Tales of the Salty Bag

I was recently passing through Duty Free on my way back from Oklahoma and I noticed some personal (57g) bags of chips on sale. They were Joe Chips to be exact. "Retro Potato Chips"..so I grabbed a bag of each of the flavours they had Sour Cream & Toasted Onion, Barbeque, and Sea Salt & Vinegar. The first bag I cracked open was the Sour Cream & Toasted Onion. I neglected to really read the flavour or any of the write up on the back so I was unaware that these were "toasted" onion and also that they're kettle cooked. Prior to reading the back of the bag I made the assessment that these were some sort of hybrid between typical and kettle cooked chips. When I thought they were standard chips I figured that they were on the crunchy side, after reading the back I realized that they're on the light side of kettle cooked, not as many curled up chips as other brands. The flavour is pretty run of the mill SC&O that's evenly distributed throughout...

This past summer a friend of mine sent me a picture of chips that he had found at the..I believe..Rossburn Co-op. They were something I had never heard of or seen before..so I did what any inquisitive person would do, I googled them. Tomahawk Chips . Aboriginal Owned, No Financial Assistance, Friendchip Choice Native Canadian Chip Corporation (Riverton, MB). I had mentioned these chips to people in the following weeks and low and behold, my family was in (I think) Onanole and they found some of them, BBQ and Ketchup to be exact. Now Tomahawk is a strange chip company, the chips seem to come secondary to the packaging. They have a website with an online store, that does not sell chips, just prints and shirts. I believe that their primary goal is to advertise Native Canadian artists through chip bags and raise founds for (it appears) the Riverton Friendship Centre. I dig what they're doing, it's uplifting (my only gripe is that I haven't seen them in Brandon and can't ord...

I remember when Needles//Pins' Shamebirds album came out in 2014, it was on a lot of best of lists at the end of the year. I made a mental note to check it out..but somehow it slipped through the cracks..not sure why. So this past year they released their follow up, Good Night, Tomorrow ..didn't miss the boat this time. Vancouver's Needles//Pins deliver gruff pop punk (sometimes 90's alt[ish] sometimes power popish) with boozey, heartbroken..weathered poetic lyrics. I dig. The vocals register on the higher side of the gruff spectrum with just the right amount of gravel (think Sainte Catherines/Leatherface). The music is mid to up tempo that makes ya nod your head and tap the ol' toe. After I thoroughly take in Good Night, Tomorrow I'm definitely going to take a step into the wayback machine and Shamebirds it up as well. Maybe it's not groundbreaking music but damn is it exquisite..and worth your time. I was in superstore recently checking out the 'nat...

Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Potato Chips...Sweet & Spicy Jalapeno. (I'm getting caught up on this review based on notes from October 2016). They don't have much of a scent. For a kettle cooked chip they aren't overly greasy but still provide a good crunch. They offer a great hot pepper (jalapeno) heat without getting all mountain dew extreme and stuff, they're hot but not too spicy. I didn't really taste the sweet part of their given name. When I breached the 1/4 bag mark I started to find the odd chip that has an initial sweetness to them..but they were few and far between, this was kind of a bummer as the sweetness was a nice change of pace. They don't really bring anything new to the jalapeno chip game but they more than hold their ground in that family. If you're looking for a standard jalapeno chip you'll be happy with this sack of flavoured salted potato slices...if you're hoping for something new and exciting..just keep walking. Since I hav...

Dark Thoughts is a band that up until a few weeks ago I had never heard of (thanks Razorcake) let alone heard..and let me tell you, they're fan-tastic. For the most part the vocals are very Ramones with slightly more aggressive music ( Ramonescore in the Weaselish vein).  Of the 12 songs on their S/T LP, 2 break the 2 minute mark (songs average a whopping 1m34s). The band provides very little information on the packaging (the band members photos are black squares with their names under them), the cover is black with plain white "DARK THOUGHTS" font centered, there's no insert and the lyrics are all on the back (Side A is all romantic relationship based lyrics, Side B is self loathing, being broke and then ends on some more relationship woes) in times new roman laid out very clean [I love the simplicity while still providing all the 'necessary' information]). This album is fun. Do you like fun? Listen to this album! (I'm late to the party, was released Ap...

I'm sitting here eating a praline nut mix with peanuts, cashews AND pecans..so it should go without saying that life's pretty good. You know what else was pretty good..some stuff that I consumed in 2017, below is a list of some of that stuff: Chip/Snack Division : - Covered Bridge chips . (these will likely show up ever year because they're tight AF. [I haven't tried their popcorn line yet..maybe in 2018, we'll see]) - Co-op Gold Pure chips. If you have co-op food stores in your region of Canada grab a bag of these. They're primarily black with a circular logo that says PURE in the centre of it. These chips might seem familiar..the back of the bag says, "Homegrown by the Albright Family in the heart of New Brunswick's potato country...russet potatoes..kettle cooked.." if that sounds familiar it should, if it doesn't. Do a little sleuthing and you might link these to a familiar 'tight AF' chip brand for a wicked price point. Hazzah...

This is just a rundown of my postings in 2017 including: the blog title, chip and music reference for anyone that doesn't want to read all them (I've done this each previous year 2015 and 2016 ): January 2017: Take the World I'm Coming Home with You - Music (for title): Kitty Kat Fan Club. This was a rundown of good things from 2016. Retten Til Forskellighed / Break It All - Music: The Assassinators - Sigt Efter Hjertet    Chip: Pringles vs No Name Salt & Vinegar tube chips February 2017: Is This a Test? - Music: Clowns - Bad Blood     Chips: Covered Bridge Sweet and Spicy Jalapeno Warm Beer & Wild Times - Books (Music themed): GFY Press/punkbooks.com     Chips: Uncle Ray's Kosher Dill and Smokey Chipotle & Jack Cheese March 2017 : Gyasi Went Home - Music: (for the title) Bedouin Soundclash (in the writing) staying sober for live music     Chips: Yum Yum Sriracha All I Wanted - Music: Jabber...