I know, I know, just days ago I was bemoaning the sheer boringitude of the annual peppermint version of various places’ hot chocolates and lattles. But that’s not to say that I don’t like them! I think that I’ve established many times already that adding peppermint to something is basically a surefire way to sell it to me. I think it’s a great flavour, particularly when matched with coffee.

So today, I’ll take a minute to honour this timeless classic. I didn’t call it boring because I don’t like it, I called it boring because it’s so easy for companies to fall back on it instead of experimenting with other kinds of holiday variants. But it keeps coming back every year because it works. You can’t take chances any more in the corporate world. You might lose money that way! Just keep doing what you know the mindless consumers will eat up.

Whoops. This isn’t supposed to be a rant against capitalism…

Peppermint lattes! They’re tasty!

I was originally going to title this post “Great Value Gingerbread Men” until I realized that it’s 2018 and just wouldn’t be right. It doesn’t say “Men” anywhere on the box, so who am I to assign them genders? These cookie people can be whatever they damn well want to be; man, woman, or anything in between! I’ll back them all the way! You go, cookies!

Anyway, these are Wal-Mart brand cookies, and as such, they’re super cheap. Also, you get what you pay for. Not the worst gingerbread I’ve ever eaten, but they’re certainly not good. Maybe slightly below average, I’d say. What really kills them is that they’re way too strong. I can feel the spices linger in my mouth long after the cookies are eaten. That’s not what I want from a cookie.

Ehhh… that’s about all I’ve got in me today. Whatever. Take a flyer on this $1 box of cookies, or don’t. I don’t care.

I could probably sit here for a while, banging on my keyboard until something vaguely witty or funny or interesting ended up on the screen, but I’d rather just cut to the chase today.

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is disappointing. I don’t know why, because it’s exactly what I should have expected. What it is, is Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but without the cinnamon. Just, more sugar instead. They took the best part out! Why? What was the point?

Props to General Mills for doing the holiday winter cereal thing. Truly, I appreciate the effort. And the fact that they’re selling it in Canada is exemplary. Unfortunately, the cereal itself just didn’t do anything for me. Especially not with Count Chocula and Fruity Pebbles sitting right there behind it.

Not feelin’ it. I want to, though. I desperately want to, but it’s not happening. I feel like I’ve failed as a connoisseur of sugary cereals. I’m hanging up my spoons.

Like I said a couple entries ago, I’ve been poking around various fast food places to see what they’ve got in terms of seasonal specials, and it’s been mostly disappointing. Everyone does the peppermint hot chocolate and caramel latte. They aren’t special anymore. If I had to give a single place the distinction of best seasonal goodies, it would easily go to Tim Horton’s.

Just look at this spread of holiday-themed baked goods they have on offer. They make for an excellent photo op, but how to they stack up as snack foods?

Let’s start at the low point: the jelly roll. It’s maybe the second-most impressive visually, but it was easily the least delectable of the trio. I guess? I don’t know. It ranks last overall, anyway. It’s a nice, soft pastry with a raspberry filling. Which sounds great! It’s pretty good, truth be told. The filling is too overpowering, though. I almost want to just eat a sheet of the pasty. It’s just so soft and has a wonderful mouthfeel.

Next up is the holiday tree donut. You know, this one is actually the least fulfilling as far as eating it is concerned. It’s a plain ol’ boston creme all dressed up for the holidays, and I really don’t care for the boston creme filling. It’s… icky. I don’t like it. Not one bit. Perfect way to ruin a donut. But the visual appeal! Oh my gosh! That minty-green icing! And the coloured sprinkles! I would love ot be able to decorate my house with these, because I love looking at them.

Of course, saving the best for last, we have the filled sugar cookie. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a big, fat sugar cookie pumped full of vanilla frosting. It is delectable, but I’m only ever eating the one, because I’m pretty sure that it’s packed with enough sugar to kill a normal man. I, of course, am a little more resistant to sugar, seeing as it’s basically all I ate throughout my late teens and early twenties. Well, sugar and BK Whoppers. Anyway, this is the perfect definition of a “diabetes bomb”. You’re taking your life in your hands if you eat one. But oh man, is it ever worth it.

Okay, listen, twenty-four blog posts is a lot. Especially when you’re trying to collect a unique and very specific type of item for each one. Especially when you live in Canada where junk food is not allowed to be exciting or fun. So I was destined to run out of ideas and have to do a post on something completely boring.

At least I found a way to spice it up by choosing something so boring that it may just come all the way back around to interesting.

No? Rats.

That’s right, it’s my lunch. This is what eat for lunch almost every single weekday. A cup of plain yogurt with granola, and a banana. Sometimes I skip the banana because it gets smooshed past the point of edibility in my bag on the way to work. It happens. Particularly later in the week, once the bananas have started to ripen and the peels lose their durability.

There was a time where I would keep a bag of pistachios at my desk to snack on during the week, but man, those things are expensive. Not so expensive that I couldn’t afford them, but I didn’t really enjoy them enough to justify the cost. And so back to yogurt and banana I went.

I’ve been combing the local fast food joints for seasonal specials, but… there aren’t that many. At least none that seem all that special. Today’s subject is no exception, but I was half-drunk when I ordered it, and it seemed so much more spectacular before it was actually in my hands.

These are McDonald’s limited-time herb and garlic fries. They come in a fancy box, and taste pretty much exactly like normal fries. There’s a bit of a garlicky flavour to them, but it’s not nearly strong enough for me to be any more excited than I am. You’re also expected to eat them with a fork, what with all the garlic sauce and herbal bits that coat them. I dunno, man. Eating fries with a fork? I don’t dig it.

I was honestly much more excited about the run-of-the-mill cheeseburgers that you can barely see off to the left of the fry box.

If I had to say one nice thing about these fries, it’s that the tool they use to squirt the garlic sauce all over them is kinda neat. It looks vaguely like the Aerospray MG from Splatoon.

I like Splatoon.

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.