There have been a few deaths in the news lately, and a couple of them are candy related.

First, Nathan Sloane of Charleston Chew died at the age of 97 last month. Though he didn’t invent the Charleston Chew, he bought the company in 1957 and developed the other versions of the bar, including chocolate-chocolate and strawberry. He later sold the company in 1990 to Nabisco.

Read obituary at The Boston Globe.

And just yesterday Dorothy Harmsen who co-founded Jolly Rancher passed away at the age of 91. Hers is a charming tale of an accidental candy empire. She started making chocolates to offset the dip in ice cream sales in the cold Colorado winters. Their first breakout hit was the super-cinnamon Fire Stix. One of my favorites as a child. The family later sold the business to Hershey’s in 1996.

Rest in peace, Dorothy. Read full obituary at the New York Times.

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.

Nestle has decided to get into the chocolate numbers game.

They’ve introduced a new line of baking products with higher cocoa content than their usual products: Nestle Chocolatier. They have chocolate chips in 53% and 62% cocoa solids, baking pieces (chunks in 53% only) and baking bars. Their new website offers some pretty decadent dessert recipes to make full use of the purported smooth chocolate experience the higher quality product is supposed to offer. (There’s even a Molten Chocolate Cake which I suppose you’re free to use any other brand to make.)

UPDATE: They shut off new signups yesterday. Apparently they didn’t understand how quickly this stuff spreads and they’re retooling.

UPDATED UPDATE (10/17/2006) - The M80 campaign was pulled completely. I’ll have more later but I would rate this as a “debacle” as viral marketing goes.

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 know a lot of folks have seen the happy news that the angsty painting, The Scream, was recovered in good condition in Norway. But what about the reward that M&Ms pledged as part of their kickoff of the new M&Ms Dark product?

Mars is still coordinating with the police in Oslo and are waiting for verification of the authenticity of the painting and how the sizable reward of 40,000 packages of Dark M&Ms can be delivered.

There was no word if the actual painting had been defaced with a hopscotching M&M in the background ... my guess is not.

Full article here.

I’m glad to see that M&Ms plans to honor their word in the contest, unlike these folks who promised a years supply of Kissables and have never announced a winner. (Or maybe the competition is still open, so feel free to submit an answer.)

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.