We all know I wasn’t voted Homecoming Queen, I wasn’t a cheerleader and certainly not Miss Congeniality and that’s okay. But sometimes, I might like to be on list for just a little while.

Technorati just started a new ranking system for blogs. It’s not just about links to your site anymore, they just started a new list for “most favorited blog.” At the moment it wouldn’t take more than 100 selections as as favorite to make the list (and you can favorite more than one thing - here’s the current list).

So, if you’re a Technorati member and like Candy Blog, why not add it to your favorites?

Just click here: Add to Technorati Favorites

Yesterday I went to Oakland, CA for a meeting. I got up early, hopped on a Southwest flight from Burbank where the security personnel questioned me about the bag of 15 USB memory stick pens I had with me (that I was donating to NaNoWriMo), and then they looked in my bag to make sure that my lip balm was actually solid.

On my flight back later in the evening I had some other stuff with me that actually caught more attention from the folks at the Oakland airport. They did a THOROUGH screening of my pack (a small backpack that I carry as my purse) and took out every item and even after finding the solid lip balm, he continued to look through my stuff.

At this point my bag contained these additional items:

5 loose pieces of Russian hard candies filled with a hazelnut paste with a white wrapper and red lobster on the paper wrapper.

1 Swedish candy bar called Brejk

2 loose pieces of Russian chocolate covered wafer candies with a blue wrapper and a little drawing of a family of bears in the woods.

1 Swedish candy bar called Pigall (I’ll definitely review that one soon!)

2 Heath bars

1 partially eaten Equal Exchange dark chocolate with cocoa nibs bar

1 package of Tic Tacs

1 piece of Teaberry gum

1 large box of candy known as белка (pronounced bee-ill-jhKHA)

The guy chuckled and said that I had a lot of candy. I said, yeah, that’s why I don’t like being searched. (Luckily their sarcasm detector was offline.)

Once inside the terminal I stopped at the See’s store and though I passed up the free sample (a walnut item), I bought a box of Awesome Nut & Chew bars and ate one while waiting at the gate.

I figured as long as the TSA now knows what I carry around with me, I figured you should, too.

I saw George Duran while at the All Candy Expo back in June and figured I should keep an eye on his show to see how he covered it.

I haven’t seen anything on All Candy Expo pop up yet, but the Ham on the Street does have a new episode on candy that you might want to catch.

The episode has all sorts of little tidbits in it, including an explanation of how Wintergreen Lifesavers make a spark and of course Mentos and Soda Pop.

He also takes some fun candies from Aji Ichiban out on the street to see what people think of candied crabs, fruit jellies and durian hard candies.

It’s not a cooking show if he doesn’t make something, so he invents his own candy bar, which is a base of two pretzel sticks topped with fresh hazelnut paste covered in chocolate. He takes it out to have folks help him name it ... you’ll have to watch the episode to find out what wins.
Ham on the Street - Candy on Food Network:
September 07, 2006 1:30 AM ET/PT
September 10, 2006 5:00 PM ET/PT
October 28, 2006 2:30 PM ET/PT
October 29, 2006 5:00 PM ET/PT

Interesting fact: in the trivia quiz portion of the show he wears the same lollipop tee that I saw him wear at the All Candy Expo.

Thanks to everyone who entered. It was, by far, my most popular giveaway yet with over 200 entries.

Here’s how the process went to pick a winner:

Export all entries from the system to an Excel spreadsheet.

Remove duplicate entries, verify that all remaining entries are unique to the best of my abilities.

Sort the list according to super-secret criteria.

Go to Random.org and get a random number and match it to the row of that number.

And the winner is .... Audrey Feather of Washington State!

She emailed me her address and the $50 worth of Chuao gift certificates will go in the mail right away.

If everyone enjoyed it, I’ll try to do more giveaways soon.

There was a satirical article yesterday on Brainsnap about banning Mentos and Diet Coke on airplanes because they can be combined to create a limited albeit powerful improvised explosive device.

Of course this ties in beautifully with the TSA’s overall “war on moisture” and it wouldn’t surprise me that even though that story is a joke, that something could come to pass that would mean that you can’t bring Mentos onto a plane.

But let’s face it, there are a lot of things that can be combined to “explosive” effect when you seal them in a bottle. Vinegar and baking soda comes to mind and that’s not that hard to get together on a plane with salad dressing and Arm & Hammer. Of course Diet Coke isn’t the only carbonated drink that can cause problems and it’s not just Mentos either. There are a lot of mints that can cause this same effect, just try it with other breathmints. But these videos on YouTube do show that you can do something powerful, though uncontrollable, using process of “nucleation.” See, just that word is gonna freak out the TSA.

It’s kind of sad too, since I’ve had so much trouble finding Chicklets, I’ve been using Mentos to relieve my ear pressure problems on takeoff and landing.

I always figured it would be the food police keeping me from my sweets, who knew that the TSA may be the biggest threat to candy at high altitudes?

Here’s a list of what brought folks to Candy Blog through search engines during the month of August:

1. m&ms
2. kissables
3. razzles
4. butterfinger
5. rockaleta
6. turkish delight
7. max brenner
8. reese’s
9. choxie
10. maya gold

I don’t know if the folks searching for Maya Gold were disappointed to find chocolate or not. Things that I don’t put on the list are searches for things like sweet, candy, sugar and blog.

I’ve got to spread my sweet wealth around. I’ve got $50 worth of gift cards for Chuao Chocolatier and I’d like to share them with my sweet readers.

All you have to do is leave a comment here with a working email address (don’t worry, no one else sees it but me) and I’ll do a random drawing from the entries (one per person please) on Tuesday, September 5th.

The winner will recieve two $25 gift cards for Chuao Chocolatier (my review here) that I can send anywhere in the world but their products can only be shipped in the US. You can visit one of their shops in person or use the gift cards to order online. $50 should get you a nice assortment. I highly recommend the Cambur (banana and caramel in milk chocolate).

I’ll accept entries until Monday, September 4th at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.

When leaving a comment, be sure to unclick the “notify me of follow-up comments” or else you’ll get an email every time someone enters ... which will clog up your email box and that’s no fun ... unless you want up-to-the-minute notification of your current odds of winning. 

UPDATE: I know that it looks like your recent comments (entries) are not showing up on the site. For some reason I never thought that I’d ever get more than 100 comments on any post, so the site doesn’t display them all. No worries! I get both an email and I have a record of all comments posted in the system - so rest assured you’re entered! I’m overwhelmed by all the kind (and funny) things everyone is saying and I’m so glad I can spread the chocolate wealth.

UPDATED UPDATE: The drawing is now closed, I’ll announce a winner late in the day.

If there were ever a case study for how the internet and fan passion can change marketing policy of a corporation, it has to be Coffee Crisp.

Made by Nestle, the Coffee Crisp is a wafer bar with a coffee flavored cream and chocolate-like coating. They’ve been very popular in Canada for years, but for some reason they were never introduced in the United States. For at least five years a web petition/email/phone campaign was circulating to get them in the States and those efforts have finally come to fruition.

At first Nestle responded by allowing American stores order the Coffee Crisp to carry in their stores, but they made no real effort to advertise or give any special deals (as is very common with other candies). Instead Coffee Crisp were often seen in stores near the Canadian border, large urban markets and on internet stores that catered to the obsessed.

If you want to know where to find your own, check out the fan site called CoffeeCrisp.org - they have a special page called Coffee Crisp Sightings. I still haven’t seen them anywhere (including the places where I used to see them before their official introduction).

You can also find info on their official website: Nestle-coffeecrisp.com

The packaging for the bar was changed a little in the past year (as was much of Nestle’s product line) but the candy bars you’ll find here are still made in Canada. I’d hoped that they’d change the recipe a little bit to get rid of the hydrogenated oils ... the bar carries 1.5 grams of trans fats. Some purists probably celebrate them sticking to tradition.

Previous coverage about the petition here and I reviewed the Coffee Crisp last year (a bar I found at a gourmet market ... I wasn’t really that fond of it).