Product Review: Nostalgia Electrics Cotton Candy Maker

Yum. Yumyumyumyumyum. Did we say yum?

We wanted a cotton candy machine, but were not looking forward to messes of sugar and constant purchasing of flavoring, etc. This one promised you could use hard candy, but didn't say how much - would we be going through handfuls for each serving? We decided to take a chance, and when it arrived, the staff tested it out.

And tested it.

And tested it.

Yes, this candy works, but what about this one? And this one? And does every single flavor work? We have to be sure, you know:)

Needless to say, it works great! It only takes two pieces of hard candy to spin a respectable serving size, and the kids had fun mixing and matching flavors (cinnagrape, anyone?)  The machine comes with two plastic cones, so rather than buy a million cardboard ones to be thrown away afterward, we just slid each portion onto a plate. It works best when you let it warm up first. It cools down again very quickly, which is good for safety. Oh, and do wait until it has stopped spinning to add the next candy - those turtles who are a little impatient will have it thrown right back at them (within the container, though, so you don't have to worry about Death by Jolly Rancher).

The kids were fascinated with how simple it was to use, and asked all sorts of questions that led to scientific discussions of centrifugal force - and these were the teens! Nostalgia may want to bump up production, as quite a few are planning to ask for one of their own. A good selling point for moms: you can use sugar free candy. Or coffee flavored candy. Use whichever point would work best on your particular Mom!

Product Review: Hot Dog Roller from Nostalgia Electrics

Librarians don't just purchase books, we purchase stuff. Sequins, floor cleaner, puppet stages, chocolate-covered bugs, sun lamps, you name it. These purchases tend to happen on very tight budgets, so we are very interested in knowing what works and what doesn't.

 

We have a regular program for middle and high school students called "Teen Cafe". Something different happens each night, from murder mysteries to karaoke, but one rule always holds true: if you feed them, they will come! This summer, thanks to a gift card donation, we were able to invest in a few items we hope will get a lot of use. Tonight we tried out the first of these, the hot dog roller:

 

 
One of our staff members has one, and had brought it in to the lounge a few times, so we already had some idea of what to expect. Like, that it would roll (the name was a big hint there, too.) Unfortunately, ours didn't - the pin that goes in the hole that makes it spin kept working its way out after a few rotations, so we had to improvise to keep it pushed in:
 
 

Probably not the method recommended by the product safety division.*

It did, however, cook the hot dogs nicely and evenly, once we got it spinning, and the exposed areas did not get too hot. We know the one our staff member has works fine, so it may be a hit or miss. We will return this one and see if we have better luck with the replacement. Having hot dogs in addition to the usual chips and cookies was a nice change, especially since many teens (and our YS Librarian) treat this as their evening meal. All in all we give it a

4 out of 5.

Tune in tomorrow to hear how our first Teen Cafe of the summer - "Survivor (name of our city)" went.

* and no, we did not leave it like this, we have no great urge to set the building on fire this week.