Entry Forty-Two.
Sunday 2007.03.04, 12:44 PM CST.
Licorice.

It is interesting to observe the paths down which one's live takes one, especially on a long-term basis.

I have been feeling quite anxious to return to my DJing roots as of late.  Yes, I have a day job that does what it can to pay the bills, but I miss the rather intensely sickening yet exhilirating love/hate relationship of my younger days behind the tables.

I have had lots of little bits of nostalgia in my head as of late... and one such bit has been quite amusing.  It has to do with licorice.

Yes, licorice.  Black candy stuff.  The "gothic" bits in a candy assortment.  (Ha!)  See, way back when I was a kid, I didn't like licorice.  At all.  It was one of the few types of candy I couldn't stand.

On Saturday, the 14th of April of 1990, about a half-hear after I had started my DJ service (EKG), my best friend Kevin and I had a big party, called "Duohouse Pilgrimage."  The concept worked like this:  A bunch of us got together at Kevin's house, watched two or three movies (in this case, I know that Bad Taste and Heathers were included), ate some pizza, then went to my house and had a big party in the garage with the DJ equipment.  It was goofy and fun.

Well, much in the way that some people pick up drugs or drinking, during the "movie" half of the event, I tried licorice.  My girlfriend at the time was a big fan of licorice jelly beans, and convinced me to try some.  (Sorry, there's no sordid or explicit story hiding behind-the-scenes there.)

So, I tried one of the black licorice jelly beans, and it wasn't as bad as I figured it would be.  Yeah, I was a victim of licorice peer pressure, and I will admit that I enjoyed it more and more over time.  (Again, that's not an allusion to any sort of bondage or twisted sex games - it was just licorice.)

It never quite became something I was insanely crazy about, but it was a nice diversion from other candy every once in a while.  A while later, the girlfriend left the state for a while and cheated on me with multiple others, we broke up, and the storyline of my life progressed as intended.

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So, yesterday, my wife and I were out driving around after lunch, and we decided to stop at Sweet Tooth, a local candy and gift merchant on Harvard Avenue.  What a remarkable place!  It was a much larger store than I had anticipated, and they had a wonderful assortment of candy.

Including a wide range of licorice products.

Now, for nostalgic reasons, I tend to look back to the past a lot during this time of year.  I started in the DJ industry in February of 1988; Depeche Mode released "Enjoy the Silence" in February of 1990 and Violator in March of 1990; my senior prom was in April of 1990, I saw my first shrink (well, since the age of 4/5) in January/February of 1991 and got my heart broken that March.  Lots of memories there - good and bad.  And, recently, I'd had a "hankering," as they say, for some licorice jelly beans.

So, yesterday, I perused their licorice assortment.  They didn't have any batches of just licorice jelly beans, with the exception of Jelly Bellys... and I wasn't in a Jelly Belly mood.  I was looking for the big, cheap licorice Jelly Beans - not for the financial advantage, but for authenticity's sake.

However, as fate would have it, Sweet Tooth (and this is not an insult) was too upscale for that.  Since I knew I wouldn't be able to get classic cheap jelly beans there, I decided to forego jelly beans altogether and check out their other licorice candy.  They allowed me to try it... and I chose to sample the "sweet Holland licorice" (short pieces of licorice ribbon - shaped kind of like Tootsee Rolls) and the "double salt licorice" (little nickel-sized discs).

The "double salt licorice" was more of a learning experience than anything else.  I satiated my curiosity about how licorice would taste if it were extra-salty, not that I had considered licorice to be "salty" in the first place.

So, how did extra-salty licorice taste?  The answer was "bloody horrid."  Through further conversation with the owner, I learned that the "double salt licorice" was mainly popular with Europeans who were comforted to find the same type of licorice they remembered from their homeland.

As for the "sweet Holland licorice..."  Wow.  That was quite probably the best licorice I'd ever had.  Moist and chewy, but not mushy.  Fantastic taste, too - not too blatant or rough.  I bought a half-pound.

If you are a licorice fan, I highly recommend this stuff; it's quite amazing.  On a related note, I have no need for the generic black jelly beans at this point.  :)

Big updates coming somewhat soon...  Stay tuned.

Badger