REVIEWS
Strain Safari with The Strainger fourth tasted like the second, so being a professional, I had to do a quality check on all of them in a single sitting. And yes, that’s why the intro to this article is as long as it is. Please send more.
A VA R I E T Y O F E D I B L E S F R O M P O S I T I V E G R O W T H G A R D E N S
Positive Growth Gardens Edible Review: I can be a picky eater. It’s not that I’m trying to be particular about my food, I just know what I like. The problem with knowing what you like, however, is that you will most likely fall into a trend of eating the same thing every night. I spent most of my twenties binging on cheap Stouffer’s pizzas, easy pasta recipes, and a couple of Dagwood-inspired sandwiches that could’ve choked Scooby Doo. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find my weekly menu written in chalk on a board above a highschool snack shack, nutrition and taste thrown out for a bland culinary routine. Thankfully I’ve seen the error of my previous diet and now enjoy a myriad of different flavors and cuisines, now finding new foods to be particular and picky about. Honestly, maybe too much so, I am currently gorging my way through my thirties like a competitive eater at a Major League Eating Championship, and I am the favorite to win both first and second place. I don’t need Maury Povich to cut me out of my house just yet, but I have written some sharply penned Yelp reviews to several under-staffed buffets locally. The only thing I like more than discovering a new food I can be particular about is a new edible I can be high and particular about. Recently, while out buying medical supplies at the Maine Mall dollar store, I stopped by Positive Growth Gardens in Westbrook. Caesar, the proprietor, was nice enough to let me sample a few of their medicated candies. What a spread! He hooked me up with strawberry-flavored salt water taffy, cardamom caramels, their OG salted caramels, and a tin of Harmonizer’s microdosed espresso beans covered in caramel and chocolate. Caesar also threw in a T-shirt. After asking what size I was, I countered with a laundry list of excuses listing the reasons I’ve gained so much weight recently ending with a, “...but I just started working out, so maybe I can fit into an XL?” Caesar laughed, “Yeah, I’ll give you an XL.Something to work for.” “Sure,” I nodded in approval, “says the guy who just handed me a bag full of candy.” Sitting down alone later that evening, I pawed my way into Caesar’s care package. I had been a fan since trying their delicious salted caramels earlier last year and was excited to explore their new culinary concoctions. The first thing I popped open was the tin of Harmonizer’s, looking like raisinets you’d find in the back room of a hacky sack factory. I couldn’t stop eating them. The first drop tasted like a caramel M&M that had been up studying all night at a Starbucks. The second tasted like a coolatta that had been made at a booth on Harry’s Hill. The third one tasted like the first one, and the
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Trying to stave off the wicked caffeine buzz I had given myself, I dove into the cardamom caramels as well as the salted caramels. Zipping around like a mosquito on Motley Crue’s tour bus in the mid-80s, I combined the two caramels together and chewed the wad like a minor league pitcher walking his fifth batter in a row. And though the flavors differ slightly, the combination was delightful, beginning as salty and buttery before transitioning into a pleasantly sweet aftertaste. My tastebuds exploded like an M-80 in a drunk redneck’s hand on a summer holiday. The flavor was so rich I could hear the ghost of Julia Child’ moaning in my head. Send two more. Well, I wasn’t going to bed anytime soon. I was flying off the espresso beans and so high I should have called the FAA for clearance. I’m a sucker for strawberry candy and figured that at that point I couldn’t get any more stoned. (I was wrong.) I tore open the package of salt water taffy like a racoon ripping apart a poorly placed trash bag. Soft and chewy, it was like eating a strawberry Charleston Chew that had third row seats for half the Dead and Co. tour last year. Before I knew it, I had finished the entire package. On my fourth bag of edibles, I was somewhere in the high 300mg range and had ingested an untold amount of calories. Disappointed in myself and stoned like an oceanside patio, I caught myself zoning out on the T-shirt Caesar gave me. I looked around at all the discarded plastic candy wrappers lying lifeless on my carpet, then I looked around at all the discarded packages that held those pieces of candy, then I looked back to the T-shirt...and that shit definitely won’t fit now.
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Review Pen: Mowing the lawn, GMO Live Resin Upstate Gardens It had rained for a week straight, and my lawn was beginning to look like I had rolled the wrong numbers playing Jumanji. Unlike my neighbors, I am not enthusiastic about maintaining my yard. I’ll mow and weed whack, but I’m not installing rock walls and fountains like Mike across the street. Not only am
