And Now for Some Savory Relief From Halloween's Impending Sugar Storm
On Trader Joe's Everything but the Bagel Nut Duo and Dramarama's "Anything Anything"
The Snack
Trader Joe's Everything but the Bagel Nut Duo with Almonds and Cashews
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Oh no. I ate too much candy.
Launching this newsletter the same month as Halloween was an interesting choice on my part. In an effort to “research” and “investigate” current candy and snack trends, my day-to-day life has become overrun with Bubulubu’s, boba popsicles, Tootsie Roll Mini Bites, and popcorn-flavored KitKats all while also trying to keep up with this year’s seasonal offerings like Nerds Candy Corn and Candy Corn Red Vines.
I even bought and ate that turkey dinner monstrosity from Brachs! I very much regret it!
Now, we are two days out from Halloween and I am done. I’m over it! I don’t think I can eat another piece of candy. (For, like, the next 24 hours. Let’s not be dramatic.)
Life is all about balance, everything in moderation, variety is the spice of life — blah blah blah. All the clichés are true.
Enter Trader Joe’s Everything but the Bagel Nut Duo with Almonds and Cashews. This heroic salty and savory snack has reset my sweet tooth.
The Nut Duo is a 60/40 combination of almonds and cashews, the two best nuts in the nut world. (You heard me macadamias, you buttery but bland bastards.) The fat almonds and cashews are coated in especially potent garlic and onion glaze and then rolled in black and white sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and coarse sea salt and the result is — POW! — a flavorsome punch to the tongue.
Like, these Everything nuts are the most explosive nuts I have ever put in my mouth!
Wait, no, that doesn’t read right.
These nuts burst in my mouth with a salty decadence I never thought possible?
Nope. Scratch that.
Look, I’m not sure how else to describe it without it sounding overtly sexual and this newsletter is supposed to be PG or maybe PG-13. Just know that this shit is delicious, OK? I have had a lot of salty nuts in my mouth — I KNOW HOW THAT SOUNDS — and this Everything Nut Duo is like whiplash on the tastebuds and it is the perfect snack to have on hand when you need to balance out Halloween weekend’s sugar squall.
Plus, while much of the seed and salt mixture ends up chipping off the nuts, the glaze remains and the glaze is where all the flavor is. So when you’re done chomping on the salty, crunchy, garlicky, oniony nuts, your reward is a few tablespoons of Everything but the Bagel spice at the bottom of the bag! It’s a feature, not a flaw — you can sprinkle that pungent confetti on avocado toast, salads, popcorn, and… ice cream? Give it a whirl! That Jeni’s Everything Bagel ice cream was legit delicious and with the right ice cream-to-topping balance it could work.
The Song
“Anything, Anything” by Dramarama
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Even with a savory reprieve, coming down from Halloween’s sugar high can be agonizing, and few songs truly capture how it feels to be spinning out of control the way Dramarama’s “Anything, Anything” does.
The piercing guitar wails like a warning, the urgent drumming verges on reckless, and much like a child on Halloween night — heart pumping only candy and adrenaline — the song feels like it could go off the rails at any moment.
The live version from the band’s 1990 release Live at the China Club, is even faster, pulsing with impassioned anguish. Just like Halloween candy, it’s the perfect bite-sized thrill and once I start, I cannot easily stop. I have listened to this song literally thousands of times over the course of my 41 years — 15,117 days — of life. I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times today! My husband can attest. Thank you for your patience, Robby.
And lest you think this isn’t an appropriate jam for Halloween weekend, consider this: Not only does singer John Easdale offer up candy along with “diamonds, pearls, and hundred dollar bills” in an effort to save his deteriorating marriage, the song only found success after it was prominently featured in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.
Here it is being the soundtrack to this very '80s karate montage starring Andras Jones as Rick.
Things don’t end well for Rick. In the film, he is eventually turned into a meatball and devoured by Freddy Krueger. But I digress.
Am I guilty of replacing “anything, anything, anything” in the chorus with “everything, everything, everything” while eating a handful of the Everything but the Bagel nuts? Sure. Is that what Easdale had in mind when he wrote the heart-wrenching break-up song? Probably not. But art is subjective, art is interactive, art leaves room for interpretation and I can’t be held responsible for what I think is funny when detoxing from a month’s worth of candy.
So what are you waiting for? Grab some nuts, blast Dramarama as loudly as possible, and sing the wrong words if you want. It’s Halloween! Get weird and have a great weekend. I hope you don’t get turned into a meatball.