So I was in Tacoma on a soggy, dreary December Saturday afternoon (btw, few stories end well with this beginning), and I happened across the old Brown & Haley candy factory and their cute, less dreary, octagonal sales kiosk outside on the corner.
I’ve always known of and enjoyed their mainstay product, the Almond Roca; but I was never really CRAZY about it, mind you. Until I walked in there. And then I start realizing they’ve several different varieties…AND Peppermint Bark…and Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers, etc. etc….They have all sorts of choco-delectables!
Upside is that in about 30 minutes I’d done most all of my extended family gift shopping (yeah that’s right, Grandma Rimkus, It’s Almond Roca variety pack for you this Christmas).
Downside is that I bought ANOTHER $62 DOLLARS WORTH OF EVERY IMAGINABLE ROCA PRODUCT, JUST FOR MYSELF!!! I seriously do not know what came over me. The old jokes we used to make about them looking alot like cat turds left in the cat’s box didn’t even cross my mind till I was driving away (while reaching into the back seat trying to rip open one of the buck-ninety-nine bags of factory second Dark Chocolate Roca).
Readers must understand that I typically don’t write about food, but, holy dark beans Batman, chocolate is my one vice in life and I want to make the following important point about family sacrifices:
My parents were so frugal (cheap), they didn’t buy Christmas trees, but would take ones discarded by a local school at the beginning of Christmas break. They would also go to a candy factory like this one and get a couple of large bags of the irregulars. I would scarf those chocolate-covered graham crackers like nobody’s business. As I always have to note, when disparaging my parents’ abstemious ways, is that they sent five kids to private schools, including Princeton and Johns Hopkins, on a single teacher’s salary.
And yes, dear reader, you should follow my example and have a big ol’ friggin’ can of Almond Roca under your Christmas tree whenever Yule feel like it!
-The Expanding Knute Rimkus
https://www.facebook.com/almondroca
https://www.facebook.com/almondrocaoutlet
I’m thinking Will Ferrell and his cinematic cohort really need to unionize. I mean, really, TACOMA??? Geez.
