Tales of the Salty Bag

 9 years after his last Peanuts and Corn (P&C) album (just about 3 years after his last album [bangin' colab with Rob Crooks] Schadenfreude [that I wrote words about Dec 2020]), Bazooka Joe 204 (second under Bazooka Joe [luckily adding 204 with this release to really help his SEO {fka John Smith}]) blessed us with a stellar 9 track album this past October, Prairie Nilsson . If you want a breakdown of songs straight from the horses' mouth, go check out the 3 part podcast that Mr. Joe did with bigmcenroe (the albums producer, Mr. P&C) where they discussed each song from Prairie Nilsson and provided comparisons to songs in the John Smith P&C back catalogue. The beats on the album are lush and Ol' Man Winter wears his politics and life on his sleeve while also providing observations that paint a full picture of the good and bad without judgement. So, King Cake Baby is one of my favourite songs that Bazooka Joe, Sloppy Joe, John Smith, whatever you want to call hi...

 Nosh and Co. (weird brand name [but I like it]) ketchup potato chips. Made in Canada since 2013, "*made in Canada from imported and domestic ingredients". Cracked the bag on these bad boys and they were relatively fragrant. They looked lightly seasoned. When I started masticating, I found that as they appeared they were lightly seasoned..however, the chips were also very light weight, light crunch. Airy one might say..but somehow not bubbly, just, like, airy. Tart tomato flavour but not overly vinegary. Because the chips are so light, the light seasoning actually goes with them pretty well. 130g bag with somewhat high fat (23% per 50g) and somewhat low sodium (15% per 50g [which makes sense with the light seasoning levels]). The high fat (vegetable oil) percentage gives them a somewhat buttery flavour. Pretty good chips. My initial reaction was meh, but the oily butteryness won me over, quite enjoyable.  (in my phone notes I ended with "pair with something indie rock or...

Lets get this out of the way Bad Operation slaps hard. A while back I wrote about a record order from Bad Time Records, I mentioned Bad Operation but I wrote words about Joystick and Best of the Worst. Well, let me get to words about the record that made me place the order with BTR in the first place. Bad Operation's S/T 2020 release 's sound is is definitely rooted in 2tone (even on the back of the album the bottom left corner states "New Tone 2020"..which couldn't be any more accurate [I guess I could have shortened these words to, "Bad Operation's 2020 self titled album is New Tone. Go buy it, listen to it, consume it"]) but Bad Operation is way more than a 2tone tribute. Dominic Minix has so much soul to his vocal delivery it weighs on you in the most welcomed way. I knew that this band was from New Orleans, however I would like to think that if I didn't know that...I would have known from listening to this band, I want to say there's a ...

 When I saw that Takis made kettle cooked potato chips I took notice, but had no real expectations. There's been a bag of Takis Kettlez Typhoon Jalapeno..Hot, Spicy Jalapeno (just the name/spelling is somewhat of a turnoff) sitting in the salty cellar for a minute. I finally got around to trying my first flavour of Takis take on kettle cooked potato chips this past week. The bag has a 'tear here' note, well Takis, I'll pass on your bag opening suggestion. So I cracked the bag open standard style (pulling the 2 sides apart) and took a whiff that presented me with what I noted as spicy. These chips have a good solid crunch. They're a thicker cut chip that makes me think that they may not have been cooked quite as long as a 'standard' kettle cooked chip, but still a solid crunch due to the thickness. The flavour is aggressively spicy. There's cheddar in the mix..or some sort of cheesy saltiness. Jalapeno heat..like, fresh jalaps..hotter than standard jalape...

Off the dome I can only think of 1 restaurant chain x chip colab (Lay's Chalet Sauce), I'm sure there have been more (I want to say Covered Bridge have collaborated with east coast restaurants, but they're not widely known). Well, a couple days ago a friend from work made me aware of a second colab..and followed up by providing me with a tube of Limited Time Only Pringles Wendy's Spicy Chicken Flavour "Potato Chips" (sure Pringles, these are "potato" "chips"). I quite enjoy a spicy chicken go wrap from Wendy's so even though these are Pringles I'm actually looking forward to trying them.  Pop open the tube and..they smell like Pringles, not much of a seasoning smell, just that sterile tube chip smell. Pop it in my mouth and the initial flavour is spicy breading, decent kick, because this flavour is so often associated with chicken breading it (I think tricks my mind into thinking that it) tastes like chicken. Pepper kick. The back e...

 Herr's Buffalo Style Blue Cheese Flavour(ed) Corn Snacks. Herr's is coming about you with puffy cheese corn sticks. The heat is a sort of mild vinegar based heat, there's a bit of a bite but they don't really make you sweat. The blue cheese flavour is present but not overpowering (for the most part) and seems to come and go as it pleases becoming the most present at about the 3/4 mark of consumption. Like I said these are puffy, so the crunch is light. I'm really digging the blue cheese in these (if you're not a fan of blue cheese you might not want to get these [but if you're not a fan of blue cheese and you picked up a bag of these regardless of reading my thoughts, that's on you, the bag emphasizes Blue Cheese]). The further I get into the bag the more the heat builds up in my mouth, it's not overwhelming and still not cracking a sweat but it's a nice mouth tingle. There's a bit of the standard cheese puff cheddar at this party as well, b...

 So the Salty Bag's international correspondent sent in a whole wack of notes/reviews/what have you. Without further ado: Various Mayonesa (mayo) flavoured chips were all over Ecuador , Sometimes powdered flavour and sometimes an actual sachet of mayo to throw in the bag (Yupi Rizadas). Neither good nor bad, salty and fatty as expected, I preferred the (Tostitos) Pizzerolas (sabor a pizza).  I didn't find a lot of chip variety where I was wandering around in Spain but the (Ruffles sabor a Jamon) ham flavour made sense, they were salty. The UAE had these (Lay's) French Cheese chips. I don't know how you expect to distill all the cheese in France into a chip but these were forgettable (not like French cheese which is amazing) and perhaps an apt metaphor.  The Sun Chips (not the North American Sun Chips brand) Mix Masala chips from Sri Lanka weren't actually Lankan. I think they were imports. I wanted them to be more spicy.  The Maldives had a fair amount of chips, th...