Culinary rarity

When my daughter arrives, she wants to make her traditional contribution to the family festivities, chocolate spiders.

There are many recipes under this name. The one we hew to calls for

one package of chocolate chips
one package of butterscotch chips
one can of chow mein noodles
I cup dry roasted peanuts

Melt the chips together, then stir in the dry ingredients until everything is uniformly coated. Spoon out roughly even scoops onto wax paper on plates or cookie sheets, and chill. Store in airtight containers.

Simplicity itself, right? Nuh uh, not in my little Nawth Shoah town. The local markets supply saffron. If you supply the right password, you can even get truffles, I'm told. What you cannot get, for any amount of money, is butterscotch chips.

This seems to be a problem throughout the area. There is one major supermarket, whose name and location I won't mention, which lays in a stock of butterscotch chips around Thanksgiving. Em's news came late. Although she plans to bring some with her from California, she asked me to get a backup supply in case hers met with some evil fate.

I went to said store, and directly to the baking supply aisle. Deftly blocking the aisle with a shopping cart, I found and grabbed two bags of butterscotch chips, then blended into the shopping crowd.

If we end up with a surplus, I think I'll auction off the remainder on eBay.