Corey Charette (dot) com » food

How To Make Fun Dip Not Fun

Corey Charette — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:00:49 +0000

For my son’s Valentine’s Day party at school we went to the store and picked up a box of Fun Dip.

If you were a child of Fun Dip of the 80’s you should remember this stuff. What Fun Dip was was an edible stick (similar to the candy cigarettes of years past) that you stuck in your mouth to get wet and dipped into a flavored power mix that was usually cherry or grape. After you were done with the powder you could eat the stick. So, this was like two snacks in one.

Well, I remember when I attempted a DIY of Fun Dip. I loved tasting the flavored powder and didn’t feel like I they gave me enough to enjoy. So, instead of opening a second packet and enjoying that one I tried to be resourceful and stretch out the lifespan of the first one.

I searched through the cabinets and tried to find something similar to Fun Dip. I did find a packet of cherry flavored Kool-Aid mix. I figured that would work. It’s powder and it has a cherry flavor. What could go wrong?

The thing about being a child is that if two things look alike they must taste alike. Unfortunately, kids don’t understand that Kool-Aid needs to have sugar added to it to be tolerable. I ripped open the packet and saw the red powder inside begging to me to put the Fun Dip stick in there. The moment that powder hit my tastebuds my mouth imploded. On a scale of 1 to 10 of tartness this has to be a 50! They call it cherry flavor, but I didn’t taste any cherry. I ran over to the sink and drank two large glasses of water trying to dilute the tartness in my mouth. That didn’t work. I kept spitting in the sink too. I think that my saliva was pink for the next couple of days from this experiment.

Lesson learned. If I wanted more Fun Dip then I should’ve opened up a SECOND ONE!

WTF can’t we spell things out?

Corey Charette — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:00:31 +0000

I went to Wal-mart Saturday with my son to get a birthday gift for a party he was going to. Since he was good in the store I promised him a drink. He wanted a Mountain Dew. When he went into the cooler near the registers he saw two different green bottles (one with a white cap and one with a green). He chose the green one. I figured that one was the diet and one was the regular. Upon closer inspection they were both regular Mountain Dews. But, one of the bottles had the new design that PepsiCo released of the soda. Instead of the bottle having ‘Mountain Dew’ on it it said ‘Mtn Dew.’

Why do all these companies have to be lazy and abbreviate their products? Is that the hip thing to do? Years ago you could go to Kentucky Fried Chicken or the International House of Pancakes. Now it’s KFC and IHOP!

With the Internet age and abbreviations being used for texting, I don’t know why products have to be abbreviated. Kids nowadays are finding it easier and easier not having to learn how to spell. With autospell features on computers the power of the Internet spelling is becoming obsolete. Now, companies are helping that out by trying to hip their brandnames up.

I love the design of the new Dew logo. (In fact, I love when companies update their logos.) But, the fact that the Pepsi Company had to jump on the band wagon, with other companies, and ’streamline’ their product names is another issue completely.

The first school lunch

Corey Charette — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:58:29 +0000

Out of nowhere, on Monday, my 5-year old son, CJ, asked me if he could buy a school lunch that day. For that first six weeks of kindergarten he has been taking his lunch to school without any hassle. But, on this day he wanted to buy a lunch. He’s never wanted it before so I told him that we’ll look at the menu and figure out what day you like that lunch and I’ll let you buy it. He agreed and corn dogs interested him. Of course, this lunch was the NEXT DAY. I honestly think that he picked the first thing he heard just so he could buy a school lunch.

When he got home Tuesday night, I asked how his lunch went. His eyes lit up. He said that it was great. He got to take a tray and pick one of the two main dishes and got to get three things: meal, milk, desert. He took the corn dog, chocolate milk, and jello. He told me he got to slide the tray down a line just like CiCi’s (a pizza buffet restaurant). It was funny how he compared his school lunch with a buffet restaurant.

It’s amazing how his eyes light up and his hands start flailing explaining about his lunch experience. I love how such a simple experience as buying a lunch to an adult is a truly amazing experience for a little child.

But, as you can guess, he wanted to buy lunch the next day at school.