When my sister was here to visit we stopped at a gas station for snacks and drinks before continuing to poke around antique stores. I grabbed a bag of gumdrops because they are my sister’s favorite. As we munched, we discussed the past and the love of gumdrops.
“I love these things.” She said.
“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I got them.”
I asked if she remembered the gumdrop covered Styrofoam trees my mom’s old friend put out every Christmas when we were kids. I don’t remember a lot about this family other than that. The highlights of the visits were slightly hardened gumdrops adhered to Styrofoam with toothpicks. I can remember the taste of the green spearmint and white peppermint in my mouth. 
She remembered.
We talked about all of that gummy sticky candy. Locally produced wine and beer gums that are the adult versions of childhood favorites. Large bags of gummy orange slices consumed too quickly and that heavy sick feeling.
“Speaking of which,” I segued “I made those gumdrop bars I told you about.”
She didn’t remember that I had told her. Probably because it was a couple of years ago at Thanksgiving. That was shortly after I had first acquired all of the recipes and was unsure of what I was going to do with them. I had mentioned them in passing because of her candy dish full of gumdrops.
“They are basic bars, but they have chunks of gummy oranges in them.”
“That sounds like something I’d eat.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But they are really overly sweet.”
“But I’d still like to try them.”
“I should’ve made them when you were here.”
And then we moved onto other conversations. Like how my husband happened to get a job writing trivia for a local pub trivia company.
We invited an old friend over for dinner. I was planning on cooking, but I wasn’t feeling up to it for many reasons. My husband tried to get in touch with our friend to cancel, but he never got the message. We decided that if he came over, we’d take him out for dinner instead. I closed my eyes on the couch for a moment and roused myself as he arrived.
It was the first time he’d seen our house so we did the house tour thing and then left the kids with dinner and instructions to go get our own grown up dinner.
It was a cold night and as we walked into the restaurant, I suggested we sit away from the door and “where it’s quiet” not noticing the HUGE speakers and table full of a computer and stuff.
“They must have a DJ or something.” My husband observed. “So much for the quiet spot.”
We were approached by a waitress with menus and shortly after by another woman.
“Are you guys here for trivia?” She asked handing us some papers.
We did a quick conference and decided that, yes, we were there for trivia. I made a quick call to the kids to let them know we’d be later than expected.
One thing led to another and we dominated at trivia. As we were collecting our winnings, a man approached our table soliciting feedback about how we had enjoyed the game. He presented himself as the owner. We had just met the owner of the restaurant in the speakeasy in the basement, so we weren’t sure what this guy was talking about. “Of the trivia company.” He specified. 
We chatted a bit about what it was like running the trivia games. They have special themed events sometimes. I pointed out that my husband had written trivia before. The man glanced over at my husband as he reached into his pocket and took out a card. “We’re always looking for writers. Email me.”
Now at our house, I sit in front of one laptop and work on my blog while he sits at another laptop with his phone out searching for 20 perfect questions for trivia weekly.
Just to loop this all back around for you, the other morning as I was looking through all the recipes I scanned in and talking about what ingredients I needed to make things, he waited for me to pause and said, “Do you know that most languages don’t have a word for the color orange?”
He went on to explain that orange as a color is usually related to the fruit. But lots of languages refer to orange as being a version of yellow or red-yellow. He went on to tell me that “saffron” existed a long time before “orange” did. “In some places they refer to “orange” as “Portugal”.” He told me excitedly.
Later on, aft my shower, he told me my hair smelled citrusy. “You mean Portuguese?” I asked. We crack ourselves up. 
Gumdrop Bars
Combine:
1 cup orange gumdrop slices, cut
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups brown sugar
Add:
2 T water
1/2 cup nuts
4 egg yolks, beaten
Fold in:
4 egg whites beaten stiff
Put mixture in 2 8×10 pans and bake at 400° for 15-18 minutes.
For other bar recipes check out Corn Flake Bars, Groovy Teen Bars, and Butter Squares.
My husband is a chocolate peanut butter freak. When we go out for milkshakes, it is almost certain that his will be chocolate peanut butter. I used to be crazy about peanut butter, but hate the smell of wet peanut butter, so I hesitate to ever use it because I don’t want to smell the peanut butter as the dishes are being cleaned. When I saw the recipe for Easy Bars, I knew that making these bars would make up for some of my past cooking missteps. 
First of all, I substituted wheat flakes for oats because I am allergic to oats, however Easy Bars should be made with oats. Wheat flakes are a sub par substitute. It’s not that the recipe failed or that they were bad or anything, but the wheat flakes I had were thicker than oats would’ve been, so they didn’t hold their shape as well as I would’ve liked. I am sure that I could figure out some adjustments if I were to make these again, but since the recipe calls for oats, use those. If someone knows of a great substitution, let me know. 
Easy bars are easy. They require very little work and yield delicious results. 
