Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 19, 2019

My God, kid. Don’t forget the chocolate! Oh the humanity.

They are better when pressed into a bar and bound up with sticky sweet stuff. (In fact, what isn’t?). My absolute favorite Xmas “cookie” when young was “Monkey Food”:

                  Monkey Food

In a sausage grinder, coarsely grind together dried fruits of every variety (apricots, raisins, currants for sure, others if you have them). Add pecans or walnuts, whichever you have and some dried coconut. Mix thoroughly. Try to make a ball about 3/4 inch in diameter. If it won’t hold together, add some citron (“fruitcake fruit”) and maybe a very small amount of honey. Grind up a half dozen vitamin-C tablets with mortar and pestle and add to a half cup or so of powdered sugar. Roll each ball in that and set out on cookie trays to dry slightly. Serve cool.

I have tried so many “healthy” snack bars and meal-replacement bars over the years… manufactured and home-made, and I’m just tired of them. I can’t even look at them any longer, let alone use them in a weight release context. Why can’t someone come up with a decent-flavored savory health bar, one that tastes like food instead of candy? Pizza, or tacos, or chili, or anything but chocolate and honey and fruit?

Hence shelves at checkout are loaded with multitudes of such enticements, which are placed at just the right height for bright-eyed consumers, who are experts in parental persuasion.

Why not peanuts? One thing I like about Chinese and other eastern food is that they use peanuts as real food, not a snack.

Producing one California almond requires one gallon of water.

Wow =- put nuts and a corn syrup gloop together, sell it at an obscene profit — PAYDAY!

Cashew/almond brittle?

A nut pizza, sliced thin?

Try those cinnamon roasted almonds!

Those nuts and a handful of fresh blueberries are my 10:30 am snack most days. Nice to be retired!

Throw in some popcorn, and you’d have a cracker jack idea!

Yes, yes they are. But rolled over caramel is best.