On her recent visit with us...

On her recent visit with us, our Polish friend Jo B. left a sizeable bag of “sweets” with us as a gift: chocolate confections of various kinds, plus some wrapped caramels that were hard and crumbly, rather than soft as we're used to having caramel.  The photo at right shows a couple of examples.  We've really been enjoying these, but now our supply is dwindling.

So I got to wondering whether I could find these delectables on Amazon.  Yes, of course!  I noticed that the word “Wawel” appeared on each piece of candy, and it had the little ® after it (for registered trademark).  I guessed that Wawel was a brand or maker, and searched for it in food.  Voila!  Lots of Wawel products available on Amazon.

Not so very many years ago, a product like this would only have been available through a specialty store (likely in a big city), or through a specialty mail-order catalog (likely one catering to Polish immigrants).  It would have been a real challenge to locate a source, and the price would have been high, too (specialty stores generally have lower turnovers, and therefore must have higher profit margins – and higher prices).  Today all it took was about 30 seconds of brand identification and a few keystrokes on my web browser – and now I know I can order these any time I want them, and at quite a reasonable price, too!