Overrated/underrated

Stronger ratings aside, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" can't trump the original "L&O." Is it the show's eeuuhh-inducing sex-crime plot lines? The single-note characters (angry Elliot, wounded Olivia)? The one-dimensional acting (hello, Ice-T)? It might be that nothing at "SVU" comes close to the "Law & Order" mothership's rock: Lt. Anita van Buren, played since 1993 by the awesome S. Epatha Merkerson.

Developing cravings for Rogue Chocolatier's Sambirano bars (a single-source Madagascar chocolate bar) or a B.T. McElrath Prairie Dog Bar (milk chocolate blended with toffee, toasted almonds and sea salt) is perfectly understandable. But sometimes nothing scratches the locally-made-sweet itch better than the Pearson Candy Company's good old Nut Goodie Bar, a maple-peanut-milk chocolate treat that's been produced in St. Paul since 1912.

RICK NELSON