Sometimes All That Wandering Can Be a Sweet Thing

Last week I had occasion to make a trip back up to Salem, Massachusetts (where most of you seem to think I should just go ahead and move to but then where would my "Go To" place be??) and while I was there I had the chance to make a visit to Ye Olde Pepper Companie - an unassuming little building on Derby Street directly across from the House of the Seven Gables.

It might not look like much from the outside but once you pass through that door you become like a kid in a candy shoppe because that's exactly what it is run by America's oldest candy company as a matter of fact!  I'm not going to tempt you with all of the chocolaty and sugary goodness to be found at Ye Olde Pepper Companie in this post but if you'd like to pop over to The Distracted Wanderer I certainly will as I show you around inside and introduce you to America's oldest produced candy - the Salem Gibralter.

So what are you waiting for?  You're not going to gain any weight just looking! Honest!

Venturing Out on Vacation, Part Fifteen: A Sweet Break

Have I mentioned in these posts about our vacation to New Hampshire and Maine what a good sport Jamie was about being dragged to covered bridges and lighthouses? Chances are good, that's not exactly the dream that vacations are made of for 17-year olds but she really did well with the whole trip and didn't complain once that I can recall.  Of course, we went on the vacation two months ago so I may have forgotten if she complained but I'm pretty sure she didn't!  Anyhow, I wanted to make sure we did a few things that she'd enjoy (like the Fryeburg Fair way back in Part Twelve of these posts!) and that included a stop at one of Maine's "sweetest" attractions.

Len Libby Candies is located on Route 1 near Higgins Beach in Scarborough, Maine - a bit south of Portland.  When the business first opened in 1926, it was owned and operated by its namesake, Len Libby, who had opened his own shop when he retired after working as a master candy-maker in Portland for several decades.

In 1949, the business was sold to Fernand Hemond who had begun his apprenticeship as a candy-maker while still in college at the Higgins Beach shop.  When he took over the business, Fernand promised to continue to run the shop using the original recipes and traditions that had been taught to him by Len Libby and to this day, he has kept that promise. 

So ... you may be asking yourself what makes this candy shop any more special than any other candy shop, right?  Simple!  This candy shop is home to Lenny, the world's only life-size chocolate moose! 

I first heard about Lenny from my cousin Amy who had shown me pictures of him from when she had made a weekend trip to Maine with her friend Vanessa this past summer.  Having not seen any other moose on our journey through Maine, I figured this might be Jamie's only chance to see one so we stopped in. 

Honestly, pictures do not do Lenny justice as he's really quite a large fellow standing there in his white chocolate pond! 

Joining Lenny is Libby, a Maine black bear, and her two cubs - Cocoa & Chip. 

Mama Libby is in the middle in the picture below but I'm not really sure which cub is Cocoa and which one is Chip!  

In addition to being home to a 1,700-pound chocolate moose, Len Libby Candies sells some very tasty treats including taffy, truffles, fudge, and chocolates in all sorts of shapes including lobsters, moose, seashells, and - my favorite - lighthouses! Oh, and may I highly recommend the Pecan Caramel Popcorn which was absolutely delicious! Jamie's favorite was a chocolate-covered s'more that she made short work of though I did get a small taste and it, too, was quite delicious.

All in all, it was a very sweet break before we went back to hunting the Maine coast for more lighthouses which were a lot easier to find than moose - real or chocolate!

Behold the Long-Awaited M&Ms!

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At long last it's the final chapter in the Personalized M&M Saga that began way back on April 3rd when I found out that I had won the contest to be the 500th commenter at Bobbarama - the very funny humor blog of an inkblot named Bob (who looks rather like a smiley-faced M&M with hair himself!)

I'm sure that when I won the contest, Bob had no earthly clue that it would take me over three weeks and seven different posts to finally decide what to put on the M&Ms but it turned out to be the dilemma of a lifetime that was finally resolved with not one but two polls wherein I asked you, my faithful readers, to cast votes for your favorite sayings. Had it been left to me I might well have ended up with M&Ms emblazoned with "duh ..." and "uhm ..." on them!

When I arrived home today, the above box was sitting on the front porch and immediately brought a smile to my face as I knew that all of the waiting was over and inside would be not just any M&Ms but my M&Ms. Not to be overly dramatic but the excitement was just about as good as Christmas morning as a child when you come downstairs and see all of those presents under the Christmas tree! Granted, it's the middle of May and the box was sitting under the mailbox but I'm sure you get the idea!

Even though I wanted to rip right into the box as soon as I came in the house I decided to be an adult about things and changed out of my work uniform first, read my latest utility bill (and gasped in shock and dismay at the amount listed), and then thumbed through the rest of the junk that passes for mail these days. Finally Amanda told me to quit fooling around and open up the box for crying out loud!

Inside the cardboard box was a foam container and inside that was an abundance of bubble wrap along with the above four packages of my personalized M&Ms. Aren't they pretty? Amanda immediately snatched up a package and attempted to beat a hasty retreat out of the kitchen with it. I managed to stop her and a hand-to-hand battle ensued whereupon I wrested the bag from the hands of a hungry teenager! As a way of killing time until I actually opened one of the packages, she began popping the bubble wrap which was annoying but at least kept her from devouring an entire bag of M&Ms in what would surely have been no time flat!

Because I'm getting old and apparently blind, I really wasn't able to read the sayings on the candies very well until I took the above close-up picture! Part of the reason that some of them are upside down is because I couldn't even see well enough to position them all in the same direction! If I could make one suggestion to the good folks over at the M&M factory - they might want to change the printing to the same color as the lone "M" on the front of the candy as that's in gray and much easier to read than the black print - at least for those of us who really should wear glasses but are stubbornly refusing!

Upon completion of the photo session, I finally allowed Amanda to eat some of the M&Ms and then sat down to write this post. Halfway through she came into the living room and grabbed the bag that sat next to me on the couch. When I told her to give them back she asked "Why? Do they have your name on them? Besides, they're telling me to eat them!" Ah yes, my daughter the wise ass, I have no idea where she would have come by such a trait!

In conclusion, a big thank you once again to Bob for giving me the opportunity to have so much fun with this and for such a fantastic prize! The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have Bob deliver them in person but I guess it's a long trip from San Diego just to deliver candy! I'll be taking one bag to work with me tomorrow to show off over there and hiding the other two before my chocolate-crazed teen decides that they need to melt in her mouth and not in my hand!

You're all welcome to help yourself to a cyber-handful!