Blue Orchid!

A teenage girl. A world filled with monsters. An adventure unlike any other.

Blue Orchid is my manga-inspired comic series following a young South East Asian heroine as she battles strange creatures and discovers what it takes to become a true hero.

Available now at bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/ or on Amazon.

Fruity Chocolate

Blending chocolate and fruit together is one of the most common flavour combinations out there. The thing is, many, maybe even most of them are not great. It's amazing how many companies blend fruit with chocolate and get it wrong. There are thousands of ways to get this combination wrong as well. Poor choice of fruit, poor quality chocolate, bad ratio of ingredients can all ruin what could be a great combination. Maybe on paper it seems like an easy thing to do, but I've tasted so many bad fruit and chocolate combinations that I'm pretty certain in reality it is not.

Check out the latest fruit and chocolate combination, spoilers, it didn't really work.

Healthy Chocolate Cereals

 I’m not sure which cereal was the first to introduce the concept of chocolate for breakfast. More importantly I’m not really sure when the first cereal brand added chocolate to their breakfast menu, but it’s been happening much longer than I’ve been alive. Chocolate and breakfast have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, sort of. The idea of chocolate and breakfast together has been something I’ve known about for all of my life, but in our house any cereal that had chocolate was considered junk food and not healthy enough for breakfast. The only time we would get these chocolate cereals was at my grandfather’s house, who fed us full of sugar all the time.

It should also be noted that I’m talking about both chocolate flavoured cereals, cereals a that contain cocoa as well as cereals that have full-on pieces of chocolate. I feel like in my younger days most “chocolate” cereals were in fact chocolate flavoured. I’m thinking of things like Count Chocula and Cocoa Pebbles Cereal. I can’t recall having healthy cereals with just cocoa powder or even fancy cereals with real pieces of chocolate.

What I’m getting at is, there appears to be a big shift when it comes to chocolate in cereals. I think it’s a shift that’s been growing for decades now. Don’t get me wrong, the old sugary chocolate regulars are still around, but the trend that just seems to be growing out of control is “healthy” cereals that contain pieces of real chocolate. It seems to be a really popular trend with granola mostly, but there are a few others as well. 

The trend is getting so extreme that many of these cereals not only offer you chocolate in each bowl, but they allow you to choose what kind of chocolate you might want. Many brands now offer their “healthy” cereal with white, dark or milk chocolate. On occasion some offer a combination of chocolate types as well.

I understand why people buy these cereals, chocolate in granola tastes great. What I don’t understand is if you can sell chocolate in cereal and sell it as healthy. If it was just cocoa I could understand it, but when you add full on pieces of chocolate it feels a little less authentically healthy. Now don’t take my word on this as I’m not an expert in healthy eating at all. Maybe chocolate (not just cocoa) has some kind of health benefit I don’t know about. Trust me I’d be very happy to hear that news.

Is chocolate going to take over the cereal isle? My taste buds might be happy about this prospect, but I feel like my waste line might be a little disappointed.

Folding Cranes with Kit Kat Wrappers

 I can't resist a fun art project, particularly when it's on the back of a bag of Kit Kat bars.

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Some Snack Facts!

 

Ever wondered where your favourite snacks came from?

Snack Facts is a fun comic that follows Barbara and Sir Francis Sweetums as they uncover the surprising history behind some of the world's most popular treats.

Grab your copy at candycritic.org/snackfacts/ or on Amazon.

Cheese and Chips

It's a little weird, the name of my company is Beware The Cheese, yet for the most part I'm not really a big fan of cheese. Actually, that kind of makes sense now that I think about it. Most people assume that I might love cheese because it features so much in my creative life, but I'm actually pretty picky. There are only certain cheeses that I enjoy, and even then there are only certain ways I enjoy them. Fortunately as a potato chip flavour I'm generally pretty happy. There are few versions of cheese flavoured potato chips that I don't like. Oddly, from a creative standpoint, I'd actually like to taste one that I hate.

Check out my latest cheesy review.

Quick List - My Go To Snacks and Candy

 Here's a quick list of my go to snacks and candy. They may not be the best, but their the ones that I crave and that are close to my heart.