Don Quixote with an impossible quest. Ponce De Leon exploring for the Fountain of Youth. Humphrey Bogart seeking gold in the Sierra Madre. Great searches all, but none can compare to my hunt for the Mini-Snickers Ice Cream Bar.
As a candy craving youth, I was never a tremendous fan of the Snickers Bar. While I did prefer Snickers to its stablemate, the overly-fluffy 3 Musketeers Bar, Snicks just didn’t compare well to the smooth and sweet Milky Way Bar. The peanuts in the Snickers Bar just felt wrong.
It was between 7th and 8th grade, while a camper at a Rogers Park summer day camp, that I discovered frozen Snickers Bars at the concession stand. I found that the crunch of the peanuts merged perfectly with the icy-chilled nougat, chocolate, and caramel. I enjoyed those frozen bars at break time all summer long, and then forgot all about them when the school year rolled around and camp came to an end.
It was years — more like decades–later that I came across Snickers Ice Cream Bars at the local grocery. Snickery flavored ice cream, chocolate coating, one or two peanuts. I bought a box and fell in love.
But there was a problem. Six to a box, they were large and loaded with calories. A blood glucose nightmare. Fortunately, on my next weekend shopping trip, I found Mini-Snickers Ice Cream Bars, a box of 12 with just 90 calories each. Surely my nutritionist couldn’t object to that.
So each evening, after finishing dinner and before clearing the plates off the table, I would pet the dog and walk to the fridge, open the freezer door (frequently forgetting to close it after) and treat myself to my 90 calorie bar of heaven.
Until the pandemic. While you were noticing the toilet paper disappearing from the supermarket shelves, I noticed that there were no Snickers Ice Cream Bars of any size to be found. My depression was palpable.
I replaced the Snickers with Mini-Ice Cream Sandwiches, squishy concoctions of phony ice cream between two faux-chocolate wafers. Dreadful. And I waited. After a few months, the full-size Snickers Ice Cream Bars reappeared. But where were the Minis? Nowhere, man.
And still, a year into Corona, I search. At every grocery store we go to (Sunset, Woodman’s, Mariano’s, even Whole Foods,) I prowl the freezer cases hunting for the elusive 90 calories. Barb knows we can’t leave the store until I have investigated. And I find nothing, nada, zilch.
What about online shopping sites? I enter Snickers Mini Ice Cream Bars into search bars and the sites just say Not Available in this Zip Code, Not Available In this City, Not Available All!
But one day they will be back. I just know it. Until then, I will join Don Quixote and dream the impossible dream.
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