It’s a huge freakin’ Toblerone, what do you want? Pictured next to a GameCube controller for scale. And because GameCube was such a fundamental part of this website’s beginnings.

I get one of these bad boys every year. It’s a tradition. How I get it differs from year to year, but there’s always a massive Toblerone for me to slowly consume between Xmas and New Year’s.

I suppose the one most notable thing about Toblerone is that it softened my opinion of almonds. You don’t really get a lot of almond flavour in Toblerone, but I hated almonds before I started eating these every Xmas season, and now I’m kinda like “meh, they’re not so bad, I guess.”

I think I’ve gone over this twice already during this feature, but I really have no idea how to talk about teas. Probably because I don’t ever discuss them with tea experts to learn how? I don’t know, really. But also I’m just not very good at picking out flavours of things I’m eating. It’s like, sure, this is good, but I have no idea what that spice is.

Uh, anyway, today’s thing is this tea. It’s another David’s Tea special: Caramel Shortbread.

Let me tell you what I do know: It tastes nothing like either caramel or shortbread. The formula is a combination of fruits, nuts, and spices. There’s literally no caramel in there, or… I don’t know, flour and sugar? I assume shortbread is a very simple cookie. I’ve never made them myself.

I’ll save you the long rambling today, and just say that I very much like this tea. It’s nice and sweet, and doesn’t strongly taste of any of its component parts. Which is great, because one of those parts is hazelnut, and you know how I feel about hazelnuts.

One thing that people are starting to learn about me, because I post about it on Facebook fairly often, is that I love baking cookies. Well, once I get into it, anyway. It’s one of those “do I really want to set aside the time to do this?” kind of activities, but I always end up having a lot of fun once I decide to get started.

And it should be said that 90% of the time, I do made-from-scratch cookies. In the rare case that I volunteer to make cookies for some sort of event, I’ll probably go with pre-made dough to save myself a heap of time. And then there are Pillsbury’s fancy holiday-flavoured cookies…

I fall for the pumpkin spice ones every year because they are God-tier among pre-made cookie doughs, but these ones are new to me. So naturally I bought a pack. And you know, they’d be really good if you have kids or whatever, because you just need to plop the dough cylinders down on a baking sheet and then shove it in the oven. It gives you the sensation of baking and makes your home smell wonderful without having to deal with all the mess and measuring. It’s nice. They’re nice. Good on Pillsbury for providing a nice middle ground for bakers.

How do the cookies taste? They’re quite good! Again, I am ga-ga over the pumpkin spice ones, and hot cocoa couldn’t hope to measure up, but they’re perfectly good. I’m not really into a chocolate cookie kind of guy, but it’s all in service of that cocoa theme so I’ll give it a pass. Plus I very much dig the marshmallows. It’s a nice touch that I wouldn’t have ever dared to try in my own cookies.

If I have to knock it for one thing, it’s for a common trait to all the flavoured Pillsbury cookies that are sold in this fashion: they’ve got this weird “glazed” texture to them. I have no idea what that’s about, but I have to assume it’s a side-effect of some kind of preservative. Or there’s just way too damn sugar in these. You’ll have to ask someone smarter than me if you want a real answer. But it’s definitely a thing that happens, and it weirds me out just a little.

Aside from that one minor quibble, I’d absolutely recommend these. I mean, maybe skip them if you aren’t down with the double-chocolate. Otherwise, they’re v good. Would buy again.

Friday… I’m not looking at my spreadsheet right now, so I don’t know for sure what today’s theme is supposed to be. I would venture a guess that it’s “wildcard 2” as I’m positive that I don’t have a day of the week dedicated specifically to ice cream.

By the way, today’s review is of ice cream.

Chapman’s shortbread ice cream! It’s something different! I’ve gotten extremely used to peppermint/candy cane ice cream being a thing during the holiday season over the years, but shortbread is new to me. At least, if I’ve had it before, it was completely unmemorable. And that’s kind of how I felt about it now, too.

Being a lazy, single guy, I plopped down on the couch and started scooping the ice cream right out of the bucket. My first impression was that it was just vanilla with a very faint hint of caramel. That’s not shortbread at all. But then, after digging down deep enough, I hit something solid. It turned out to be a giant hunk of shortbread cookie. It’s almost literally what’s pictured on the bucket, only buried in the ice cream, rather than sticking out the top. I have a feeling that they just took the one cookie, snapped it in half, and mixed the chunks in, because it kind of seems like there were only the two. Truth be told, I haven’t eaten all that much of this ice cream yet, so there may yet be more to uncover. I still think it’s really strange that it’s giant hunks of cookie, rather than mashed up bits of cookie that are distributed more evenly.

At the end if the day, it’s alright. Perfectly adequate, but nothing special. There’s no doubt that I would have been more satisfied with the candy cane ice cream, but that’s so played out and I wanted something different for this feature. I won’t be buying this shortbread ice cream again, but mostly because I almost never buy ice cream. I literally only did so for the sake of having something to write about. It’s fine; I wouldn’t give it the heartiest recommendation, but you could do much worse.

Have you watched Steven Universe yet? Because if not, I’d like to share with you the good word of Steven Universe. It is easily one of the best cartoons ever. You really ought to check it out. And I’m not just saying that. This show actually inspired me to make a meal that I never would have cobbled together otherwise.

Behold, the Together Breakfast! It’s actually been a while since I made this, but I felt like I should probably get around to posting about it. I made this for myself on my birthday this year, partly because it seemed delicious, and partly because I loved the irony of spending my birthday morning eating something called a Together Breakfast all by my lonesome.

The recipe is simple: you take a stack of waffles, coat it in syrup and whipped cream, toss on a handful of popcorn, and then plop a strawberry on top. Though I used kettle corn instead of regular popcorn, because kettle corn is the best. And I also threw on a few more strawberries after I took the picture. As if I was really going to only use one strawberry.

Together Breakfast is amazing, and I really wish waffles didn’t take so got-danged long to make, because I’d love to have this again. But I just don’t have the patience required to do the waffles. I could probably sub in pancakes just fine, since they take slightly less time to make, but ehhhh. I really like waffles. And I am not using Eggos. Eggos are fine in pretty much any other situation, but the waffles have gotta be home-made for this. Also my waffle maker makes waffles in the shape of Stormtrooper helmets, which is super rad.

I guess I don’t have much else to say about it, then. Can you tell that I’m already running out of passion for writing these daily blog posts? I think it actually started to wear thin around day six or so. But I’m-a keep going anyway! We’ve passed the halfway mark, can’t give up now! Tomorrow: something moderately more holiday-styled!

A couple weekends ago, my grandmother invited me over to make perogies for Xmas dinner with her. She had floated the idea several months prior, and I don’t think she actually expected me to follow through. But, if I’ve learned anything from the recent passing of my other set of grandparents, it’s that I ought to take advantage of any change I get to spend time with the remaining ones. So I spent a Sunday afternoon making perogies with my grandparents.

It was actually a lot of fun, and more than anything I enjoyed listening to the stories they told. Making the perogies proper was a neat new activity for me, but my grandma had already pre-made all the dough and filling, so my job was simply to sit there and wrap dough around cheese balls for three hours. It wasn’t exciting by any measure, but it was something far different from my usual, so a worthwhile experience.

We came out with a good chunk of leftover dough, and my grandma then had the keep idea to use it to make blueberry perogies. Okay, sure. I love blueberries. This could work. So she brought over a bowl filled with blueberries… and blueberry Jell-o crystals. Uh… okay. that seems weird, but let’s be open-minded and give it a try. I know from experience that eating Jell-o crystals is not a great idea, but I’m willing to see this through.

After wrapping the blueberry mixture in dough shells (some of mine looked more like dumplings than perogies), they were off to the boiling station where my grandpa had been working. They were boiled for a while, and we decided not to freeze and save them, but to just eat them right then and there.

Let me tell you… don’t use Jell-o crystals in your blueberry perogies. They’ll come out way too sweet and be nearly inedible. And I’m a guy who cherishes his sweets. It was just way too much, though I firmly believe the idea would have been solid if we had only used blueberries as filling. Maybe it would have worked out better if the Jell-o had been made beforehand and then mashed into the perogies, but crystal form wasn’t quite right.

But in the end, I got a delicious home-cooked meal of roast beef, potatoes, and veggies. So the misstep of the blueberry perogies was quickly forgotten, and my tummy was filled to bursting with delicious foodstuffs. It was a far cry from the kind of dinner I’d have made for myself, so I definitely came out ahead that night. Plus, now I know that there will be home-made perogies waiting for me at Xmas dinner, and I cannot wait!

And that’s my little story. Also, a bit of a warning. Now you all know how not to make blueberry perogies. Happy Wednesday!

Continuing on with th trend of things that are not actually holiday-related in any fashion: Here’s a special burger from my favourite place, Fatburger. It’s called the Brioche Burger Bomb, and as I just learned while visiting the Fatburger website, they took this bad boy off the menu on November 30th. So there’s really no reason for me to write about it, because there’s no way that I can possibly sell you on it.

But never fear, they still have the Ultimate BBQ Burger, and truly, there is no better reason to go to Fatburger.

Oh, but doesn’t she look just heavenly? That Angus beef patty, that onion ring poking out, that sweet, melty Swiss cheese. And it would be great if that was all there was to it, but it’s also got this bacon-onion marmalade that is just so damn good. I love a nice, sweet sauce on my hamburgers, and I’ve got to say that the bacon-onion marmalade probably tops all others. I honestly wish that this were a permanent menu item just so I could have more of that sauce.

Also there’s normally mayo on this burger, but there isn’t any on mine because f**k mayo.

Brioche Burger Bomb! It was delicious, and it’s fun to type! I wish I could have it again!

You know what really grinds my gears? There are exactly zero interesting holiday-style chocolate bars out this year. Like, I’ve been looking, and there’s squat. You get the regular stuff like red-and-green Smarties or… you know what, that might actually be it. There was literally nothing else memorable available. At least that I’ve been able to find. Blame Canada.

So today, where it says “chocolate” on my spreadsheet, I am reduced to reviewing this:

Oreos with Mickey Mouse’s face stamped on ’em. I’m not going to lie, this week is going to be stretched very thin for anything actually holiday-themed.

But the Mickey Oreos have a special charm of their own. For one, I love that packaging. The simplicity of the white and sprinkles really works for me. Plus, you can’t go wrong with the classic Mickey design. I’m a little bit lost as to what “The True Original” means. Like, in comparison to what? I just… I need some context here, and it’s much too early in the morning for me to be trying to make up my own silly backstory.

Also worth noting is that these Oreos are birthday cake flavoured. Which is like my absolute favourite Oreo flavour, right behind cinnamon roll and Halloween. I know for a fact that I’ve gone on the “I’m addicted to birthday cake flavoured things” rant many, many times before on this here blog, so I won’t bother again. You should know this by now.

As far as the three fun Mickey designs that the packaging boasts about? I couldn’t be bothered to photograph them all, but in my defense, they’re all pretty underwhelming. Because it’s a straight-up lie. There’s the one Mickey design you see on the package, one is a party popper with some small Mickey head shapes around it, and the last one is just a big 90. LAME.

But hey, they’re birthday cake Oreos. I can’t help but sing their praises, even if the fun designs are not actually all that fun. Beats the standard Oreo logo. So… buy them. Buy the delicious birthday cake Oreos. They’re limited!

It’s tea day again! Huzzah! The problem with that, though, is that… I don’t know how to talk about tea. I just know when I like a flavour or not. Like orange pekoe. I am not a fan. Not at all. It doesn’t taste a thing like orange. I really would have liked it to have tasted like orange.

But I’m not talking about orange pekoe today. I’m talking about a different tea.

Sugar Plum Spice! How whimsical! So whimsical, in fact, that whoever designs Celestial’s boxes felt it unnecessary to capitalize the flavour, and then use all caps in at least two other places on the box, but then use proper capitalization elsewhere. What is going on!? Who did this and how can they live with themselves? It’s driving me insane!

…So, uh, the tea. This is an herbal tea. I don’t really know what the significance of that is. Perhaps that it’s made with no fruits or nuts or other additives? Nope, no, that can’t be. Says right here that it’s got plums and cinnamon in it. Wait, thery’re actually just plum and cinnamon “flavours”, not the real deal. Whatever that means. Why would you fake cinnamon? Aren’t spices really cheap?

Anyway, I kinda messed up and used up the last bag of sugar plum spice before writing this entry and I didn’t have the foresight to, you know, buy more in the interim. So I can’t even give a shoddy description of what it tastes like. All I can tell you is that I very much like it. Probably my favourite holiday tea that you can buy at Sobey’s. It’s delish, I recommend it!

Saturday is heretofore going to be known as the Day of Cookies. At least for the next two weeks. Then this feature will have run its course and things will go back their normal, less cookie-focused ways.

Today I’m going to talk about the “new” Peppermint Bark Oreos. I question the newness, because in all honesty I’m pretty sure they’re the exact same thing as the Candy Cane Oreos or barkless Peppermint Oreos of years past. It’s just dressing up an old product to look more hipstery. I don’t even know what peppermint bark is, but it sounds like something that is sold at every artisanal candy shoppe come holiday season.

So, they’re very good, but uninspired. That’s really all I care to say about these. I have to get back to Smash Bros now.