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How sweet it is.

I’m talking about friendship between two women who laugh together and finish each other’s sentences, who have worked together to set up a business in the home that is both successful and award winning, who love what they do and are happy to share their business experience... making candy.

They even gave me their recipe for fudge. That is they listed the ingredients except one. I tasted three of their candies and knew heavenly bliss.

I was spending the morning in the candy kitchen of Debbie Thelen and Anna Rice, two women I recently met through casual conversation with mutual friends, which is how Debbie and Anna met three years ago. This serendipity relationship was bound to happen when they both discovered a passion for food, sweet food that is. Debbie was armed with a fudge recipe she had been using since she was 14 years old; Anna had worked in the Dells, selling fudge in a candy shoppe. Now three years later, their business, but not their waistlines, has expanded to include 44 flavors of fudge and caramels, mints, buckeyes, pecan logs, divinity, South Pacific turtles, and 13 flavors of truffles to name a few of their candy creations.

Debbie, born and raised in Connecticut, started making fudge as a hobby, using an original recipe given to her by her Aunt Ora who lived in Maine. “I’d give fudge as gifts,” she said. After college and marriage, she was an optician in Connecticut, owning her own company. “I’d take platters of candy into work and people were telling me you gotta sell this.” After 30 years she retired, and the Thelen family (one daughter) moved to Tomah. How did a Connecticut Yankee from the East Coast end up in the Midwest? Fort McCoy. Don, a Commander Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army, was transferred here and remains in active service.

That was one change. Turning an avocation into a vocation was another. “A lot of women in midlife make changes,” said Debbie. “I took a hobby and made it into a business and I think it’s great. If you can find someone as passionate as you are, it will work.”

That kindred spirit was Anna, who was born and raised in the Mauston area, who married and moved to Warrens. She and her husband Kirby have three sons, Kirby the manager of the Flying Dollar Cranberry Marsh. “I love to cook and bake,” said Anna; “That is a passion of mine and I’d give those gifts away at Christmas, using old family recipes.”

They still give candy away, asking their friends to taste test new products. “We usually hear ‘This is good,’ and sometimes we hear, ‘This is really good’,” said Anna. And sometimes during self-evaluation, they tell each other, “This is to die for.”

Fudge is the cornerstone of their business. The 44 different flavors range from the traditional chocolate and chocolate with nuts to root beer float, funky monkey, lemon blueberry and holiday peppermint (seasonal). Their white chocolate cranberry macadamia nut fudge won an award and placed in the recipe contest at the 2005 Warrens Cranfest. Adding a bit of whimsy to their creations, they named a German chocolate fudge after their friend Chris and an Irish creme fudge after David, friends who gave them the ideas. Because these are his favorite, Kirby has his name attached to caramels; Cathy’s Heavenly Kisses are named after Debbie’s sister, “who just loved them,” Debbie said.

For them candy creation is ongoing. They are experimenting with a dark chocolate and cranberry liquor. After a visit to the Watkins Museum, Winona, they’re thinking of mango and pineapple flavored fudge. “We’re trying to find a good recipe for diabetic fudge,” said Anna. “We want it to be as good as we want it to be. What we make is quality,” said Debbie.

Specialty items are a piece of cake. For the wedding of Anna and Kirby’s son Travis, DA Candy Creations will be making heart-shaped mints dipped in orange, blue, bright pink and green chocolate plus watermelon fudge. For a birthday party they made to order solid chocolate little princess shoes in blue.

By now your mouth must be watering. Where can you buy these candies? Cranberry Country Lodge, Tomah. If you happen to be at Festival Foods, Onalaska, July 6 and 7, look for their table. They have a long-term relationship with Festival Foods and are usually there the first or second Friday and Saturday of every month. Last Christmas Festival Foods bought 1500 pounds of their candy for resale.

How sweet it is; the main ingredients, laughter and joy. “Our friendship is the most important thing,” said Anna. “We take care of that first.” “We enjoy it (making candy). This makes people happy,” said Debbie. “How can you not enjoy something when you make people happy.”

DACandy Creations can be reached at (608) 372-0296 or info@dacandycreations.net

The column, Journal Entry from Ridgeville, is a bi-monthly feature of the Tomah Journal written by Lyda Lanier, 20964 Cty. Hwy. A, Tomah