Skip to main content

To Have and to Have Not

Sometimes chips that I'm not all that excited about get pushed to the back of the cellar and sort of forgotten about. Well, today I'm going to talk about Hardbite 18 Carrot Gold 'Lightly Salted Carrot Chips". I believe that when consumed before or close to their best before date they would have a good crunch to them...I'm consuming about 19 months after their BB date so I'm getting a nice crunch on the outside with a bit of softness on the inside. The cut the carrots lengthwise to make the chips so they're a nice long thin chip..well, a lot of them are curled up into themselves but it's still intriguing. Their flavour reminds me a lot of sweet potato chips (and oddly there's very little stale taste to them..just the odd chip). They're fairly well cooked (pretty brown) and the cooking brings out a nice sweetness. I'd agree with the lightly salted portion of their name, it's present but not overpowering. After a handful of the chips by themselves (I'd say they're pretty good..I'm not super into carrots so that says something?) I started dipping them into some garlic hummus. The sweetness of the chips goes really well with hummus, fantastic pairing.

This week my copy of Billy Bragg's 30th anniversary edition of Life's a Riot With Spy vs Spy came in. Side 1 of the LP is the original album, side 2 is a 2013 live recording of Billy playing the classic album. If there's a 30th Anniversary edition celebrating an album it should go without saying that it's worthwhile music. Stripped down electric folkish ear candy. Life's a riot is 15 minutes of essential music. Just Billy and his guitar, the original album is from '83..and it definitely not stale in 2018. (oddly the labels on the LP are on the wrong sides for the 180g pressing that I have).

Stay hydrated,
marc

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

Antoinette

 At the end of 2023 I saw Quit It! play in Winnipeg at the Handsome Daughter. I typically try to catch the opening bands, because I like being introduced to new music. One of the opening bands was Leon's Getting Larger, LGL (not sure if they ever abbreviate their band name like that [it reminds me of LWL, the Jersey pop punk band from the late 90s early 2000s, I'll Always Remember the 6th is such a banger {LGL doesn't really sound much like LWL, other than a bit of off center pop sounding...where was I going with this}]) were really fun to watch and they produce a sound that I don't hear very often coming out of Manitoba (maybe I just typically run in a different musical circle?). Anyway, Leon's Getting Larger put out their first album late last year, You Be Good Now ...which saw a vinyl release earlier this month (February 2025). I ordered a copy and it came to my door late last week. This album's great. Leon's Getting Larger has a couple singin' voices...

And Nothing Is Forever

It happened. I started wondering if it ever would. It's been 16 years. People who were born after 4:13 Dream became teenagers and started driving between 4:13 and Songs Of A Lost World. Am I complaining that The Cure took 16 years to put out another album? No. They don't owe me anything. If Lost World never came out that would have been perfectly fine. Mr. Smith and his cohorts provided the world with hours and hours of fantastic music. In 2024 they added 49 minutes and 16 seconds into their absolutely amazing catalogue. A lot of the lead-up to Lost World spoke of the darkness of the album, the very few reviews that I've glanced at have mentioned the darkness as well. Like, I sort of see it, but to me, it's more of a heavy album (not like metal heavy, more so that there's some serious weight to this piece of art) and sonically epic soundscapes. There's a lot of brightness in the music and vocal melodies. Don't get me wrong, the lyrics are super bleak and if ...