Peeptastic!

Peeeps! Peeps! Peeps! They look so innocent and cute in all of their yellow sugary marshmellowy goodness... of course, this set is long gone- devoured before the camera was unloaded. Somethings you can't resist.

The proper peep must be yellow and peep-shaped. While the bunny is acceptable, and pink is permissible, other colors and shapes just don't have quite the same miasma as the yellow chick ones do. They have been around forever, set the industry standard, are a timeless classic of Easter goodness. I am a child who was raised on their yearly dose of peeps.

How do *you* like your peeps? Fresh out of the box- totally soft, or slightly stale- the effect of overnight in the basket so the outside is a little hard and the sugar is crunchy? I like the slightly stale effect, but it is soooo hard to wait for-- nuclear peeps or peepsomemores are unethical but tasty- a properly nuked peep doubles in size and becomes molten on the inside, chewy on the out. Peepsomemores happen in the oven- except I don't use graham crackers (to healthy) but the round Maria cookies (look in the Hispanic section)- cookie, chocolate square, peep. Multiethnic magnificence!

And of course, there are other uses for a peep- they are well adapted to car travel. While back Barbie and I (and Grendel, of course) would always go home for Easter to see Mum and Dad, make the dinner, celebrate the Spring. Not a short trip, but worth it. Ride home was fueled by Easter candy (filched from Grendel)- Grendel is a champion car-sleeper, and the poor kid was always smooshed under Pennsylvania-booty (Barbie had a habit of buying large household items on sale at Bosco's. Rugs, floor lamps...plus all the stuff Mum/Dad would give us...) and not only was he smooshed and sleeping, but we 'borrowed' his Easter basket! (He doesn't like black jellybeans...we looooove black jellybeans... I think hunting for the black ones was the original excuse...)

Anyway, on this trip we were right at the NC/Virgina line- think it's I-77, when traffic slowed to a crawl due to construction. Hours (I exaggerate not!) of barely moving, bumper to bumper creeping along. Occasionally one of our companion cars would make a wild break for it and drive down the median or shoulder- one of the memorable ones was a Garbage Truck towing something- a boat? Oscar the grouch on vacation.

Well...long, long, wait in traffic....Grendel wakes up.... sugar, sugar, sugar.... break out the peeps. Delightfully crunchy yet sun-warm mmmmmmm..... I blame the following peep-abuse on the sugar.

Out of boredom and silliness, we impaled a peep on the car antenna. It waved proudly in the wind as we creeped round the mountain...but as the speed increased it started swaying back and forth. Reasonable at first, but as we approached speed limit it was wildly whipping about- of course, directly behind us was a convertible- I was envisioning peep-related fatalities. Peep finally launched itself and flew into the distance- don't know what happened to it as I sped up and left the scene of the crime....