The Guilty Pleasures you savor

Our Guilty Pleasures this year included food as its own category for the first time. Judging from the e-mails, our readers have some equally strange appetites. 

You suggested no shortage of your own guilty treats, along with indulgent TV shows, movies and more. 

Some of your suggestions:

FOOD

The sweet ...
Baker's milk chocolate mints straight out of the freezer. They're the best because you tuck them in your cheek and drink your Starbucks and they melt at a lovely leisurely rate, prolonging the pleasure like a talented lover. -Janet, Omaha, Neb.

Edys Orange Swiss Frozen Orange and Chocolate melts in your mouth. And it has Vitamin C!  -Judy, Dartmouth, Mass.

Boardwalk caramel corn. Forget new fangled kettle corn, movie theater popcorn, and Cracker Jack. Heaven can be purchased at a seaside tourist trap in a crinkly plastic bag. Brown sugar and butter coated, sweet and crunchy, and now imported from the beach by my local food coop, caramel corn is purchased when I'm shopping ALONE and remains hidden in the minivan, where I eat it ALONE, feeling guilty for the ridiculous price I just paid, for the calories racking up with each mouthful and for not sharing with my family, but somehow I manage to finish the bag. -Cordelia

My favorite guilty pleasure is fudge. I don't care what kind ... dark chocolate, milk chocolate, peanut butter, with nuts, without, the list goes on and on. And the best fudge comes from Gatlinburg, Tenn. When I go, it's not unlike me to purchase a few pounds of it under the pretense that I am buying it for people at home. Only, it doesn't make it home, usually. -Reann, Pascagoula, Miss.

I could eat a whole bag of Tootsie Rolls by myself in an hour. I have been known to even pick them out from one of those huge bags of "100 kinds of Halloween candy." Dig, dig, dig ... I will kype every single brown, orange and white wrapped chocolate stick in the office candy dish (even if they are as hard as rocks, doesn't matter), knowing I will get my hand slapped! Then I take my hands-full stash back to my office, enjoying every bite into oblivion! -Judy, Tulsa, Okla.

You mentioned Jujubes, but DOTS have those beat hands down. DOTS are never tooth shattering hard, and even warm they remain very chewy. They are best because after you initially 'eat' them, you spend the next ten minutes using your tongue to get the remains off you teeth. A dentist's worst nightmare, but a movie goer's best friend. -Jeff, Vancouver, Wash.

... and the cheesy ...
I still love Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese, or shells and cheese for variety. It's all about the gooey Velveeta in the foil packet. (I always take a little taste when making it.) I love good  (read expensive) cheeses like Pont-l'Évêque, Époisses, Chèvre, Brie, Camembert or Double Glouchester, but those experiences have not affected my enjoyment of Velveeta. Recently a co-worker brought in a cheese dip for tortilla chips which I loved instantly. I raved until it embarrassed her; "All it is is Velveeta and diced Ortega chilis, Alan!" Today for lunch I had leftover mac 'n cheese, along side my home-made sloppy joe-style ground beef. No greens. I'm ready for a nap. -Alan, Seattle, Wash.

Who can resist the orange-fingered goodness of a bag of Cheetos? I love to find the most heavily coated ones and roll them around in my fingers before popping them into my mouth and rolling them around on my tongue. The beauty is that after about ten of those your fingers are cheesy confections themselves. No matter how hard you suck the cheese off, your fingers remain Cheetos orange for the rest of the afternoon. There's no hiding this guilty pleasure, you've been marked. -Kristin, Tulare, Calif.

... and the bizarre
When I lived in Germany many years ago, there was a soft drink called Lift which tasted like really strong lemonade with a healthy dose of baking soda added to it. Gross, right? Well, it was an acquired taste. The first time I tasted it, I think I spit it out, it was so bad. But it was very common in Germany and hard to ignore. Every so often I would have another Lift. Before I left Germany (lived there from 1978 to 1981) I grew to like it, and even crave a Lift now and then! -Karen, Arlington, Va.

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