Our candy expert Megan Seling addresses a crucial legislative issue—House Bill 1024—in this week's Chow section:

The Washington State Legislature is about to make the most important decision of 2009. This decision has nothing to do with the viaduct or Sound Transit or education or arts budgets. No. What Washington lawmakers are poised to decide is whether or not the locally made, powdered-sugar-covered confection Aplets & Cotlets should be declared the official candy for the state of Washington.

Food-loving people of the Pacific Northwest: We cannot let this happen.

Ms. Seling comes down in favor of Fran's salted caramels as the only choice. (They are also the Obamas' favorite candy. For the record, I'm with Megan, Michelle, and Barack. We're lucky to have a locally made, world-class candy like this. A sweet with a savory element is so much more interesting, more contemporary, and Western—the new world instead of the old, liberal instead of conservative, complex instead of cloying, hopeful instead of ho-hum. The tyranny of sweetie-sweet sweets must be ended, and Washington can lead the charge!)

People are going ape-shit in comments: Both in defense of and against Aplets & Cotlets ("In the early 70's the ad slogan was 'aplets and cotlets make nifty giftlets' but they were known by many as 'pukelets'); in favor of Almond Roca, Mountain Bars, and Chukar Cherries; in disagreement about the terroir of Frangos; in support of Ms. Seling and in vitriol against her and the paper as a whole ("Dear god, Megan! Give it up.... Save your indignation for the fight to make Naked Vegan Lesbian Ganja day into a state holiday"; "What a waste of print space. A lot going on of importance and this is utterly irrelevant").

[A mortifying fact: Ms. Seling, probably in some kind of sugar psychosis, originally wrote in the article in question that Frederick & Nelson was purchased by the Bon Marche. The copy chief and I (both locals; we went to kindergarten together) both read it before print and totally missed this incredibly blatant error. We adjusted the piece online, made a note of it, and will run a correction in tomorrow's paper. We are completely mortified.]

Read all about it and argue in favor of your candidate (or against other people's candidates) for the Official Washington State Candy. Once everyone's finished going ape-shit, I mean, making their voices heard on this crucial issue, we're going to send the comments to state representative Mike Armstrong.