Cheap Thrill (That's Really Not So Good for You)

Ode to a Chocodile

There once was a golden snack cake
That really wasn't worth the diet break
But one little addition (that does nothing for nutrition).....
Wow, what a difference a dip in chocolate can make.

When I was pregnant with each of my children, I craved these.

Now, I was always a Ding Dong girl growing up. Not a fan of the Twinkies. Of course, once I became an adult and discovered real, baked goods, none of the hermetically-wrapped treats cut it anymore. Yet I still enjoyed and desperately wanted and was willing to risk birth defects for a Chocodile.

I don't know how a simple, waxy chocolate coating can so amazingly transform a hum-drum Twinkie, it just does.

Flash forward many years later and my husband — on an impulse — brings home a box of Twinkies. Youngest Child flips out, thinking they are the most awesome edible ever. I tell him he knows nothing about good snackcakes and tell him about the Chocodile. He must have one.

Well, here's the thing: Chocodiles are not so easy to find. I have only ever seen them — in individual packages — at one southside Circle K. But, there's nothing I won't do for my kids, so I set out to hunt 'em down.

Four stores, two days and one unfortunate incident that had me locked INSIDE the car (seriously? that's a safety feature? being locked in?), I had them.

I admit I am an absolute dessert snob. I turn my nose up at boxed cake mixes (unless they are for a child's birthday party in which case a cake from scratch is just plan stupid). I've also read the ingredients on all these snack food cakes, which makes me shudder knowing that, well, let's just say a vegetarian can't eat them. And yet, I still think a Chocodile is a wickedly good little morsel.