McDonald’s Chipotle Barbecue Snack Wrap with Grilled Chicken:

The concept of ‘snack items’ at fast food restaurants always makes me wary. “You mean I can come to your restaurant NOT at meals and eat fast food then too?” How else will they work themselves into my day? A bedtime McFlurry full of Ambien? Fish filet-flavored toothpaste? I dunno. This snack wrap tasted like all other snack wraps because everything at McDonald’s always tastes the same and it’s one thing I enjoy about McDonald’s. When I was a kid my mom tricked me into eating things by telling me they “tasted like McDonald’s.”

Rating: 4 stars

McDonald’s Vanilla Ice Cream Cone:

I got the idea to eat this when I was in a car and saw golden arches and pictured a vanilla cone. I had not had a cone or soft-serve ice cream in awhile, and it was even more soft and weird than I remembered. It made me think of reading the Addy series of American Girl Doll books at age 7 and gaining a new appreciation for ice cream after Addy escapes from slavery and gets to try ice cream for the first time and it blows her mind.

Rating: 5 stars

A Werther’s Original Chewy Caramel:

I wanted a caramel like the kind at the co-op that are not chemically sound and thus fade back into piles of sugar the second you eat them. These were all I could find. I bought both the chews and the hard candy, which I called “chewies” and “suckies” respectively, making my boyfriend laugh at me until I wondered if chewies and suckies are something dirty that people who watch porn know about. The caramel was too elastic and hard to chew and felt fake.

Rating: 1 star

Maui Wowi Pizza from “Gumby’s”:

Gumby’s is a pizza place my boyfriend knew about and desired while we were in Wisconsin. We organized our whole day of eating around ordering Gumby’s while drunk at 2 a.m. and succeeded. This pizza has barbecue sauce, chicken and maybe some other things. I remember drunkenly enjoying the marinara sauce it came with but then eventually feeling slightly nauseous and going to bed with the recycling bin next to me. I did not get sick. The pizza was delicious cold in the morning.

Rating: 4 stars

A Barbecue Quesadilla at some restaurant in Madison:

I ate 1.5 triangles of this quesadilla while picking out the jalapeños. There is usually something I pick out of every type of quesadilla. I felt relieved that this one was for spiciness and not to save calories, so I could look like a chick who is “chill” about food although admittedly wimpy about the spice quotient.

Rating: 3 stars

–Becky Lang

Photo by Neil Olstad