Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Food by Mail: Happy Birthday from Dixieland

Dark Chocolate Dixies -- Richardson's Candy Kitchen, Deerfield, MA
Richardson's Candy Kitchen

Ginger has started a trend.  Of course, this trend only exists between the two of us, and it has similarly only happened twice, but no matter.  We know a trend when we see one.
Namely Because We Make Up Our Own
This particular trend revolves around the fact that we have taken to bestowing each other with mail order food in honor of our birthdays.  
Whether or Not We Actually Address Each Other as "Vodka and Ginger" in Real Life is Up for Your Interpretation
After all, there are a great deal of shippable Best Thing I Ever Ate items to choose from, and what better reason is there to plunk down $30 in shipping charges than the celebration of your fellow friend in eating's life?
We Appreciate Any Food That Comes with Its Own Ice Pack
As you may recall, for Vodka's birthday (which, of note, is in the middle of the SUMMER), Ginger had an extremely festive if completely inappropriate for the season fruit cake shipped to her door.  
Also, Every Birthday Card We Give Each Other Is Some Variation of This Theme: Don't Be a Drunken Fool
Two months later, when it is time to return the favor, Vodka chooses the slightly more portable and mildly less Christmasy dark chocolate dixies from Richardson's Candy Kitchen in Deerfield, MA.
Of Note, Vodka Shipped Said Dixies to Her OWN Apartment. Control Freak for the Win
In a stroke of luck, the day said dixies arrived, Vodka had experienced a random street encounter with her self-proclaimed soulmate, Josh Groban.  Wishing to rehash this experience moment by moment, she persuades Ginger to leave the borough of Brooklyn for the promise of a tasty cocktail and ridiculous story.  "I'll bring your birthday present.  It's food," she tells Ginger, which gets Ginger off of her booze-soaked couch faster than any other phrase could have.
What Birthday Gifts Are Made Of
However, upon reflection, it seems like a rather awkward idea to haul out a box of candy in the middle of a bar, even for two people who have a rather high threshold for humiliation.  For this reason, Vodka leaves the candy box in her apartment, which we drunkenly stumble back to after a splendid "meal" of salad, soup, and French fries.  
The Folks at the Department of Health Would Really Have a Field Day with Our Eating Habits
Ginger tears open the oversized and deceivingly heavy box and discovers the mail order feast that awaits her: a box of Alex Guarnaschelli's Best Thing I Ever Ate NUTTY favorites.  Three neat rows of large chocolate candies await her, one of almonds, another of pecans, and the last of cashews.  
A Dixie in the Flesh
We bite into each of the flavors one by one, and the dixies are indeed quite pleasing.  The chocolate is perfectly bitter, and caramel gooey and sweet, and the nuts salty and crunchy.  We wouldn't go out of our way to consume these things again, but for the moment, they're making for a fairly solid birthday treat.
And Here We Have the Almonds...
...and Now the Pecans...
...and Last But Not Least, the Cashews
And then, as per usual, we turn into complete idiots.
The Combination of Booze and Sugar Tends to Have This Effect on Us
It seems Richardson's is trying to bask in the glory of Alex featuring them on the program (if they had seen some of her previous food choices, they may reconsider this acclaim), as they provide an "introductary brochure" to their dixies, asking us to enjoy them just as much as Alex did.  And this leaflet, as leaflets tend to do, ends up completely confusing us.
Read This With Some Wine Goggles On, and You'll Have a Better Idea of What We Were Dealing With
"I'm surprised you didn't order the polka-dot ones," Ginger says, pointing to the "hedgehog" dixies from the list, which (apparently, to our pea brains) come with a polka-dot decoration.  

"Ooh, I never say that," Vodka says.  "But I think the hedgehogs are chocolate-covered rice krispie treats -- and we needed to eat nuts."

"I wonder what makes them polka-dot," Ginger persists, and we both stare at the list like two illiterates, STILL not catching on as to the pattern going on within it.

Namely, that there is a color listed next to every Dixie flavor -- gold, white, brown, polka-dot....

Finally -- FINALLY -- Ginger lifts a Dixie from the box, and with a high level of discovery delight, as if she had just figured out how to split the atom, she exclaims, "Ohhhhhh they're telling us the corresponding WRAPPERS for each of the flavors."
For the Record, We Produced Empty Wrappers in Three Different Colors Before We Figured This Out
And so, to be clear, the hedgehog dixies come in a polka-dot WRAPPER.  They are not, in and of themselves, POLKA-DOT.

Really, it's a wonder we manage to function in the world at all.
Our Blood Type is Essentially Cocktails, Salt, and Stupidity
And with that, another year older but certainly no wiser, Ginger packs up her dixies and begins the long haul back to Brooklyn, content only in the knowledge that should we ever reach old age, we can't possibly end up any more senile than we already are. 

Richardson's Candy Kitchen's Dark Chocolate Dixies: 4 stars

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