Would you rather....

Eat waffle cereal (this would consist of toasting an Eggo waffle and then breaking it up and pouring milk on it) or eat a cereal, nutella waffle sandwich (where cereal would be mixed in with nutella, and then put between two waffles, like a sandwich)?

I think I would go for the cereal, nutella waffle sandwich. Have a happy new year!

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Final thoughts.

So, after over 24 days of discussing the pros and cons of various calendars, here are my final thoughts:

The Cadbury calendar is worth the extra money, particularly if you've never done a chocolate Advent calendar before. Even if you have had a chocolate Advent calendar before, this calendar was unanimously voted as the best tasting chocolate.

The "Original PeA Schokolade" calendar is not worth the $1.65 it costs. Save yourself the money and buy a chocolate bar.

If you get Hobo Gary drunk enough, he'll eat any leftover Advent calendar chocolate. (I think he's imitating the chocolate bear that he got).

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 24

I'm skipping right to the end of Advent, because I'm ready to move on to a different series of blogs (probably revolving around my analysis of 90210 episodes, which I'm watching for the first time as a 27-year-old).

I forgot to bring my Advent calendars up to Maine with me, so when I got back to New York, I was eager to finish off the Cadbury chocolate, because it was delicious. This was what I got on the last day of Advent: It says, "Santa's on his way," which sounds sort of threatening, but tastes delicious.

I was promised by the Newtster that the last day of the Advent calendar would be a Santa-shaped chocolate. Unfortunately, this empty promise was nothing but LIES. In a drunken chocolate rage, I finally brought myself to finish blogging about the Advent calendars, so I opened day 24 of the calendar he gave me, and was disappointed to see that for Day 24, I didn't get a Santa-shaped chocolate, but I got an angel-shaped chocolate. I was so disappointed that I didn't bother to take a picture, and I ate the evidence as quickly as I could. Before you get offended though, dear Newtster, be comforted in the fact that I didn't even bother to open Day 24 in the third calendar. It will remain a mystery through the ages what chocolate treat Day 24 of that calendar holds.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 21 and 22

Please excuse my lack of postings. I was in Maine, and the internets haven't quite reached that far north yet. I'm skipping out on Days 19 and 20 of Advent, because Advent is over, I'm a little tipsy, and I don't have any pictures from those days, so as far as I'm concerned, they didn't happen.

For Days 21 and 22 (or was it Days 20 and 21? I don't know, I'm tipsy), I decided that I would have friends do a blind taste-test of the three Advent calendars to see if there was an overall winner for best taste. I packaged up one piece of chocolate from each calendar, and put it into a separate Ziploc bag, stuck the three Ziploc bags into a Christmas card, and then gave them to Joe to deliver to the Newtster and Justin. Joe headed down to DC for the Wake Forest bowl game.

These are some pictures of the chocolate tasting: Justin is pleased to be eating chocolate.

I think Newton is faking his smile.

The Cadbury calendar was the best tasting chocolate for both of my unsuspecting tasters. Justin chose the super-cheap calendar I bought (which I thought tasted "vile") as number two, with Newton's calendar coming in as "the cheapest tasting chocolate I've ever had." Newton chose his calendar as the number two chocolate, and my cheap calendar as the last place.

The results of this experiment indicate that the Cadbury Advent calendar was the best tasting Advent calendar acquired this Advent season.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 17 & 18

I've only received one more response to my Craigslist ad, and it wasn't any better than the others.  I decided that it probably wasn't worth the effort to set up a time for someone from Craigslist to come pick up the calendars, and I don't really want "Daddy Blue" to know where I live anyway.  So I'm still the owner of three Advent calendars, with 6 days left to go.  Due to final exams (and not particularly loving all of the Advent chocolate), tonight I created a game out of the backlog of chocolate that I had to eat.  I called it, "How many pieces of chocolate can I stuff in my mouth at one time and eat without having to spit it back out?"  First, I unwrapped all of the chocolate I'm supposed to eat, and arranged it in an aesthetically pleasing way:

Wait, let's get a closer look at that one in the middle.

After I photographed the 25 pieces of chocolate that I should have eaten by today, I asked Joe how many pieces he thought I could eat at one time. He guessed 20. I guessed 14. Then I started with the Cadbury ones, because they taste the best, although they score very low on the Schnell! Scale. They are not from Germany, so I do not feel the Schnell! Scale is an appropriate method of evaluation for Cadbury. The Cadbury chocolate scores very high on the "Jolly Good!" scale though, probably 4.5 Jolly Good!s out of 5.
I even wore a shirt from Germany in anticipation of eating all of that German chocolate.

After stuffing in ten pieces, there was room for no more.


Now I just have to figure out what to do with the other 15 pieces I was supposed to eat.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 14-16

You'll have to excuse me for the lack of updates, I'm in the midst of finals right now, and will finally finish tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.  Rest assured dear reader, I feel like my brain has been beaten up over the past week and a half, and I would have greatly preferred to be eating chocolate and blogging about it to studying.  

I will be back either tomorrow night or Thursday to finish off Advent in style, and let you know the fate of the Advent calendars.  

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 13

I think you all know by now that the answer to the question I've been asking for the past thirteen days, whether the chocolate in my Advent calendar is worth eating, is a resounding no.  With that in mind, coupled with the fact that I am now the owner of three Advent calendars, I decided I should share my bounty with others this Advent.  Isn't that what the holidays are all about?  In that spirit, I posted the following ad on Craigslist last night (sorry, I think you have to click on it to make it bigger):


So far, I've gotten three responses, in the following order. I will let you decide who should get to experience the remaining joy of Advent.

1. Mr. Blue sent me the following e-mail: "I like Chocolate. I can eat the whole month at a sitting. -Daddy Blue"

2. Miguel S. said, "i would love it!"

3. Kristen F. wrote, "sounds good what is your address for pickup?"

Personally, I was hoping for something a little more interesting. I expected better from the readers of Craigslist. I'm not going to give my sub-par chocolate to just ANYONE. Unless you think otherwise, I will hold out for someone who seems in more desperate need of some Advent cheer.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 11 & 12

Finals unfortunately coincide with Advent, which means that some days it's difficult to take a few minutes away from studying and do something with my Advent calendar chocolate. After my exam today, I came home and ran some errands. To make up for having to write about two days' worth of chocolate in one post though, I decided to do something extra special. I bought two more Advent calendars.

I had noticed that our trusty neighborhood deli was carrying this one for the low price of $1.69. Good deal, or waste of money?

This calendar is also from a German company, and it has a picture on the back of the package that I could color, if I was into that sort of thing. I only ate the chocolate from day one on this calendar, and I'm not quite sure what it was. Maybe a snowman with some stuff?

It actually turned out to be a good thing that this piece of chocolate was so small, because it was vile. The worst Advent calendar chocolate yet. If this is your only choice for an Advent calendar, I would suggest you just take your $1.69 and buy a king-sized Hershey bar and ration it out over 24 days.

My second Advent acquisition was this delightful Cadbury calendar:

This was a pricey $4.99, but definitely trumps all other Advent chocolate that I've tasted this Advent season. It's extra exciting, because since I acquired this calendar on the twelfth day of Advent, it means that I'm free to eat 12 pieces of the chocolate, which I just might do. Joe did not try the chocolate from the other new calendar, but he agreed that the Cadbury calendar has chocolate of a quality that he'd eat even if it wasn't Advent.

Here was what Cadbury gave me for Day One:

It's either a Yule log, a wrapped piece of candy, or a whistle (Joe said whistle, I still don't see it).

Here's what Days 11 and 12 in the original Advent calendar had in store for me, respectively:

Funky tree


Bell?

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 10

Today's chocolate is a fancy g-shape:


I didn't want to just eat the chocolate, so I made some hot chocolate, and decided to see if adding the Advent calendar chocolate made the hot chocolate better or worse. I used some Land-O-Lakes premium quality hot chocolate that Joe's mom picked up for $1.99 (for 12) at the Christmas Tree Shop.

Upon closer inspection, it appears today's chocolate might be a sled with a present on it, with a tree in the background. Or a fancy g.

Behold the g in the hot chocolate powder:

When the hot chocolate is all stirred up, you can't even tell the difference, by looks anyway.

Actually, it appears that the hot chocolate with the Advent calendar chocolate (the mug on the left, with the circles), is a bit smoother. Joe was extremely paranoid that I was sneaking him the mug with the extra chocolate, but I just like to have a control for my experiments. In the end, I think he was disappointed I didn't give him the extra chocolate-y hot chocolate, because mine was most definitely superior. He claimed that mine tasted more like fake chocolate, but isn't all hot chocolate powder pretty fake anyway?

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Days 8 & 9

That's right, I missed a day. If it weren't for Joe, I would have missed two. At that point, having to eat three pieces of chocolate probably would have been so overwhelming that this blog would have died right there.

So, here you have Day 8, a smiling moon:


And Day 9, a guy riding a horse:


Joe, always the gentleman, generously volunteered, "I'll eat one if you eat one." I couldn't convince him to eat both, so I took him up on the offer, which was better than the alternatives. He ate the moon, I ate the horse.

I've never had a chocolate Advent calendar before, and I don't have time right now to research the history of chocolate Advent calendars, but I'm a little curious about the shapes of the chocolate. I figured they'd have a little more to do with Christmas. It's not like I want a baby Jesus shaped chocolate (actually, I do), but one shaped like Santa or a reindeer would strike me as more fitting than an airplane or a guy riding a horse. Or a moon. Here's an idea of the chocolate shapes everyone else is getting in their Advent calendars.

Now that I'm back on track, I'll try to cook up something a little more fun for Day 10.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 7

My first final exam is tomorrow morning, so there's not much time for blogging. But I couldn't leave you hanging for Day 7. I ate the chocolate today, and since I hadn't eaten anything recently, the taste was mildly offensive again. Luckily I had some other German chocolate* around the house that served as a delicious chaser. Anyway, today's chocolate scores pretty high on the Schnell! scale, at a 4.2 out of 5, mainly because this is one scary Christmas goblin!

Scary Christmas goblin tells me it's time to get back to studying.

*My favorite German chocolate is Ritter Sport, which is easy to find in the U.S. these days. Of the Ritter Sport varieties, I like the kind that has cornflakes in it, and the kind that has a shortbread cookie/graham cracker thing in the middle. Perhaps one of my favorite things about this brand is that on the back of the German wrappers, it says, "Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut." which translates into, "Quadratic. Practical. Good." Leave it to the Germans to entice people to buy their chocolate by advertising it as quadratic and practical, rather than, oh, I don't know, DELICIOUS? The U.S. wrappers aren't much better with their, "Quality. Chocolate. Squared."

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 6

Today was a study-filled day for me. My desk is in the bedroom, right next to the window that leads out to the fire escape. I've caught some pigeons staring at me through the window before, but today there were two pigeons fighting on our fire escape. One managed to knock the other one down from the railing onto the "floor" part of the fire escape, and then followed him down and bit his neck for awhile. I called Joe into the bedroom to check it out, because it was pretty funny. Then it gave me the idea of what I should do with today's chocolate.

I opened the chocolate today, and I'm not really sure what it is. It's sort of reminiscent of a bird, and I decided that once again, this calendar is predicting the future.



Since I'd be sitting at my desk all day, I figured I would put the chocolate right outside the window so I'd be ready with my camera when the pigeons would surely fight over this Christmas delight. In order to be able to accurately judge whether or not the pigeons liked or would even eat the chocolate, I put a small piece of bread next to the chocolate, because any good experiment should have a control. The bread was leftover from my breakfast, and I consider it to be a "high quality sandwich roll," meaning that it's probably higher quality than the chocolate on the taste scale, but certainly falls well below the chocolate on the Schnell! scale.



I sat at my desk studying all day, and the pigeons didn't come back. As I was waiting for my pictures to upload to the blog, I googled "Can pigeons eat chocolate?" and found some disturbing information. It turns out that chocolate is quite toxic to birds (even milk chocolate which has a lower content of theobromine, which is what poisons the bird) and can cause vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, and death. Granted, it may not be as explosive as leaving Alka-Seltzer out there, but I think I'm going to go now and clean up the chocolate so I don't have to clean up dead pigeon.

I would say that the results of this experiment are that the chocolate in my Advent calendar is not worth eating to the pigeons of Sunnyside, but ultimately, I will just admit that it is inconclusive.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 5

While I was studying for finals today, I realized I was a little hungry. I went into the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets, and the only thing I found worth eating was a red lifesaver. After I ate that, I figured it was as good a time as any to eat today's chocolate. I opened Day 5, and boy did Santa have a present for me:


Can you tell what it is? I silently giggled with delight when I saw my surprise: the elusive boot. I was trying to be quiet so that Joe wouldn't realize I was eating chocolate and blogging instead of studying for my corporate tax final. But don't worry Joe, I was thinking about corporate tax while I did this. Here's my proof:


Today's chocolate gets a 3.9 out of a possible 5 on the Schnell! scale, mostly for the boot shape that photographs so well with my corporate tax book.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 4

My most recent tester wasn't feeling well today, so my original day 4 plan was thrown off a bit due to changing my schedule around.  Don't worry, though, there are twenty days of Advent left, so there will be plenty of time for shenanigans.

Today I ate the chocolate.  It was surprisingly easy to get out of the packaging, maybe because I know what to expect.   I was hoping that my bravery of returning to the chocolate would be rewarded by getting the seemingly elusive chocolate boot, but instead I got some candle thing?  Not really quite sure.  


The chocolate started melting as soon as I touched it, but this time when I ate it, it tasted much better than last time. I think the possible reason for this is that I ate a bagel right before the chocolate, and didn't brush my teeth in between, so the bagel flavor enhanced the chocolate. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I'd be willing to eat a second piece.

Confiserie Heidel, a German company and the maker of this product, notes that to them, "top quality" means a high amount of creativity, in both the recipes and the packaging. Until I read that, I was thinking a high quality chocolate would TASTE good, but silly me, this chocolate is top quality because of the creative packaging and crazy shaped chocolates (boots?!?!). So these past few days, I've been unfair in my assessment, since I wasn't aware of the standards under which I should be judging my chocolate. From now on, I will use a more appropriate, German standard of judging. On this new scale, which I will call the "Schnell! scale", the chocolate gets two Schnell!'s out of a possible five.

Maybe next year I will get an Advent calendar with French chocolate.

(If you look closely, you will see today's chocolate making a cameo in Paris)

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 3 continued...

My most recent tasting volunteer has spent the past few hours spewing up Day Three's "tasty" treat.  The food poisoning could have come from something else, but I'm going to go ahead and blame the "high quality milk chocolate."  

Will this misfortune mean the end of the Advent calendar tasting?  Does the calendar really predict the future?  If it does, does a retarded snowman really mean future food poisoning?  

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 3

It turns out that the airplane chocolate did bode well for our friend Hobo Gary yesterday. To continue with that spirit of passing on goodwill (by goodwill, I mean bad chocolate) to others, today Joe volunteered to tell me whether the chocolate in my Advent calendar is worth eating. I will live-blog his comments as he eats it.

Like the rest of us, Joe had a hard time getting the chocolate out of the calendar.

"How am I supposed to get this out? It's not totally exposed? Ahh, here we go."

He immediately started laughing upon seeing the front of the chocolate (because once you get the calendar open, it's the back of the chocolate that you see). It took me a minute to get a clear picture of it.

"Is it a retarded snowman? Hurry up, it's totally melting! Seriously, it looks like a snowman that had a frying pan smashed against its face. And it's totally melty."

According to Joe, "this doesn't taste as bad as the first two days made it seem.....I mean it's not good....but I don't get pine trees or anything like that. Gary must have been on something." Well, Gary is a hobo, what do you expect?

Joe further commented that the chocolate, "just had a terrible, terrible texture. It was just mushy. There was no snap. I'm not feeling the Christmas cheer by eating it."

Before letting Joe get back to mastering the Verve Pipe's "Freshman" on the guitar, I had a final question for him. Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating?  "No."  

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 2

Today I headed to D.C. for an interview with The Tax Man, and I didn't want to start my day with another piece of this chocolate. Since our friend Gary stayed with us last night, I cheated a little bit, and made him eat the chocolate for day 2 on this Advent calendar adventure. He didn't want to blog, so I live-blogged his comments while he ate the chocolate.

Gary struggled to get the chocolate out, but as he was opening it, he exclaimed, "It's an airplane! Oh my god, I'm flying on an airplane tomorrow. This bodes well for my endeavors." He then noted that the chocolate gets melty immediately.



He then ate the chocolate, and immediately made faces for about a minute straight, and observed, "There's something weird there.....it tastes like....pine trees. There's a hint of pine trees. It's also kind of mealy."



So, Gary, would you recommend this Advent calendar? His response: "No, not at all. Oh wow, I hope this doesn't change my fortune for the worse. Maybe this calendar predicts the future."

Thank you, Gary.

Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? Day 1

I awoke eager with anticipation. I got out the camera, and I tore open Day 1 on the Advent calendar. I was a little disappointed to see that the chocolate was unwrapped, which meant I had to eat it immediately in order to give an accurate assessment. I took a few quick pictures, and wrestled the chocolate from its plastic home. I was hoping that on Day 1, I would get one of the boot-shaped chocolates pictured on the back of the calendar, but instead, I got a candle. That's fine, whatever, maybe I'll get a boot tomorrow.


So, to answer the question.....is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating? No. It tastes like they took the leftover Easter chocolate (you know, the kind that has that slightly funny taste) and melted it down into an Advent calendar.

Stay tuned for Day 2....maybe the boot will taste better? Or maybe I'll have a mystery guest blogger to get a second opinion. The possibilities are endless.