Where I currently reside, Munich, Germany, chocolate is in abundance. All different kinds and textures; milk, dark, fruit-flavored, white, crunchy – the list goes on. All too often, a chocolate craving leads to a serious dilemma: what to buy and which flavor will satisfy even the most intense chocolate craving. Recently, while in the throws of a craving, I ventured out to find something for a fix which led me to a new discovery… perhaps a new love.

Before I divulge the sordid details of my affair, let me just explain that I’ve never been a fan of the chocolate/nut combination. In fact, I usually find myself picking nuts out of chocolate/nut sweets. I’ve been taunted for my dissection of Peanut M&Ms, carefully biting open the M&M and prying out the nut in order to enjoy the chocolate with the crunchy candy shell. I even recall a date or two ending early over my spitting out the peanuts from a Snickers bar and almonds from a Hershey bar. As I said before, it isn’t a pairing that works for me. Men are replaceable – the experience of enjoying chocolate in the moment is not. The coarse, dry and sometimes bitterness of the nut doesn’t couple well with chocolate. Nuts are hearty… earthy… chocolate should be left alone, far from the likes of the nut.

Then I met Hanuta.

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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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Candy Addicts everywhere praised Nestle when it released its Nestle Crunch Crisp and Butterfinger Crisp, wafer spin-offs of the classic confections. It seemed only a matter of time until the gurus at Nestle decided to take their next most popular candy bar and give it a “Crisp” makeover.

That’s right. Baby Ruth. The All Candy Expo did not disappoint when I ambled by the Nestle booth and spotted this not-yet-released candy that is supposed to debut this year.

There weren’t any full-sized bars to sample, and I was only allowed to grab one snack-sized piece; luckily, the Expo is three days, and I was able to procure three of those small treats and report on them.

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Is there anything to rival the innocent sweetness of a Little Debbie treat? From the extreme simplicity of their classic goodies to their chemist-friendly ingredient lists to the cute little girl whose portrait adorns every box, the brand embodies pure, sugary nostalgia. Ever since the 1960s, when the CEOs of McKee foods decided to name a line of snack cakes after their granddaughter, this line has brightened many a day.

Crossing paths with Debbie at the supermarket or gas station always brings a smile to my face. These chance encounters bring to mind lunchtimes in preschool and kindergarten, during which Debbie and I became acquainted. Those years were simpler for us all, and whether or not we could expect to find something so tasty in the day’s lunchbox seemed an important issue. Too often, the presence or absence of a Swiss Cake Roll would determine my mood for the afternoon.

Yet for whatever reason, my relationship with Little Debbie has become less intimate in recent years. We see each other, sure, but we don’t touch, or (most importantly) taste. I feel at times that the freckled, curly-haired youth and I have grown estranged. So it came as a pleasant surprise one recent evening when my boyfriend arrived carrying an armful of Little Debbie’s beloved Nutty Bars.

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Of all the Nestle chocolate bars that aren’t available in the United States, the most popular has got to be Coffee Crisp. With legions of fans around the world, it was about time for Canada’s favorite chocolate-coated-wafer-bar-with-coffee-in-its-name-that-doesn’t-really-taste-like-coffee to get a special edition of its own. Hence, the Coffee Crisp Chocolatey Crunch Bar.

Now, for a bar that was already known for being crunchy and chocolatey, this seems like an odd concept for a special edition. At first glance, the main difference between this and the original is the shape – while the original is a thick rectangle with every side the same width, the new bar seems to have been flattened into a thinner, wider, more “traditional” chocolate-bar shape.

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