WHAT'S A VALOMILK?

ok, since yesterday was easter (aka my reason to eat more than normal amounts of chocolate), here's an ode to valomilk, (see russell sifers above, owner of the small family operation in kansas) my new favorite old time candy...

since my post on schoko bananen, i've gorged on those treats, had enough and then longed to find a new obsession. and i officially end my allegiance to cadbury cream eggs... bought a bunch on sale... each one was a disappointment. the product is obviously smaller year after year but that once original sweet, creamy egg center that i craved, is no more. the taste is overly chemical, it's not creamy enough, but rather congealed or half cream/half corn syrupy. gross! same goes for those "used-to-be-yummy" russell stover raspberry/truffle/strawberry/coconut flavored eggs.

et voila... valomilk is my new candy of choice, with all natural ingredients and not produced by some big conglomerate or an indie company that sold out to the big guy... the valomilk website is kitschy and old school, heavy with nostalgic marketing & family history... but what's with the name???

from the website: The name VALOMILK DIP came from: V for real vanilla, ALO from marshmallow, MILK to describe it as creamy and DIP because it was hand dipped (hand made). The name for “The Original Flowing Center Candy Cup” was later shortened to VALOMILK.

...sugar sugar...

halloween is approaching. candy has been packed in the aisles at CVS since labor day. can we munch on chocolate without the guilt of sugar's history? i don't think so. last year i read sweet and low by rich cohen where he detailed his family's history of sugar substitute fortune. more guilt about the sugar trade and production, as well as our addiction to sweets. i basically have stopped eating "regular" chocolate. i've switched to fair trade or organic brands (dagoba, yum) and i would never look back.

i found some icky facts about sugar production from the green guide but also lots of fair trade treat options for the holiday:

Pesticides and fertilizers used in the production of sugar have led to the destruction of aquatic ecosystems. The loss of topsoil to cane fields has destroyed forest habitats. But sugar's sins start with the slave trade, as Europeans brought captured Africans to work in the cane fields of the Caribbean throughout the 18th century, where slaves died in greater numbers than in the U.S. Sadly, this legacy hasn't come to an end: The chocolate trade has encouraged forced labor in Africa as cocoa farmers sell their product at prices well below what they can afford.

Forty-three percent of the world's cocoa is produced in the Ivory Coast, where over a quarter of a million children work on cocoa farms without access to education and apply pesticides without adequate safety gear, conditions deemed abusive by the International Labor Organization. A staggering number, as many as 12,000 children, are likely to be forced laborers. Much of the impetus behind the use of child labor stems from insufficient income for cocoa producers. In 2002, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture found that cocoa revenues in West Africa average between $30 to $100 U.S. dollars per household member per year. To compensate, cocoa farmers seek out cheaper labor and resort to higher-yield sun-grown cocoa beans, which require significant deforestation. Because sun-grown beans are more susceptible to pests and diseases than those grown in shade, farmers use heavy doses of hazardous pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

The Goods

Divine Chocolate, partially owned by the farmers of Kuapa Kokoo, sells 100 percent fair-trade-certified chocolate. Pass out bite-sized milk chocolate eggs ($6.50/200 pieces; http://www.lwr.org/). Or give kids a chocolate treasure. Global Exchange is carrying Divine's Fair Trade Gold Coins, which read "Ghana Freedom and Justice" on one side and "Fair Deal for Cocoa Growers" on the other ($3.99/22 pieces; store.gxonlinestore.org).

Visit http://www.divinechocolateusa.com/ to search for retailers by state.

Equal Exchange's organic and fair trade Dark Chocolate Mini's are available for a limited time this Halloween. ($12/68 minis; eeretail.stores.yahoo.net).

For whole chocolate bars, try Alter Eco's certified organic and fair trade chocolate ($4.29/bar; http://www.altereco.com/, 415-701-1212).

Beyond labor issues, help reduce environmental frights by choosing candy made from organic sugar, which is produced without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers with methods that conserve soil. Try the Candy Tree's Organic Mixed Fruit Toffee, sweetened only with organic fruit juices and corn syrup and containing no artificial colors ($2.89/2.6 oz bag of individually wrapped pieces, http://www.veganessentials.com/) and Yummy Earth Organic Lollipops, made with 100-percent natural colors and flavors ($2.69/bag of 15; http://www.veganessentials.com/). Or buy a pack of organic candy mix including organic gummi bears, lollipops, root bear float candy and milk chocolate ($28/80 pieces; naturalcandystore.com/c-natural-candy-mixes).

p l e a s i n g p r o d u c t s -- C h O c O b A n A n A s

i have a very active sweet tooth and lately it can't get enough of the lovely, tasty casali choco bananas. i bought them once at a local A & P, then whoosh, they took away the foreign items mini aisle. so i obsessively searched the internet and found no line deli, a wonderful site to buy foreign tasty treats, including my austrian "schokobananen."

while i love the combination of chocolate and real chiquita banana bits (!!), especially when kept in the freezer, creating a sort of frozen banana a la the bluths of arrested development (see george michael, hel-loh "annyong" and maeby working at the stand), but what really gets me obsessed is the packaging... bright colors to inspire the tropicality of it all, the matching blue label of the chiquita banana, reminding you of the healthy aspect-- real bits of banana inside-- and the perfectly compact & aligned rows of candy awaiting you as you tear open the side strip.

i wondered why the packaging intrigued me as much or more than the product itself, and then i remembered beer frame, one of my favorite zines from the nineties. this zine, created by paul lukas, was a journal of inconspicuous consumption where he reviewed products by "deconstructing the details of consumer culture -- details that are either so weird or obscure that we'd never see them, or so ubiquitous that we've essentially stopped seeing them. this can mean anything from a bizarre canned good, like sauerkraut juice, to a beautifully designed light-industrial object that we've always taken for granted, like the Brannock Device (that gizmo they use to measure your shoe size)."

check out this link for an interview with paul and access his past columns (this month's review-- heinz' green ketchup).

UPDATE: score!!! i just found the 12 pack schokobananen in the garden of eden on washington street (thanks to a tip from our ex-mola cafe favorite barista, eli) and two other flavors -- orange and strawberry... let's just say i bought a few to stock in the freezer...