Rahat Locum - A True Delight

It started with a joke about the Turkish Delight my friend Lisa brought back from her trip to Turkey. I mentioned on twitter that our office kitchen looked like Tony Montano had been through there. This made Armand Sahakian from Nory Candy laugh and so started our online conversation.

That led to Armand, generously, sending me a few boxes of his company's storied rahat locum. There's a great article about the history of southern California's Nory Candy & Pastry in the LA Times. It talks of the 47 year history of the candy maker, which has been passed down through three generations of immigrants with a genuine love for the product they create. And you can taste that love and care in these little confectionary jewels, whose name translates to "contentment of the throat."

I tried the nut-free assorted flavours, as well as locum with almonds and with pistachios. The pistachio variety has bits of chopped nuts suspended within bergamot-flavoured squares, while the roasted almonds sit within an "old fashioned natural mastic gum and vanilla flavoured locum". As much as I love all things pistachio, I think I prefer the almond, as the deep roasted flavour of the nuts really shines in combination with the vanilla.

In the plain assorted box, you get a random mix of classic flavours such as rose, bergamot, orange, and lemon-lime. My faves of the bunch were the delicate rose and the zippy lemon-lime. Honestly, the texture on the nut-free varieties were somewhere between home-made marshmallow and the freshest jujubes you've ever had. They're lovely.

Currently, you can order from Nory online. Armand is working on getting Nory locum available here in Canada, but until then, I've got three boxes (2 plain assorted, 1 walnut) to give away to some lucky Canadian Daily Bread readers. To win, either share this post via Twitter or Facebook, using the buttons below, with the one of the following phrases.

• Twitter (place this after the share link): I want to win @NoryCandy locum from @DailyBreadBlog. Read more: http://lat.ms/dQsP86
• Facebook: I want to win some delicious @Nory Locum from @My Daily Bread. Read more here: http://lat.ms/dQsP86

Update: Just to clarify, when sharing, please use the share buttons below. That way, the link to this post will be included, as well as the link to the LA Times article. Cheers.

Contest starts now and will close at 6 pm EST on Friday, March 11, 2011. Winners will be chosen using Random Line Picker. Please note that although there are no nuts in the plain assorted boxes, all the locum are produced in a facility where nuts are present. Good luck, everyone!