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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

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