National Hostess Twinkie Day - April 6th

I'm not kidding, today is National Hostess Twinkie Day!  A few years ago we lost the Twinkie because of bankruptcy proceedings, but they came back about 6 months later.

The original Twinkie used a banana cream filling, but due to banana rationing during WWII the company switched to vanilla cream.  Twinkies have been scorned by healthy food afficionados, and there are a myriad of jokes about them, too.  Contrary to the urban legend that a Twinkie can last forever, their shelf life is ideally 10 days at the most, although a maximum shelf life of 45 days has also been noted.

The Texas State Fair introduced deep fried Twinkies, which met with popular acclaim. They are now sold in some ballparks. I've never tried that, and it's been a long time since I've had a Twinkie in any form, but I think if you eat sensibly most of the time you can indulge in a guilty little pleasure now and then.  I may just celebrate National Twinkie Day today! The Detroit Tigers have their home opener today and have a lot of new items on their menu, but sadly, deep fried Twinkies did not make the cut.

Image courtesy hostesscakes.com

February 15th, National What Day?

Yes, February 15^th is National Gumdrop Day.  Who knew?  Gumdrops have been around since the early 1800’s but the origins of this national day of recognition are obscure. That means I couldn’t track it down.

Gumdrops were a prominent feature in the board game ’Candy Land’ and they are still widely available. It seems to me that they are used for cake and cookie decorations a lot, too.

If you’re tired of all the Valentine’s Day chocolate but still have a sweet tooth, today you have a free pass to enjoy all of the gum drops that your heart desires.