SQUEE! It’s time! It’s finally time!
For this year’s Custom Jack-o-Lantern Giveaway Contest, I asked you to describe a FrankenFood – some odd food combo that you invented or sampled. Your submissions were spooktacular. Thank you!
It was a friiiiightfully difficult choice, but the winner is:
Marta from Oh My, Marta!
Marta’s entry:
I so have this! I invented the best thing ever (still need to get in contact with someone about marketing this) when I was perhaps not low but ____. What you do is take two nacho cheese Doritos, the crumbs are the best for this, and then take a somewhat stale (staleness dependent on preference) chocolate raisin and sandwich it in between the Doritos. Pop it in your mouth and experience heaven. Seriously.
I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Could it possibly be good? I liked Raisinets, and I loved Doritos, but together?
I had to know. I called for reinforcements:
Has there ever been a more polarizing FrankenFood? The overall verdict: WIN! You are my hero, Marta. But I already knew you had impeccable taste, given our shared love of Leonardo DiCaprio.
Thus, I present your prize – a custom jack-o-lantern:
STEP 1: DESIGN OVERLY AMBITIOUS PATTERN
STEP 2: RIP GUTS OUT OF PERFECT PUMPKIN
Step 3: Tape Design On Pumpkin While Palms Begin to Sweat
Step 4: transfer design And question everything
Step 5: Tell Yourself, “There’s No Turning Back Now” over and over while shoving Raisinitos in your face
Step 6: Begin to Realize Self-Worth
Step 7: Marvel
Congratulations, Marta! (And seriously. Get on this Raisinito thing, pronto.)
Oodles of thanks to She’s A Maineiac, Rachel’s Table, Accidental Stepmom, 
PEPPERMEISTER!, my family, and Magical Neighbor Jeff for your bravery. You are my double rainbow, the wind beneath my wings, the helpless little girl to my Cal Hockley.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Go Jules Go 
epic. happy start of weight watcher day. enjoy!!
Ooh, I’m watching my weight today, too! Skyrocket. Cream cheese filled pumpkin muffin, anyone?
Congrats, Marta! And thanks a lot, because now my husband wants me to buy him more Raisinitos. I couldn’t even bring myself to try it, I’ll just take his word for it that it’s really good.
DP, I thought you Mainers were fearless (spiders notwithstanding). Don’t listen to Rache. Listen to Mr. Maineiac. HELL YA!!!!
I believe D’s palate is just as refined as my own. She’s definitely side with me on this one.
I know, I really need to talk to someone about marketing raisinitos pronto.
Congratulations Marta! As much as I’m pretty game to try most food things, one think I really don’t like is raisins/sultanas in non-sweet foods – like when people put them in curries or rice salads or whatever, I really don’t like that. I mean if someone prepared one of these chocolate raisin Dorito things for me and waved it in front of my face, saying “Go on Vanessa, try it, just one, it won’t hurt you”, then I’d try it, but I’m probably not going to be going out of my way to assemble one myself. But congrats anyway! And excellent work on the pumpkin Jules.
You bring up a good point! There’s a time and a place for raisins. For example: Get the hell out of my rice. I’m totally with you there. (Although I did just have dried cranberries, feta and walnuts in a salad and it was AMAZEBALLS.)
Thanks so much!
Congrats on your frankenfood invention, Marta! It was truly frightful.
Jules, I believe I MAY have liked the Raisinito better if I had used two chips like Marta suggested–that would have made it more salty than sweet. But then I would have had to eat more Doritos. This is a Halloween dilemma.
P S – Pumpkinhead Jack and Rose are adorable. Nice work!
What about the staleness of the Raisinet? I think I like it like I like my blogger friends – nice and fresh. (I don’t know where that came from.)
Thank you!! I need someone to tell me how to take proper jack-o-lantern pictures. They never look good/right.
Yes, the sandwiching is key to the experiment! =) And thank you!
I don’t think I can do it. It’s not like I have high culinary standards–believe me, I don’t–but that just sounds too horrible. And I’ve had some pretty ghastly things in my mouth. Lovely job on the pumpkin, though. btw, for my current post, I ahem borrowed your PowerPoint stylings. The content is original but the aesthetics are 100% Jules. Hope that’s okay. I’m willing to send you a $2 honorarium.
Thank you very much!
Ooh, cool! I look forward to checking it out! And I’ll accept payment in the form of a $2 bill. (I’m kidding, but that’s actually pretty funny, because in the Halloween costume contest in my town growing up, the prize was a $2 bill! I was so ticked the year I was a doctor, I didn’t win anything, because HELLO, didn’t they see my name tag, jeans, sneakers and blue back pack?! I was not just any doctor, I was kid genius doctor Doogie Howser!)
Congrats to Marta! Yeah, that sounds pretty vile…
Ummmmmm, question… Is Leonardo’s schlong that pointy?
Leave it to you to SAY what everyone else was thinking….
C’mon, how could I NOT congratulate Marta?
HA!
I was just doing a nod to our favorite DIsney movie, “The Little Mermaid”:
That thing is more subtle and, might I add, glorious. That’s why they’re Disney.
Dude. Leo’s lights up.
LOL. True, it’s like what I imagine ET’s to be. Not that I imagine his that often. But this Disney one stays the same after prolonged time under water.
I was trying SO hard (giggity) to come up with a nautical pun for my first response to your comment, but all I could think of was: “He knows he’s getting the shaft when this shiz goes down.”
Well, that’s kind of a two-fer, I guess, but still, boo to me.
Raisinitos for everyone! I love salty sweet things. This might be really good. Hmmm. And, well, if the awesome and magical neighbor Jeff tried it, I have to try it, right? …. on my way to the store …
OOH, DO IT! (WordPressure.) And please report back. I am gathering recruits for Marta’s future marketing campaign.
I would like to suggest using Raisinitos as a palette cleanser option during the next round of Peppermeister Roulette. Mmmm mmmm mmm.
I’m so excited about the future of Raisinitos with such a willing focus group, you must try it!
You are a Frankenfood genius, Marta!
I think my favorite is Mr. Maineiac’s “Hell yeah!” response. Although I kind gagged a little when someone suggested Cool Ranch Doritos for this experiment.
I can’t tell you how many times I watched that, and it STILL makes me laugh! Mr. Maineiac is great.
HA! That was me, to my sister. She doesn’t like raisins, so she was kind of a lost cause on this one. Bonus points for still trying it, though. (Although Babs doesn’t like Doritos OR chocolate, and she liked it. Raisinitos are a mystery. A beautiful, beautiful Halloween mystery.)
What’s funny is Mr. Maineiac was eating Cool Ranch! And he still like it. The weirdo.
I noticed that, DP! Now, of course, I want to try that, too…
Raisinito…hmmm…Now I know what to do with any Raisinets I swipe from the kids’ candy haul tonight.
If I had had more time, Thoughtsy, I so would have asked you if you’d try it for the video! (Poor suckers in the video – they got almost zero turnaround time, LOL) I was definitely thinking of you and li’l Thoughtsy Bun with this combo! (It is seriously good.)
That jack-o-lantern is AWESOME!!!! Marta’s Raisinito idea is truly deserving of the victory because now I have a craving for something that five minutes ago I didn’t know existed.
Thank you, Debbie! I really think Raisinitos are the next big thing.
LOVE the pumpkin! Nice work.
Why thank you! I always knew you had good taste [in FrankenFood].
Congrats on the invitation, and AMAZING pumpkin! I am freaking impressed!
Thank you!! I had heart palpitations while carving it, but distracted myself by trying to list all of Leo’s movies in chronological order. Starting with Critters 3, which for some strange reason he leaves off of his official filmography… 😉
Jules,
I came from Darla, I stayed for Babs.
And I am exiting because of the Raisinito.
Le Clown who wanted to hear what was a “Maine” accent, but only heard proper English.
Le Clown,
I can do a wicked awesome Maine accent.
-Soul Walker
Le Clown,
Would you settle for a midwestern accent? Babs likes to pretend she’s from South Dakota, even though she moved to Jersey when she was two.
Go Jules Go
Jules,
Babs can do no wrong.
Le Clown
Especially when it comes to children.
Jules,
Mind reader. Now get out of my head.
Le Clown
Where do I begin? The Raisinitos (rushing out to buy for lunch), the taste testing video, the insanely carved pumpkin that should have been on Halloween Wars on the Food Channel because it would have won the $50,000…YES I said that, and I mean it…. it’s almost too much here.
The only thing that would make that video better is if it were set to the tune of my new favorite song forever, What Does The Fox Say?
Happy Halloween to you, Jules! Are you going trick-or-treating tonight?
Oh Peggles. You always make me feel like my bloggy efforts are worthwhile. Thank you! I’m amending the post right now, though, with the new soundtrack.
If by trick-or-treating you mean eating Raisinitos and drinking vodka, then yes, yes I am. How about you?
While saddened that I was not invited to taste test such a treat, I was tickled by your video, Jules.
There was no Uncle Jesse in the shoot though. Is he ok?
Don! If I hadn’t had to slap this together so quickly, I’d be WordPressuring you right now for your video! I urge you to try it, and then tell me how good it is, and Rache how wrong she is.
We soooo wanted to film Uncle Jesse trying it, but alas, dogs + chocolate = FrankenDeadDoodle.
P.S. – Thank you for asking. I know how much you love my dog.
Fun to see Marta here! We are blog friends too and actually met in person at that conference a few weeks ago. And re: your carving talent? IMPRESSED!
What you forgot to say Nina is that you can’t wait to try Raisinitos!
And I know isn’t Jules SO talented? Should we ever meet Leo I may have to keep all pumpkins away from her so she can’t woo him away with her carving expertise!
I love the idea of being able to woo the opposite sex with my pumpkins (that’s what she said), but fear what would happen two days later when things get all shriveled and sad (that’s what she said x 2).
I just saw that you two met [on Marta’s blog] and am very jealous and insist you both come to New York/New Jersey. I may even serve Raisinitos.
Thank you!!
Thank you everyone for trying out Raisinitos! I am so delighted that my wonderful invention is Babs approved. That’s really all that I needed! Now, I need to get on top marketing this to the rest of the world.
(And don’t forget to sandwich your raisin BETWEEN the two dorito chips!)
Also, Jules. That pumpkin – AMAZING. So flattered to have won!
Yay! She’s here! The winner / inventor of Raisinitos is here!!! Congratulations, Marta!! This was the perfect Halloween-y FrankenFood-y fun.
I had a whole plan to do the sandwich tactic, and then got too excited and forgot. Guess I’ll have to keep trying ’til I get it right…
I think the Raisinito would cause another one of my organs to become useless, but thanks for having others test it out so I could live vicariously.
You’re welcome for sparing you. I tried to get Hugo, but he said he was too full of Hot Pockets. I suspect he is full. Of lies.
Do you cater?
Wouldn’t that be an awesome catering company? We could have an upscale branch called FrankenFoodies. They’d serve things like goji berry-duck sushi.
That sounds better me than most sushi, actually.
Running out in my pajamas right now to go get said ingredients! Go Marta! 🙂
Let me know what you think! I couldn’t believe how well it worked – I thought the nacho cheese flavor would interfere with taste bud bliss. Nay.
OMG everything about this is amazing. I’m going to try that. But I’m scared.
Yessssss. Do it!!! (You’ve. Been. WordPressured.)
For this pumpkin, you should get an honorary title of Pumpkinmeister.
YES.
Haven’t tried it yet, but I imagine I would like them. Problem would be: too many carbs to allow this diabetic to over indulge!
I think when Raisinitos hit the shelves, they’ll have to put one of those ‘side effects’ package inserts inside each box, like they do for medication!
I bet you are right!
I’m fascinated by that combination of food items. Mainly on how it was discovered – need to go read that post now : ) Great job on the pumpkin – awesome!
Thank you so much! Let me know if you try it – I highly recommend finding guinea pigs first, merely for your own amusement.
Oh my Lord, that was a horrible pumpkin.
I loved it!
Ha! Thanks, Hook!
I can’t even eat certain foods out of sequence. Spicy should be followed by sweet, but never the other way around. Together? Not possible. Great post, though. I love the pumpkin carving, and the video.
Thanks so much, Charles! Your food sequencing is most intriguing. I feel strongly about sweet following salty, but then when I do that, I always think, “Well, now I need something salty again.” It’s a vicious cycle. I think Raisinitos could conquer it, though!