Making Candy Canes

 

When we were in Colorado a couple of weeks ago, we stopped into the Hammond Candy Factory for a free tour. We got what we paid for. Sometimes “free” doesn't amount to much. The tour was rather boring … the guide was bored with her job and the extent of the “tour” included viewing a rather dated video and then peering through a hazy window (hence hazy photos) to watch candy factory people chat and be bored while making candy.

We did, however, see candy canes being made. Hammonds still does things the “old fashioned” way … that is, mostly with very old machines and several facets of the process by hand. They pride themselves in this aspect of their business, though we're thinking they could lower their prices and produce more candy a bit faster if they introduced a bit more efficiency to their factory … and they probably wouldn't sacrifice anything in the quality department. Just an observation on our part though.

Though no mention was made of it on the tour, Wiki informed me that “the first historical reference to the familiar cane shape goes back to 1670, when the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, bent sugar-sticks into canes to represent a shepherd's staff. The all-white candy canes were given out to children (to keep them quiet?) during the long-winded nativity services.” Evidently, the all-white candy candy canes became a tradition, but stayed white until the turn of the 20th century when Christmas card illustrations began showing striped canes. It was around that same time that minty flavors were added to the candy.

Back to the subject at hand … Candy cane making is quite an art. We watched as two men emptied giant copper cauldrons of thick bubbling sugar syrup onto large cooling tables. After cooling, this sticky concoction was gathered up into a large blob and put onto an antiquated machine to be “pulled”. Color was added here. Then candymakers worked two or three gigantic blobs by hand, carefully laying one color next to another, forming it into rectangles … this would forms the stripes. Flavoring was added at this point and worked into the mix.

The tri-colored rectangle was fed into a machine which turned out a long, twisted, striped tube of candy. One fellow measured and, using a large pair of scissors, cut the stick to exactly the right length. The next person in line bent the end to form the “crook” of the cane. That's the part I appreciated the most although she didn't look very excited about the task. Probably candy cane bending for eight hours a day does that to you. At the next station, they were packaged.

Hammonds offers 30 candy cane flavors. Peppermint is just the beginning. There's pumpkin pie, birthday cake and Five Spice among others. We're traditionalists … peppermint for us … thank you very much. Wish we had a smell or taste byte to share with you. Before the tour leader dumped us out in the factory store, she gave each of us a sample. A nice gesture especially since we couldn't find anything in the store that we could afford.

We'd never heard of Hammonds before though they've been in Denver since 1920. I wondered how they stayed in business if no one's ever heard of them. When I went into Barnes & Noble the other day here in Walpole, however, there they were … several Hammond's Candy displays. I guess we've been living in a box … or on a boat.

Care to try making your own? Give this recipe a try.

Beer...Beer...Beer

 

Beyond pumpkins and Hallowe'en, it's Oktoberfest time and thoughts turn to beer. What a welcome reprieve! The original Oktoberfest is a 16-day long celebration in Munich, Germany attended by thousands during which time reportedly seven million liters of beer are consumed. That's a lot of beer, even by our standards. Though we've never attended the festivities in Munich, we've certainly partaken in several Oktoberfests in other parts of the world. It might not be the real thing, but it's still a festival and still beer. That said, while visiting Germany many times during our working careers, we have had German draught beer and oh my, it's wonderful. In fact, we always thought it would be worthwhile going to Germany just for the beer and bread ... the sightseeing would be an added bonus.

Actually, we've been sampling beers around the world for the past 14 years. According to Wiki, beer is the world's most widely consumed alcoholic beverage, and is the third-most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is thought by some to be the oldest fermented beverage in world. All we know is that wherever we go and wherever we've been, there's always beer. Lagers, ales ... pilsners, weisen, chichas, porters, IPAs, stouts, bitters. We began brewing our own beer aboard Nine of Cups when we arrived in Australia where the cost of buying a case of beer came close to requiring a mortgage.

We found that any place with a strong German influence like Namibia, Chile and Bolivia, for instance, had great beers to offer. Other countries though ... well, let's just say beer brewed in the Amazonian jungles of Peru was wet and cold, but not necessarily the best beer we've ever tasted. Chile, in particular, offered schop, a wonderfully German-type beer on tap.

Speaking of unappealing beers, until the likes of Sam Adams came along and made its owner a multi-millionaire, US beers, other than microbrews, were not the best. Sorry, but Bud Light and Miller are not our idea of tasty beers, although I do like the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales.

Early on in our sailing career, I was amazed by the number of beers we came across and the pride each little country/island took in sporting its own distinctive beer label. Even the tiniest Caribbean island nation has its own beer brand. I doubt many of the Caribbean beers are actually produced on the islands that touted them, but we appreciated the gusto with which each beer was proudly served and advertised.

I started saving beer bottle labels way back then. Why exactly, I'm not sure. Nor have I figured out what I'll do with them, but they don't take up much room and we still have them aboard, pressed flat between the pages of some old reference book that we probably don't refer to any more. Maybe a beer label collage in our future? How tacky. Photographing them is much more convenient, but again ... what do I do with them once I have them. And of course, we did have to buy and drink the beer to get the labels, but we felt it obligatory to support the local economy.

Brennan has a beer app on his iPhone (Untappd) that allows him to keep track of and comment on craft beers he's tasted and allows him to find the closest brew pub wherever he is. Very important if you're a beer drinker, I guess. We haven't gotten that far yet.

We haven't produced our own Nine of Cups label yet, but give us time.

Trader Joe's

 

Not far away from us, down on Route 1 in Foxboro, right next door to the Patriot's football stadium, is Trader Joe's. We remember our first time visiting a Trader Joe's in California. Back then, there weren't many Trader Joe's around and it was a real novelty-type store. Today there are close to 500 stores … and it's still a novelty and fun to shop there.

It's a grocery store, so how novel can you get? How much fun can it be? It's just not your usual grocery store, that's all. It's down-to-earth, gourmet, and affordable … even for parsimonious sailors like us. The moment you walk into the bright and airy store, there's an energy and a fun atmosphere. From their funky little newsletter to the murals on the walls and all their unusual products on offer, there's lots to take in. We head straight to the samples of hot coffee and graze on from there. Depending on the day and the season, there might be tastings of cheese, wine, crackers... whatever. It's always good.

Trader Joe offers lots of private labeled stuff which appears to be specific to the region, like Pilgrim Joe's Clam Chowder for the New England market, for example. Their cheeses are wonderful. Chocolate, maple syrup, nuts and frozen foods are usually an especially good bargain. Our favorite offering though is Charles Shaw wines, affectionately known as “3 Buck Chuck”. Yup, a bottle of very drinkable Cabernet Sauvignon (or Merlot or Chardonnay) for $2.99. Really? This alone makes the trip worthwhile. Wine connoisseurs hate it, but that's just them. We find it perfectly adequate. The bottles even have corks (though that's a debatable attribute and a discussion for another time).

Employees wear Hawaiian shirts and plastic leis around their necks and seem genuinely happy to be working at Trader Joes. They smile. No one's ever too busy to stop and answer a question or point you in the right direction. It makes customers happy to be shopping and spending their money there. Customers talk and joke amongst themselves. It's a friendly kind of place and brings out the best in people. We compared TJ's employees recently to employees working at the local WalMart who appeared sullen, aloof and generally unhappy. What does that tell you?

There was an article in Business Week about TJ's that stated “the chain quintupled the store numbers and increased its profits by ten times between 1990 and 2001.” Pretty impressive. Incidentally, they're owned by a German trust, the same people who own Aldi's, another interesting, not-your-usual-type grocery store that we really enjoy and that we've visited worldwide from Wisconsin to Argentina to Australia.

Guess if we ever have to get part time jobs, this might be a possibility. Not sure how we'd look in Hawaiian shirts though.