As I write this, I am still suffering from a food coma – that unpleasant state of being reached only after stuffing one’s face with everything edible – induced by my company’s holiday party earlier today.
Vegas is all about the gambling, the shows, the food, the drink … and the candy. No, not eye candy (although that’s a given). I’m referring to the confectionery variety.
Vegas is all about the gambling, the shows, the food, the drink … and the candy. No, not eye candy (although that’s a given). I’m referring to the confectionery variety.
After booking his flight from Manchester, England, to Chicago for a week’s visit last month, my friend Nick (who was my host brother when I spent a semester in Great Britain during college) asked if there was anything special my family and I wanted him to bring over from the United Kingdom.
Batavia, Ill.-based ALDI, Inc. creates a captive candy and snack audience through its purposeful store layouts and a blend of well-known name brands and private label products at recession-friendly price points.
On a weekend trip to my old high school stomping grounds, I popped inside one of my favorite shops in burgeoning “Uptown” Normal, Ill., which is undergoing a reconstruction that has the streets torn up, but businesses still in operation.
The night before Illinois’ new tax on candy, soft drinks, toiletries and alcohol went into effect, I considered a grocery run for non-flour-based sweets, Arizona iced tea, sensitivity toothpaste and liquor.
Members of some generations may well-remember those five-and-dime stores that offered “penny candy” for, well, mere pennies. Confections may cost more now than they did back then, but such products have remained an affordable luxury, for the most part, even in these difficult economic times.