Before attending the All Candy Expo, all the registered press people were sent dozens and dozens of press releases from various companies advertising their products and inviting us to drop by their booths. That is where I first heard about Landrin Waferatto USA.

The company’s roots date back to the nineteenth century when Georg Landrin began preparing confections for the Imperial Court of Russia. The reputation of his delicacies spread throughout the country and Europe, earning his products notoriety for their quality ingredients and taste.

Landrin USA was recently founded with the intent to market a line of truffles with designs and packaging inspired by couture fashion and art – i.e., appealing to women. I remember checking out some of the photos from their press release to discover all their boxes adorned with orchids, chiffon prints, the elegance of a perfume box, and they somehow unfolded into vases when you opened them.

Elaborate much? Maybe. But the principal and design is aesthetically sound, which is why it’s a current silver finalist for two of the 2009 Sofi Awards (Specialty Outstanding Food Innovation). But part of me didn’t want to like these. They were too pretty. They were too girly.

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Before I even tried Mars’ Fling, I was already smiling. The wrapper says “Naughty, but not that naughty.” Oh really? Do go on. The website explains that though the Fling is made of “premium chocolate” this little pleasure won’t make you feel too guilty because each finger of the Fling is only 85 calories.

Well, the packaging is fun and the concept is intriguing, but how’s the flavor? I tried two kinds of Flings: the milk chocolate and the hazelnut.

Each finger looks similar to a Twix, so I was expecting that kind of crunch and consistency. Wrong! Airy, whipped chocolate rests on a very light, brittle honeycomb-like bar, and then the whole thing is coated in chocolate. When I bit into it, the Fling snapped and crunched audibly. But the crunchy bit isn’t anything like the cookie crunch of a Twix – it’s hard to explain the texture except to say that the whole thing is really, really airy. I found them really fun to eat – unusual, and interesting.

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I meant to have a box of this for Valentine’s and write a review of it. It didn’t happen, and this box didn’t mean to happen either. I was actually buying them for Mother’s Day. I clicked on the wrong address in my account, and some stranger at my mom’s old address got a box of chocolate. They’re too fragile to be resold after they’ve been shipped back and forth, so all I could do was reorder another box.

That was when things took a turn for the better. When I reordered, they somehow managed to send the order to me instead. Since it was their mistake, they sent another to my mom, and I got this one for myself. Obviously, we were meant to be together.

There are two main things to know about this brand: First of all, this is very much a dark chocolate experience. There are a few milk chocolate pieces, but if that’s what you prefer, go elsewhere.

On the other hand, if you’re a dark chocolate fiend, like I am, read on.

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You may have heard some hysterical stories about Easter, but let’s stick to the one involving a chocolate-loving rabbit. While mundane rabbits enjoy eating carrots, have you every wondered what sustains the Easter Bunny? How about a chocolate rabbit, you say? What? What kind of psycho rabbit would cannibalize itself by eating chocolate in the shape of its own species? Not one that I want hiding chicken embryos in colored shells around the yard, I’ll tell you that.

Luckily, Swiss chocolatier Lindt has come to the famous rabbit’s rescue. The answer to what the Easter Bunny would eat is obvious once you think about it. Chocolate carrots – duh.

Now my question: are there carrots in this candy? Well… no. But it does have hazelnut paste. And each of the four chocolate candies are nicely wrapped to look like baby carrots (complete with stalks), plus little green curved handles that make the candy look like a vegetable umbrella. These handles are for holding your treat as you chomp away.

So let’s hop like a bunny and try these fun-looking chocolates.

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If you’ve ever shopped for a new car or had to hang around a dealership while your mom or dad or granny or Uncle Ned argued with a car salesman with hair as slick as motor oil about the supposed need for rust proofing, then you’ve probably thumbed through a glossy automobile brochure or two. Maybe you wanted to check on your model’s options, or just pass the time. But I don’t care if it’s a Bentley or a Yugo, the brochure’s text and pictures always make it sound like this car will revolutionize the way you slice through the wind! Yeah, sure.

Recently I received a well-insulated box of 10 gourmet “Garden Ganache” chocolates from Kohler Original Recipe Chocolates for review. Aside from the bubble wrap, a press release about a nice mention in Oprah’s magazine, a CD ROM full of photos and a flavor guide, Kohler included a twenty-two page, 8 x 11 ultra-glossy candy brochure that made me think I was back in a new car showroom. I mean, the blurbs and full page photos had me wondering which delectable-looking candies came with leather upholstery. And of course, these treats were “acknowledged unparalleled” by early tasters, while Kohler “seeks to explore the limitless opportunity in taste and texture with natural raw materials.” Do they mean they try different ingredients… ?

So, yeah, these things look good in the brochure. But are they Bentleys, Yugos, or something in between?

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