Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

Let’s crunch some numbers on America’s Easter candy consumption. The National Confectioners Association offers the following stats:
 

  
I’m a loyal fan of classic Easter candy; you’d have to measure all the Cadbury eggs and jelly beans I’ve consumed by the metric ton. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try new things, especially on a major candy holiday. Here are some suggestions of artisans doing interesting things in one of my favorite mediums, chocolate.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

It seems there’s some suspect candy going around this Halloween season. I don’t mean fake or counterfeit candy bars, where the names would be just barely misspelled, like Reeze’s Peanut Butter Cups or Buttterfingers. (They would be sold next to the bags embossed with names like Chanal and Burbery.) I’m speaking instead of the new, healthier candy, made without corn syrup, GMOs and artificial colors and flavors.

I’m super impressed with these efforts, but I also have big love for the classic, bad-for-you candy. So, I can’t help but admire the celebrities who are huge candy lovers too.

And now, if you see Ryan Gosling or Justin Bieber trick-or-treating in your 'hood, you’re prepared.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

You’ve seen the omnipresent ads. Now get ready for the first Bourne movie without Jason Bourne.
 
And when we say, "get ready," we mean, "start thinking about your movie snack strategy." Whether or not you need something to get you through a Bourne installment that doesn’t include Matt Damon is your own decision. (Personally, we’re big fans of Jeremy Renner, too.)

Remember, The Bourne Legacy is one of the last big action films of the summer. According to a recent New York Times story, "More Bitter Pills than Popcorn," the fall movies are going to tackle tough issues. Exhibit A: Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming Django Unchained is a brutal tale about a former slave who hunts white plantation owners.

So we say, break out the popcorn (or your favorite popcorn alternative) now while it’s still summer and the action heroes are still on-screen in full force."
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

Who do you think set a world record for most new Facebook fans in 24 hours? No, not Charlie Sheen back when he was winning. And not The Avengers movie either, though that’s a good guess.  

In fact it was a potato chip. Last April, Frito-Lay’s Facebook page got over 1.5 million new "likes" in one day. That’s a lot of instantaneous fans.

And maybe it’s not such a mind-blowing number if you look at the mind-blowing new flavors capturing the attention of chip fans worldwide. Recently, the New York Daily News highlighted Russia’s affection for Red Caviar potato chips (it’s especially popular in Moscow, where they love their caviar).

Here are some other snack food flavors that you probably never would have dreamed of. You just have to guess what country is chowing down on them. Hint: If you’re lazy and want to answer "Japan" for all questions, you’ll be right a lot of the time. Scroll down to the bottom for the answers.
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A sweet-tooth in Japan isn’t hard to satisfy. The country’s convenience stores are stocked with a range of intriguing confectionery, but often you’ve got to be quick to catch them.

A short shelf life isn’t because products like Hokkaido cheese chocolate are snapped up by hordes of roving umami-hunters, but because perpetual revolution of a product range is the key to survival for brands in Japan.

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Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray.

Dessert wines, as a category, have an appealingly paint-by-numbers purpose: they go with dessert, and occasionally, they are dessert.

But desserts are all over the place when it comes to both levels of sweetness and range of flavors. One person’s idea of dessert might be a ripe pear, where another person might argue that any dessert not involving chocolate is an utter waste of time. Ditto dessert wines, which can range from a lightly alcoholic, lightly effervescent, delicately sweet moscato d’Asti to a PX sherry with the viscosity of motor oil and a go-see-the-dentist-now sugar content.

So, a couple of things to point out. Food almost always has more effect on the flavor of wine than vice versa, and so sweet desserts make wines seem less sweet. Generally speaking, go for a wine that’s slightly sweeter than the dessert you’re serving. If the dessert is ultra-super-sweet, think coffee, or, for the brave, grappa.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to get our grub on, we listen up.

I’ve always believed that the day after Halloween is better than the holiday itself - November 1st being the day when all candy left on store shelves goes on half price sale. If you’re not like me, if you’re already getting sick of the candy you stole from your kids, or legitimately trick-or-treated for yourself, here are some smart strategies for unloading those sweets.

Smash it up
My hero in this world is Christina Tosi from NYC’s Momofuku Milk Bar. And my new favorite all-purpose snack food is her ingenious Snack Mix, combining sugar-coated pretzels with broken-up mini candies like Reese’s or Take 5’s. If you don’t feel like smashing up mini bars, you can alternatively toss in peanut M&M’s.
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It is every child's dream to own a candy company.

Roxy Klein eventually got her wish.

Today, the 33-year-old co-owns Nifty Candy with her father, David Klein, who invented the Jelly Belly jelly bean in 1976.

In addition to the Kleins, the company, based in Covina, Calif., employs three candy makers, three employees who pack orders and one assistant.

By July, 15 years after its founding, Nifty Candy had earned its first $1 million. "We had a party," said Roxy Klein. "It's one of those things where the pennies really do add up."

Read Nifty Candy grosses a million

Food says so much about where you’ve come from, where you’ve decided to go, and the lessons you’ve learned. It’s geography, politics, tradition, belief and so much more and this week, we invite you to dig in and discover the rich, ever-evolving taste of America in 2011. The week will culminate with a Secret Supper in New York City, and Eatocracy invites you to participate online starting Monday July 11th at 6:30 p.m. E.T.

The world tastes good ‘cause the candy man – or in this case, Stefan Ernberg - thinks it should.

Swedish-born Stefan Ernberg and his wife, Florence Baras, own Sockerbit in New York City. It’s a store with the tagline “Sweet and Sweedish” because it only sells candy - Swedish candy at that.
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These Brooklyn-based confectioners make the Earth a sweeter place - a Liddabit at a time.

Watch the Green Solutions in Focus: Eatocracy Edition hour-long special hosted by Tom Foreman on Saturday, April 23rd at 3pm ET and see all Earth Day coverage at eatocracy.com/infocus

Also in Brooklyn, the Mast Brothers are raising the chocolate bar.
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