Skip to main content

Three to the Beach

Have chip bags always had "Best Before..Fresh Until..blah blah blah" dates? Maybe I just didn't pay attention when I was younger but I want to say that these dates were an invention of the mid to late 90's. I could try to research their origin but what's the use? When I see an interesting bag of chips that I've never consumed I'll snatch 'em right up knowing very well that I may not get around to going to crunch town on them for months. And I don't just mean a month or two, I mean MONTHS...shit, it may even get to a year. It's partially due to the fact that if it's a rare bag I don't want to not have them any more..and partially because I somehow end up with a lot of bags in the salty cellar and I don't necessarily want to consume a new flavour whenever I have chips, you can't neglect the good ol' flavours (or good new flavours that demand a repeat). What I'm getting at is that these 'Best Before' dates, as far as I can tell, are absolutely meaningless. I'll open a bag that's many moons past it's best before date and they taste as fresh as the day they were made [well, maybe not the day they were made, I've never had chips fresh from the factory to test this against so lets just say, 'as fresh as the day they arrived at the store]. This also extends into opening a bag and keeping it for future consumption, as long as you properly clip/fold/etc your bag the chips stay fresh. I've opened a bag, not been super into them and went back like 6 and 12 months later, the bag was tightly clipped and the chips did not lose their freshness. Best before my balls, never trust the man.

Just like chips, if an album is prepared properly it'll never lose it's freshness. Doesn't matter how many months..years..etc have passed since you've first listened to it...it doesn't matter if you were up on it the minute it was released or didn't even find it until years after it was given life on vinyl/cd/digital. An album that I've wanted to talk about on this salty site since it's inception but never found the right starting point is Dear Landlord's Dream Homes. This absolute classic pop [in the midwestern vein] punk album was released by No Idea Records on June 30th, 2009. I, for some inexplicable reason, didn't check it out until the fall of 2009 leaving me with no choice but to buy it by Jan 2, 2010. Dear Landlord is a supergroup (go to their bandcamp for a list of their related bands [and while you're there just buy the album]) that shares lead vocals, with all the singers having their own (mostly) gruff, yet distinctive, voice. Harmonies/gang vocals are used in all the right places. Majority of the songs are pretty rapid fire with just enough change in tempo to keep the songs from blending into one another. The lyrics range from storytelling to more introspective posi-negative..pessimoptomistic..clever and catchy as hell. From the first time my ears were treated to this masterpiece to this day, when I play Dream Homes it fills me with joy..optimism? (after all the opening track is titled 'I Live in Hell')..energy. Dream Homes is one of the most enjoyable albums that I have ever listened to, [as I said] it's a classic through and through, 28 minutes of pure magic.

Go listen to Dear Landlord and..

Stay hydrated,
Marc


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The End of All Things

 I am not an expert on Nomeansno, but I can tell you this..their music can be quite difficult to get on physical media (LP, CD or otherwise [unless you want to spend somewhat spicy money]) in Canada. Luckily, Alternative Tentacles reissued Wrong. Now, cross border shipping is still muy caliente, but enough distros picked it up in Canada to allow me to put Wrong into my record collection this year. Nomeansno (since 1979) played (ended 2016) chaotic punk rock that I want to say fell into hardcore, but they were far more than a single genre. Wrong is unconventional for a punk band to say the least. The bass is lively as hell, with a tone that's absolutely perfect. The drums know when to get weird and when to kick it into overdrive. I don't know if it's jazz or funk, but there's something in the mix that if Nomeansno wasn't so aggressive it might feel pretentious..instead they're just odd and make me wish I had the opportunity to seem them live. Lyrics are talk sung...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Seat At The Table

 Uglies chips are funny. Their marketing is (and this is paraphrasing) that they take the unusable/waste chips and produce their chips out of those leftovers. "Reducing waste and helping fight hunger". To me, their potato selection is pretty on par with other smaller scale/independent brands... so I'm not quite sure who's throwing out the potatoes that they make their chips with, IMO the potatoes/waste they use are the good ones. So yes, Uglies, 170g bag (nice size, not too small, not too large). Thin chip but crunchy. Oh, by the way this is about Uglies Salt and Vinegar flavored (yes, no u, these are imports that in Canada are usually found at Winners [at least when I've seen them]). So yes, decent amount of skin on these little kettle cooked chips... fairly white in colour chips. They have a nice white vinegar tartness. I picked up a somewhat granular salt texture when I was consuming. I feel Uglies are no more janky than your average bag of kettle cooked (good...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stairway to heaven 2

Dear Diary, I was in Dollarama last week picking up some last minute..well it doesn't really matter why I was there. Anyway, as I was in the line for the checkout and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a blue bag that I'd seen a million times before. For some reason this time, it's unassuming blue on blue top with stock photo potato chip bottom intrigued me (that in addition to it being 280g for $2). I thought, to myself, 'hey, they carry Covered Bridge..maybe these Made in Canada "D Gourmet" potato chips are some other high end chip that just happens to be carried in dollar stores.'. I proceeded to take the $2 leap and threw them in my basket. Within an hour of getting home I had cracked the bag and was happily consuming. These D Gourmet Salt & Vinegar potato chips were for lack of better term, pretty run-of-the-mill. The chips are somewhat sterile, no well done chips and no skins, and fairly lightweight. The seasoning is faint but fairly well di...
Post a Comment
Read more