The Best Snack

I am a fiend for sugar. I always have been. So when my parents took me on a vacation to Vermont when I was a kid, hidden away in the mind numbing boredom of a resort that offered very little in the way of entertainment for kids and definitely none of the usual amounts of candy and cookies I was used too, I got desperate.

There was only one place to go to get candy-a tiny general store about a forty minute walk from the cabin where we were staying. I made that walk every day in the hot sun to get my preferred snack for that vacation, which was peanut butter M&Ms.

I really liked them. I liked them enough to want to get more at the store when we got home, and I opened them up, expecting that same wonderful flavor.

It wasn't the same. They were dry. They were boring. They were cold.

It took my ten year old brain a few minutes to figure out: the long walk in the hot sun is what made them good. More specifically, the heat is what made them good. So I got my most brilliant idea ever-put them in the microwave.

That started an obsession that has lasted to this day.

M&M shells do not melt in the microwave. The chocolate on the inside, however, will, mixing with the peanut butter in swirly creaminess. A few will burn, just slightly, adding a deeper flavor.

Don't believe me? Try it. Microwave a bag of peanut butter M&Ms, just enough. I have yet to find a person who dislikes it.