I spend hours each holiday season in the candy aisles at Target choosing the perfect candy canes to decorate my Christmas tree.  Until my niece and nephew moved to town, the only requirement was aesthetic ― the appropriate color scheme to match my theme of the year.  Nowadays the canes must not only enhance the appearance of the tree but also…taste good (read: not like mint ― bo-ring).

To save you the trouble, I’ve eyed and licked and sucked and crunched the best of the cane selection on your local Target shelves this holiday season.  Here’s my report:

JOLLY RANCHER:  “Bold fruit Smoothie flavors.”  I’m not sure how “Smoothie” is relevant to the flavor of a candy cane — I guess the manufacturer is trying to give them a nutritious bent.  The 11 grams of sugar and lack of any vitamins or minerals beget this attempt, but never mind, let’s get to the important stuff.  Uncreative appearance, simply a classic candy-cane stripe, with white and juicy-fruit colors winding down the cane.  And the watermelon cane could be deceiving, its green, red, and white stripes suggesting to an unsuspecting candy-cane swiper that it’s mint-flavored (kind of like thinking you’re about to drink water when the cup is filled with milk).  But if you’re a Jolly Rancher fan, the flavor is true to the days of the Stix.  And the “bold fruit” flavors are bold indeed:  We have the always sassy strawberry, the mixed berry (blunt as ever, even unleashing a curse word here and there), and the cheeky never-taste-like-the-real-thing-but-still-the-best-flavor-in-the-bunch-short-of-green-apple watermelon. 

Jolly Rancher Candy Canes

NOW AND LATER:  What seventies kid didn’t love these teeth-breaking pucker-inducing “taffies” wrapped with wax paper like a little present?  That sour apple I mentioned?  Present.  Watermelon, too.  And grape and strawberry.  In short, the rulers of the flavor world (no boring orange in sight).  Pretty, too — rich reds, greens, purples, and pinks with a dainty stripe to offset the color splash.  Not to mention, 10 fewer calories per cane than the nutrition-touting Jolly Rancher.  And as for the texture…soft and crunchy at the same time, kind of like the real thing.  Now and Later, indeed.

Now and Later Candy Canes

SOUR PATCH:  (Pucker.)  (Eyes bulging.)  (Woo-eeee!)  I was suspicious of these canes given the best part of the real Sour Patches (my number-one favorite candy) is the soft sweet chew waiting beneath the shocking sugar coating.  Could hard candy possibly do the job to offset the sour?  And then there’s the matter of all the wasted orange ones, because who eats the orange ones?  By the end of the season my whole tree would be nothing but orange, which is decidedly un-Christmas.  Also, what in the world is “redberry”?  Can’t they just be honest and call it a real fruit name, like cherry?  But, surprisingly, the cane version of the Sour Patch doesn’t disappoint.  Tangy, then sweet, living up to its “Sour then Sweet” promise.  I’d buy these again.

Sour Patch Candy Canes

And the winner is…Flavor-wise, these classic candy brands have all translated into quality canes.  But if I have to choose a winner, based on superior tree-decorating appeal and honest advertising, I must go with the Now and Laters.  And Now, I’m off to trim and crunch.  Later, friends.

Summer dinner recipe:

1. Slice tomatoes.
2. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and snipped basil.
3. Drizzle with olive oil.
4. Eat on back patio while reading good book.
5. Rip open Fudgesicle.
6. Eat in three bites standing next to fridge.

Fall dinner recipe:

1. Dice pound of potatoes and place in plastic Ziplock bag.
2. Sprinkle with ketchup, cumin, red pepper, and freshly ground sea salt (NOT that already ground iodine-infused stuff  — EVERYONE will taste the difference).
3. Ziplock the bag. Have fun shaking it for a while.
4. Pour bag’s contents into greased pan.
5. Bake at 400 degrees for half an hour or until toasty enough to eat half the contents of pan before must add to recipe.
6. Husk one pound fresh tomatillos and chop a bit.
7. Dice onion.  Cry.  Pretend it’s from the onion.
8. Boil tomatillos and onion for 10 minutes, drain, wait for mixture to cool.
9. Puree tomatillo/onion mixture while still steaming because I’m starving and can’t wait for it to cool; burn face from steam; don’t add cilantro even though recipe calls for it because cilantro makes me gag. But you might want to.
10. MEANWHILE, brown chorizo sausage. Wash hands a billion times because dealing with raw pork. Sample bit before fully cooked. Realize mistake. Panic. Wash hands again.
11. Try to find a place somewhere in crowded kitchen to set the tortillas, perhaps on this surface with the red warning light. Burn hand on hot stove surface.
12. Fry tortillas in chorizo grease, commend self for using already dirtied pan and helping environment. Every little bit helps.
13. Grease yet another baking dish.
14. Spread layer of tomatillo sauce on bottom and sides of it.
15. Dirty yet another dish with rest of tomatillo sauce.  Moisten fried tortillas in sauce.
16. Layer bottom of greased dish with moistened fried tortillas. Lick fingers. Mmmm. Commend self for being accomplished cook.
17. Layer potatoes (sample a couple to make sure they taste okay), chorizo (not a chance), cheese, sour cream (light for diet purposes), and more chef-quality tomatillo sauce, then blanket the whole thing with another layer of moistened fried tortillas. Spread with remaining award-winning tomatillo sauce, smother it all with more cheese so won’t taste anything but.
18. Place the whole shebang in the oven at 400 degrees.
19. MEANWHILE, peel and dice apples.
20. Mix apples with a little sugar, cinnamon and flour, spread mixture in yet another greased dish.
21. Mix oats, butter, white whole-wheat flour (for health purposes), cinnamon, white sugar, and brown sugar in separate bowl. Eat half of batter. Sprinkle remains over apples.
22. Dot with more butter.
23. Pull main course from oven.
24. Place apple crisp in oven.
25. Eat main course with dollop of sour cream while watching DVRed shows from last week.
26. Pause DVR.  Pull apple crisp from oven. Squirt with whipped cream (light for diet purposes).
27. Resume DVR.  Eat dessert.

The Aftermath