the green dye, which made the pies “Turtle-y”? Or was it that great, crinkly wax wrapper? Could it have been the accompanying sticker?

Or maybe it was me, ten years old. That year, 1990. The Turtles had hit the big screen, and it felt like a personal accomplishment. After all, I was the fifth Ninja Turtle. I was always twirling sticks and doing karate kicks and joining them on adventures in my mind. When I saw the movie in the theater, I felt like I was also watching myself up on that screen, vicariously, at least. The movies! Our biggest adventure yet! Yes, that was what made the pie so great. Well, and all that sugar and fat and fried dough. I was in Turtle heaven.

The Turtle pie hung around until the 2nd Turtle movie. Then by the 2000s, the regular pudding pie became scarce. It didn’t help matters that Hostess had filed for bankruptcy in 2004. While it’s relatively easy to find the chocolate pudding pie on store shelves these days, finding a vanilla one is like spotting Bigfoot in the wild. Some folks online claim it exists. I’m a skeptic.

So I decided to brush off the old half-shell and summon up some Turtle Power. I’d make the Turtle pies myself. I work from home and have all day to dream up this kind of crap. I looked up a recipe online, went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients, and waited for the girlfriend to get home from work. She didn’t know it yet, but she was actually the one who was going to make them.

“What’s all this stuff for?” she asked after walking in the door.

I needed her help, and I had to strike the right tone to get her to go along with it. I needed to convey a necessity—that it would be an inexorable certainty that we would make the pies.

“We’re making Turtle pies,” I said grimly.

“Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

She didn’t even know what a Turtle Pie was, so I gave her the crash course in Hostess Pudding Pies 101. “They’re individual-sized,” I explained, drawing complex diagrams, “…folded over—think like tacos.”

“Like empanadas,” she said. Ah. The student was catching on fast.

The first step was make the pudding. I used a packet of vanilla Jell-O Instant mixed with whole milk. Buying the individual pudding cups may seem deceivingly easier, but don’t be fooled. All you do is add milk and stir. It sets in five minutes.

The second step was to make the dough. I bought a box of Jiffy Pie Crust. All you do is add water and stir.

But then there’s the essential, critical step of the entire operation—using green food coloring to dye the dough green. Here’s the thing. You can’t be a pansy about it. If you want to get it green, you have to get your hands dirty, kneading the color in throughly.

As you all might have expected, I’m a big princess and I don’t like getting stuff on my hands. However, the girlfriend, who is a play therapist and works with children all day, eagerly dove into the messy assignment.

With her hands now dyed green forever, or at least through the next ten showers, the girlfriend showed off her skills. Next, she added the pudding center, leaving plenty of room to be able to fold and seal the pies shut.

One box of the Jiffy Instant Crust yielded four pies, a pie for each turtle:

Then the girlfriend crimped those pies like a master. It looked damn good, too. See this? This is why I’m marrying her.

The next step is to fry them. It would certainly be easier and healthier to bake them in the oven, but it’s not how God intended it.

We fried them for about a minute and a half on each side.

Next, I made the glaze myself. I found a recipe that combined powdered sugar, corn starch, vanilla extract, dry milk, and water for the glaze. However, I have no patience to mess around with measuring spoons and measuring cups. I think it’s a superiority complex, really. Bah, measuring spoons. I just decided to eyeball it. I dumped a little bit of each into the bowl, as it felt right to me. This turned out to be a terrible idea, creating a murky, chunky, dog puke-like liquid.

Lastly, we glazed the pies and set them to cool:

And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for—the taste test. Because of the frying, the pudding and the dough fused together, which made them moist and gooey and limp.

If I was going to make them again, I’d make the outer shells first, and then fill them with the pudding afterwards using a pastry bag. I’d be like a professional if I had a pastry bag. Hell yeah.

The taste, unsurprisingly, was overwhelmingly that of green food dye, which also leaves a wicked aftertaste. I’ll be honest. They tasted disgusting, the flavor of dough soaked in canola oil and synthetic dye, with just a hint of vanilla pudding. Looks-wise though, I think they turned out decent. I think I’ve contributed something important to the Internet. The pictures are the closest replication we have to a Ninja Turtle pie in 2011 yet.

All in all, it felt like a true Turtle experience, another adventure accomplished. And in case you’re wondering, yes, the girlfriend’s hands are still green.

Sacred Sweets: A Review Of Christian Easter Candy

Easter Candy! It’s the best. Cadbury Creme Eggs, Peeps, malt eggs, coconut bird nests, hollow chocolate rabbits, jelly beans, and mother-effing Reese Peanut Butter Eggs. Best. Candy. Holiday. Even better than Halloween, Valentines, and Christmas. There, I said it.

Sure, Halloween is the orgy of candy, but when you think about it, it’s just the fun-sized versions of the stuff that’s available all year round. Yeah, when you’re a kid, you get to go door-to-door dressed in a costume begging candy off of strangers—and that’s cool and all. But with Easter, a giant magical rabbit delivers the goods piled on a fluffy mound of fake plastic grass, in a basket. Basically, the Easter Bunny is the greatest import from the Germans to America, ever.

But what chocolate rabbits and Peep Marshmallows have to do the resurrection of Jesus, I have no idea. No clue. All I know is this—Jesus was a dude with long hair, who turned water into wine, and hung out with the freaks and prostitutes. This is a guy that would be down with magical bunnies. All I’m saying.

Then again, it’s entirely possible that Satan has simply lured us all with jelly beans, and we’re all going to hell because of this pagan shit. That’s why some Christian folks have created an alternative to secular Easter candy to remind us all of our mortality and inherent sinfulness.

I decided to duck into the local Family Christian store to check out their selection of “true” Easter candy. This is what I came back with.

Concept: Prayer Jelly Beans

My initial reaction was disappointment when I realized the fun sayings like “Jesus’ Blood” were not actually imprinted on the jellybeans. These are just plain old jellybeans in a tube that gives us the Jelly Bean Prayer, which is now officially my favorite prayer.

The prayer begins, “thank you Lord for these jellybeans that remind me of your love. Black represents my sinful heart, keeping me from you above.” I wonder if it’s no coincidence that black is the fewest in number in the container. Probably because being reminded of their black hearts while eating candy might be a little hard on children. Then again, when did Christianity ever decide to take it easy on children? Have you ever seen that movie Jesus Camp?

The sin jellybeans were the most fun to eat. I hate black licorice, but I plucked the black ones out of the tube and ate them with a special defiance. I did not follow them up with the cleansing white jellybeans.

I don’t want to type out the rest of the prayer because I’m concerned I may involuntarily save my soul in doing so. I’m saving the jellybeans. If the Japanese radiation cloud comes here and we run out of iodine tablets at the pharmacy, I’m just gonna start eating these jelly beans.

Here I’ve put a Peep in a circle of the prayer jellybeans to ward off his evil sinfulness and marshmallowy depravity.

Concept: Christian Lollipops

The first one is a Birthday Cake For Jesus lollipop, which was stashed in with the Easter stuff, and I can only presume was originally part of the Christmas candy display. I felt a little bad for it, sitting there all alone and awkward among the scripture jellybeans and butterfly lollipops, so I bought it.

I was looking forward to eating it, and when I bit into it, I discovered it was a simply a block of sugar. There was no flavor or any attempt to mask that it was just pure, crystal sugar. The grains flecked off and dissolved on my tongue. Whoa. Jesus sugar rush. Whoa.

The second lollipop is a “New Life” pop which contains a butterfly pop and bonus caterpillar gummy. SOLD. Also, CuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuTE.

Ahem, I went a little wild with the “U” key. It’s that Jesus sugar that got me all hopped up. I MEANT TO TYPE THIS SENTENCE IN ALL CAPS AND IF I COULD MAKE IT BLINK I WOULD.

I’m sort of doing these candies in a loose order of least offensive to most offensive. Here’s the next one:

Concept: Double Crisp Prayer Hands!

It’s crispy! It’s crunchy! It’s serenity! It’s not even chocolate! It’s partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil! I am just addicted to this exclamation point!

Now, I’ve told this story on the blog before, but I think it’s funny and worth telling again—about the time a lady tried to save me at Wendy’s. I was a teenager and wearing cargo shorts. I guess I looked like I needed to be saved. I think cargo shorts are a target that Christians are trained to look for; it’s the number one place where teenagers hide drugs. I was also wearing a Prince t-shirt. Well, he was The Artist Formerly Known As back then. So the shirt had that male/female symbol on it, which probably looked like a Satanist thing to the woman sitting across the restaurant.

I was sitting alone, chowing down on an overcooked and rubbery chicken sandwich, dipping my Biggie Fries in honey mustard, and downing a tub of Coke before I had to go to work. I wiped my grease-smudged fingers with a single yellow napkin. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her, this woman across the restaurant, staring at me.

She was a large woman, dressed in a nautical-colored dress thing which was possibly a muumuu and possibly had leopard spots. She wore glasses and had long mousy hair, and she was coming towards me. She moved across the restaurant in slow motion, her tray of fast food in her hands, her muumuu flowing behind her. At this point, I just had a feeling she was coming to sit with me. I wiped the grease from my mouth, swallowing the last sinful bites of spicy chicken and warmed lettuce. It was a small, two person table. She took the seat across from me. Her tray touched mine.

“I just wanted you to know that God compelled me to come over here. I was just sitting there eating when suddenly God told me to come sit with you. He wants me to tell you he loves you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

What else could I say? We sat across from each other quietly for another moment. And with that, she took her tray and went back to the other side the restaurant, her muumuu swirling around her trunk-sized legs. I shrugged and resumed eating my fries. There were a lot of them left––afterall, they were Biggie-sized. Biggie sizing always seems like a good idea at the time, but in the end, it’s always a very bad choice.

God really must like me, I thought to myself, reaching out to me in this hellhole. One time, I read about a lady who found a tumor in her chicken sandwich. I found Jesus in mine. There was another story about someone who had a chunk of finger in their Fish-a-majig. And then one time, there was somebody who found a diamond ring on their Big Mac—but that’s not gross, that’s just lucky.

Concept: Chocolate Cross

We’ve all seen these before. Chocolate Crosses started popping up all over in the mid-2000s when some genius discovered there was a market for them. They’re controversial even amongst Christians. While the prayer jellybeans and lollipops feel somewhat sincere to me, the chocolate cross feels gross. I’m not even a religious person. But at the same time, it’s gleefully tacky, so I also kind of love it.

I mean, YOU GET TO EAT THE CROSS. You tell me a better way to worship than chomping on the cross to which Jesus was NAILED. So what’s the right way to do it? Just bite in? Or should you show some restraint by breaking pieces off? Maybe it’s a personal thing.

I decided to break it in pieces. I think the most insulting part is the fact that’s it’s not even made with pure ingredients like real chocolate. Real chocolate, after all, is rich and fit for kings. But this cross is made with partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil as its first ingredient. It’s greasy and not good.

Concept: Jesus Egg with Candy Crosses!

How about that adorable cartoon Jesus on the egg? I love it. I’m saving it forever. But shouldn’t Christ be a revered image? Doesn’t this depiction reduce his image to one that’s no better than a cute bunny? I prefer my images of Jesus to be serious and forlorn.

Two words. DEXTROSE CROSSES. These were great. They were like Smarties, only the cross shape provided a great texture/shape on the tongue, which made them better than Smarties.

There was just one thing that disturbed me about the packaging, and it was this warning: CAUTION WASH THOROUGHLY BEFORE USE. Uh, wash what? The tin Jesus egg? Why? Is it sinful? Does it contain toxic lead? Is there even a slight possibility that it contains traces of toxic lead?

In the end, I realize I may be going to hell. But so is Russell Stover. So I’ll be in good company. Eh, maybe I ought to just read the rest of that jelly bean prayer and eat a couple of the white cleansing ones.