Skip navigation
sponsored by 

A pantry full of Guilty Pleasures

Cookies with faces, caffeinated wonders and the pleasures of deep-frying

MSNBC
updated 7:28 p.m. ET May 31, 2007

Eating is an activity made for Guilty Pleasures.

Whether it's sugar overload, the beauties of junk food or something you probably should have given up after college, our tastes stay with us, and darned if we don't keep circling back to the same shame-inducing delights time after time.

Here's a shopping cart's worth of indulgences, with an extra helping of guilt on the side.

Story continues below ↓
advertisement

Cookies with faces
A round cookie, unless it's an Oreo, doesn't offer many options. But a cookie with a head or a face certainly does. While I hate shortbread cookies — give me a Samoa or a Thin Mint over a Trefoil any day -- I'm particularly fond of Animal Crackers, and I think that's because they have faces. Publix, my grocery store, makes particularly delicious animal crackers that have a variety of interesting animals, which I eat in order of how bite-offable their body parts are. (This makes me sound like I need serious therapy, but come on, we're talking about cookies here.) I like to start eating the parrot-shaped ones shaped by biting off their tails. Teddy Grahams, my other favorite small animal-shaped cookie, are essentially graham crackers, but with tiny arms and legs that just beg to be broken off between my teeth. Let's see an actual graham cracker offer that. -Andy Dehnart

Supermarket caviar
Romanoff caviar
MSNBC.com

Caviar may bring to mind images of Russian royalty scarfing blinis and toast points, but fish roe has a far more primitive appeal: It’s a salt lick for humans. Spoon a couple fish eggs into your mouth, savor their cool smoothness with your tongue and then chomp – with one bite, you send a satisfying rush of salt to your brain. Think potato chips, but without all the preservatives. The good news is you don’t need to pay $100 an ounce. Slum it with $3-an-ounce fish roe, use some of your savings to buy a nice bottle of wine (or two) and even if you can tell the difference (which, OK, you totally can), after that third glass of wine you probably won’t care. Don’t think your local supermarket carries caviar? You’d be surprised. Fish roe from the lowly lumpfish is nearly always available, stored next to the other forgotten salty fish, such as sardines and herring. For an equally cheap but even more awesome treat, hunt down a Scandinavian specialty store or bribe a friend going abroad. Four words: Caviar in a tube. -Lori Smith

Jujubes
Jujubes
MSNBC.com

Jujubes, better known for their complicit role in the theft of countless fillings, are a dentist’s best pal. Here's a candy described by its own manufacturer as having a “hard, break-glass quality texture.” Created in 1920, the little dabs of rock-solid delight are, yes, an acquired taste. They’re impossible to bite when cold, squickishly mushy when warm and, well, they taste like soap. (I mean, really: violet-flavored candy?) But there I am, stuffing my mouth. A full bag — Jujubes are best bought in bulk — can disappear in the course of a single viewing of “Swingers.” Talking also isn’t advised mid-Jujube; you sound like you have marbles in your mouth — which, to be honest, you sort of do. It’s frankly amazing that these little buggers are even sold anymore. Each time I visit the candy shop, I’m convinced the Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company will have come to its senses and done away with them. (It bought the Heide candy line, which includes Jujubes and their lumpen cousins, Jujyfruits, from Hershey in 2002.) Yet Jujubes are always still there, awaiting another chance to do battle with my poor jaw. -Jon Bonné

Slurpees
Guilty Pleasure
7-Eleven Slurpees
MSNBC.com's Gael Fashingbauer Cooper shares her theories about different flavors and how to heal “brain freeze.”

MSNBC.com

If summer beverages were people, lemonade and iced tea would be dainty elderly ladies, and the Slurpee would be the stoner who bursts in late to the party wearing paisley board shorts and neon-colored flip-flops. There’s nothing nutritional or healthy about Slurpees, but they sure are fun. As kids we tried to only visit our local 7-Eleven when the female clerks were working — the Slurpee machines were still behind the counter then, and only the women would mix flavors (in kid lingo, that’s called a “suicide”). Now the Slurpee spouts are out in the store, meaning you can freely compose a drink that’s one part blue raspberry, one part root beer, one part grapermelon and one part Purple S’crème (looks purple, tastes vanilla). Some states, including my birthplace of Minnesota, no longer have 7-Elevens in their states, but for those who do: slurp on, my icy-mouthed brethren. -Gael Fashingbauer Cooper 


Sponsored links

Resource guide

Get Your 2008 Credit Score

Search Jobs

Find your next car

Find Your Dream Home

Find a business to start

$7 trades, no fee IRAs