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Nick Bowman Features Editor | 770-718-3426 | life@gainesvilletimes.com
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gainesvilletimes.com
Wednesday, October 31,2018
What’s your favorite candy?
What sweet Halloween treat does Georgia love the most?
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of them,” Wiley said.
Candy corn is another popular item
Wiley sells at J&J. Although she’s not
sure how many customers purchase it
to actually eat it, she said they sell “a
ton of candy corn.”
She said a lot of it ends up as deco
ration — or maybe it goes to Alabama,
where it’s the most popular Halloween
candy.
While the J&J family has had years
of practice stocking for Halloween,
each year is a bit of a surprise.
Wiley said it’s always a guessing
game since the candy is sold throughout
the entire season. Early on, it’s picked
up for school festivals and church
events. During the middle of the sea
son, customers are stocking up and
preparing for trick-or-treaters. Then
there’s the last-minute shoppers who
don’t but candy until the day before
or the day of Halloween. Regardless,
Wiley said J&J always has candy ready
for its customers.
And one thing is for sure whether it’s
Halloween or not: Chocolate sells no
matter what.
“We sell a little bit of non-chocolate,
but it’s mostly chocolate, really,” Wiley
said.
miniature granola bars.
As she looked at the 16 feet worth of
candy at the front of the store, the items
that needed restocking were Reese’s,
Snickers and M&M’s. But there are
definitely some candies that aren’t as
popular, she said.
“Some of the unpopular ones are
some of the old-timey candies,” Wiley
said. “Or anybody that’s trying to go a
healthy route, like if it says sugar-free
or gluten-free.
“Anything healthy is not Halloween
candy.”
Clair Robins, a blogger at the bulk
candy seller www.candystore.com,
analyzed the seller’s shipments to each
of the 50 states in recent years and
found some surprises among national
tastes.
The most popular candy in Georgia
is Jolly Rancher. After Swedish Fish
won most popular the past couple of
years, Jolly Rancher took over the top
spot with 142,000 pounds — or just a bit
lighter than the space shuttle Endeavor
— sold over the past 11 years.
The nation’s most popular are Skit
tles, M&M’s and Snickers.
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Jolly Ranchers wouldn’t have been one
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BY LAYNE SALIBA
lsaliba@gainesvilletimes.com
Each Halloween, the one thing
everyone can count on are giant piles
of candy greeting, luring and taunting
them as they walk into the grocery
store.
But is there a best Halloween candy
in 2018, with its flood of new flavors,
textures and types promising to keep
us all wired for days after the Wednes
day holiday? How does one even pick
between Peep’s Spooky Cats or Reese’s
Spooky Eyeballs?
Turns out, Gainesville shoppers tend
to keep it classic for Halloween, accord
ing to Emily Wiley of J&J Foods and
daughter of store owner Darrell Wiley.
“Anything chocolate, like Reese’s
and Snickers, is popular,” she said.
The way to go, though, is with the
bags of assorted candy. That’s her
favorite and what seems to be custom
er’s favorite, too. That way, “kids can
find the perfect thing they like.” The
most popular is the bag filled with dif
ferent chocolate candies, but the non
chocolate bag is also popular.
People go for variety — so long
as that variety doesn’t include those
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For a frightfully spooky Halloween, serve
up a cemetery
BY DANIEL NEMAN
Tribune News Service
It has come to this. What started, cen
turies ago, as a combination of a harvest
festival and concerns that spirits could eas
ily enter our world at this time of year has
now developed into a holiday where people
serve food that looks like cemeteries.
Trick-or-treating is important, too. Kids
like their candy. Adults like to hand out
candy if they can hang onto a little for
themselves. Doughnuts and apple cider
are a vital part of the Halloween celebra
tion, as well, and so are costume parties
where adults dress up like pregnant nuns
or their favorite characters from “Game of
Thrones.”
But this year, cemetery food is where it’s
at.
It’s theme eating at its finest, a dip or des
sert that looks like it’s scary but really isn’t.
Cemetery food is just a fun, Halloweenish
way to nibble at a dessert or a dip and feel
like you’re in the spirit of the season.
Emphasis on the spirit part.
With cemetery food, the way it looks is
more important than the way it tastes. If
you can create an amusing representa
tion of a graveyard, it doesn’t matter if it
is made with chocolate pudding mix, Cool
Whip and crushed Oreos.
Sounds terrible, right? On the other hand,
it is made with chocolate pudding mix, Cool
Whip and crushed Oreos. It sounds amaz
ing, right?
And it kind of is, though you may wish
you were eating a handful of mini-Snickers
bars instead, because they are so much
more healthful.
The pudding-Cool Whip graveyard scene
comes from the folks at Kraft, who devised
it as a way to use as many Kraft products
as possible. I am not ashamed to play into
such an obvious commercial ploy, because
it looks tastes great and looks so cute.
This is decor, rather than cooking, so it
takes almost no time to make. You begin by
mixing milk and instant chocolate pudding.
Be sure to use the instant pudding and not
the stuff that you have to cook, because that
will never set and it will turn into a soupy
mess more horrifying than anything else
you will see on Halloween.
Not that I would know. Ahem.
Anyway, you just mix the pudding goo
with some Cool Whip goo and then mash up
some Oreo cookies (Nabisco, which makes
Oreos, is owned by the same company that
owns Kraft, which makes Jell-0 pudding
and Cool Whip). You pour half of the cookie
crumbs into the agglomerated goo and the
other half on top.
All that’s left then is the decorating.
The other cemetery spread I made is
savory, but it is just as fun in a not-really-
scary kind of way. Basically, it’s a four-
layer dip with some ghosts and gravestones
on top.
The dip itself is typical and does not
involve much effort. It has refried beans on
the bottom, straight from the can. Then, a
mixture of sour cream and packaged taco
seasoning. There is a bare-minimum-gua-
camole on top of that (avocados mashed
together with minced garlic and a bit of
mayonnaise), and a cup of salsa on top. A
sprinkling of sliced green onions completes
the illusion of grass, sort of.
The hardest part, if you are not artisti
cally inclined, is cutting the ghosts, tomb
stones and a spooky tree out of tortillas.
This task will be easier if you use relatively
decent tortillas; the cheapest ones tend to
fall apart when you try to cut them with the
tip of a knife.
The tortilla props only take seven or eight
minutes to bake, and they become nicely
crisp. Just stick them in the spicy cemetery,
and see if anyone can resist the fun.
Yield: 12 servings
1 (16-ounce) can refried beans
2 cups sour cream
1 (1-ounce) package taco seasoning
2 avocados, mashed
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Pinch of salt
1 cup salsa
2 scallions, green parts only, chopped
2 large flour tortillas
1. Spread refried beans into a small
baking or casserole dish. Mix together
sour cream and taco seasoning,
and spread on top of the beans.
Mix together the avocados, garlic,
mayonnaise and salt, and spread on
top of the sour cream mixture. Spread
salsa on top, and scatter chopped
scallions across the salsa. Refrigerate
at least 1 hour, and up to 1 day.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a
baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Cut tombstones, ghosts and a scary
tree out of the tortillas, and place
the shapes on the prepared baking
sheet. Bake until lightly browned and
crispy, about 7 to 9 minutes. If desired,
decorate these shapes with a black,
food-safe marker or black decorating
gel. Place shapes in cemetery and
serve with potato chips or tortilla ,
chips. / / \ \ J
Yield: 18 servings
2 (3.9-ounce) packages chocolate-
flavored instant pudding
3 cups cold milk
1 (12-ounce) tub frozen dessert topping,
such as Cool Whip, thawed and divided
15 Oreo cookies, crushed
3 (or more, optional) oblong vanilla
creme sandwich cookies
Black decorating gel
5 candy pumpkins
10 candy corn pieces
1. Whisk together pudding mixes and
milk in a large bowl until thoroughly
combined. Let stand 5 minutes.
Stir in 3 cups of the thawed dessert
topping and half of the Oreo cookie
crumbs. Spread into a 13-by-9-inch
baking dish or casserole. Sprinkle with
remaining Oreo crumbs.
2. Refrigerate 1 hour. Meanwhile,
decorate vanilla sandwich cookies
with decorating gel to resemble
tombstones.
3. Insert decorated cookies into top
of dessert just before serving. Add
candies. Drop large spoonfuls of
remaining thawed dessert topping to
resemble ghosts.
