Junk Food Nation, I’VE HAD IT!  HAD IT…with Fantasy Football.  The bane of my existence.  The reason that Sundays start of wonderful and bright and end with me under a blanket cursing the world wondering why the hell I do this year after year.  Grumble.

I wrote a piece a while back about why I only play in one fantasy football league.  The reasons were simple – besides the overwhelming time commitment (drop/adds are a full time job, man!) the main problem was that too many fantasy football teams resulted in not being able to enjoy games in real life.  You end up in a situation where you’re both rooting for and against a player catching a touchdown, for example.  I don’t know what insanity is, but that’s pretty close.

So I only play in ONE fantasy football league a year, and I think its very beneficial.  You get to know all the players, you get to know who’s good and not good, it provides a meaningful topic of conversation when you meet some idiot at a party and have nothing else to talk about.  Fantasy football can be a good thing; it keeps you interested in football, especially when your real life team is just so-so. Although I’M STILL WITH YOU, BUFFALO.  EJ MANUEL = THE FUTURE.  WOOT WOOT.

Of course, the one problem with playing in only one fantasy football league is that if that team SUCKS, it RUINS EVERYTHING.  My season started out so positively!  I was 4-2!  Everything was clicking on all cylinders!  Then came SIX STRAIGHT WEEKLY LOSSES (I blame my trip to Las Vegas) and now I want to smash my TV into a billion pieces.  Seriously.

I start out each Sunday with such hope – “Oh this guy has a great matchup!  This guy is ranked high!  ESPN says I have the most desirable FLEX player in!  There’s no WAY I could lose!” Then, as the games progress, and I see my opponent score TD after TD on me and I stare hopelessly at Danny Amendola to JUST CATCH A BALL JUST CATCH A DAMN BALL USE YOUR HANDS CMMOOOONNNNNNNNNN… that’s when I know that I have a problem.  And my problem is DANNY AMENDOLA MY GOD I DRAFTED YOU IN THE FOURTH ROUND &(*#&%(*)&%%&(*$#@%

*breathe* Sorry.  Anyways, as any fantasy football player knows, each year is variable, and the real NFL lives by the axiom “Any Given Sunday”…so I know I shouldn’t be surprised.  Still, it doesn’t make it any easier.  So, from now on I’m just going to focus on Buffalo going 5-0 down the stretch.  I believe they can beat Atlanta, Jacksonville and TB.  I think the game vs Miami is winnable.  And with New England in Week 17 resting their players?  It’s a possibility.  9-7, BUFFALO!  LET’S DO THIS.

Please, tell me your fantasy football updates in the comments below – good season, bad season, what went wrong?  Would love to hear.

Today’s junk food: J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes!

J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes: The Money Shot

I’ve only reviewed one other J&D’s product on this blog so far, and it just happened to be another Sriracha-flavored product: their Sriracha-flavored popcorn.  It was pretty good.  And here we go again: J&D Foods is back with their brand new Sriracha Candy Canes!

I first saw these on Foodbeast, and knew I had to have my friends at J&D’s send me some!  And they were good enough to do so. Thanks, J&D’s!

J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes: He likes it hot?

The box of J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes had loving little cartoon drawings of the popular Rooster Sauce all over the box.  This prose makes me chuckle though – savior of “bland Asian foods”? What kind of Asian food YOU eatin’?  All of my cookin’ is DY-NO-MITE!  Oh wait, I use Sriracha IN my cooking.  Damnit.

J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes: Made in Canada?

J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes are 60 calories per candy, contain no visible Sriracha sauce (in the ingredient list), and are made…IN CANADA??? Do they even KNOW what Sriracha IS in Canada?

Hmmm…Sriracha on Poutine…I LIKE IT!

J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes: Red and green!

J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes look pretty standard, red and green and full of holiday color.  And they didn’t smell like anything unusual either.  But how would they taste?

J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes: Spicy!

WOOO SPICY.  Ok, let’s break down these J&D’s Sriracha Candy Canes:

First of all, these candy canes are clearly NOT mint-based, they are more of a cinnamon based candy cane.  As soon as I snapped off a piece of cane into my mouth, the first taste I got was a general sweet cinnamon flavor.  Not too spicy at all.  Just a 

As I sucked more, the spice started to come out.  I grew impatient, and crunched a little to break up the piece, and then sucked on the shattered pieces in my mouth. BOOM.  A LOT more spice came out…WOOO.  Pretty spicy for the non-spice eater.  And for me, a spice eater, these had a decent burn.

The flavor/sensation was almost like a reverse Fireball.  Instead of the outside being really spicy and having that fade into a generally flavorless sweet cinnamon candy, this went the other way, with the spice growing on the inside.

The burn was pretty good, and stuck to all the different parts of my mouth, including my throat.  Definitely made me cough at one point because I didn’t expect the spice to linger when I swallowed.  Interestingly, the burn that remained wasn’t a sugary burn at all – it was definitely a peppery sort of burn that tingled all over.  VERY cool sensation.

These did NOT taste like Sriracha, but as far as mimicking the burn of Sriracha goes, J&D’s did a WONDERFUL job here.  Really nailed it.  I told the Junk Food Gal I couldn’t remember the last time I ate a spicy cinnamon junk food…it’s been a while.  Really really nice job by J&D Foods.

If you can get your hands on these, I think you’ll enjoy them!

PURCHASED AT: Sent to me but available online here.

COST: $7.99 a dozen

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy