John Doe

That's the name of the candy bar I got my partners for Christmas this year - I had fun playing Santa today. It is the creation of Bloomsberry & Co., a chocolate company originating from New Zealand that now sells in the U.S. I received one from my creative sister-in-law and brother for Halloween, in my work mail. I was wondering how I could top the Giotto's rocket blaster I got last year for everyone to clean their scopes, and was glad that someone else did the legwork for me.

Every chocolate bar offered has amazing cover art and clever sayings, tailored for all holidays. Some are incredibly racy, like this one:

Others are sweet:

Anyway, you get the picture. It's fun just to look. There are tons of them. And at $5.00, it won't break the bank. Fortunately the quality of the chocolate lives up to the packaging. I was happy to find the quintessential pathologist's candy bar in the John Doe - death by chocolate. How delightfully morbid.

I also ran around to different departments passing out Killer Pecans and White Trash snack mix, two of my favorite food gifts. I was so happy to see Killer Pecans back on the shelves at the gourmet food stores this year - I couldn't even find them on a website last year and I have mourned their absence for two to three years. Pecans laced in sugar, butter, cayenne, and cumin - oh my god they are incredible. I kept checking to see if histology opened their tin so I could sneak some. I got a tin for my house for Christmas Eve dinner snacking.

Almost as fun as giving was receiving - someone from the blood bank made some incredibly gooey lemon cookies (I got the recipe), someone from the gross room made homemade smoky, chili powder pecans and peanut butter fudge. I could go on and on, like the ever expanding size of my stomach capacity. The biggest hit for the kids was our business manager's Oreo cookie truffles - I got the recipe for this, too, and instructions to vary with Nutter Butter's. Hopefully if I am brave enough to attempt cooking next week it will go over better than last Christmas. Well, re-reading that post made me realize I didn't properly describe the angst and severe five minute couch depression of the failed candy experiment. I never tried again -- needed a year to recover.

Playing Santa makes me so happy. Work is done. Now on to the kids later this week.