Tales of the Salty Bag

About a month ago a buddy gave me a bag of Great Value Caribbean BBQ flavoured potato chips. "Inspired by Island Life". I've been pretty excited to try these and I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to do so. When I cracked the bag I was met with a very strong chili powder smell. The chips have medium ridges (Wavy Lays style) and a slight green hue with flecks of red and black. As soon as it hit my mouth I was stoked, these chips did not disappoint and gave me exactly what I wanted, jerk chicken baby! The heat is a very nice hot pepper based in the medium spice range (maybe like a 6 or so, it gets the forehead sweats going pretty quickly for me). There is soo much flavour to this heat though. There's a hint of sweetness, some citrus. Weeyow, these are a nice treat. The crunch is typical midweight.    I got into ska the way that most 80's babies did. Knee deep into the third wave. I eventually got around to 2 Tone but for years didn't go back any furth...

It's been a thick cut fall/winter so far but I've somehow managed to not try or write about Covered Bridge's (first?) foray into the thick cut game with their East Coast Lifestyle Thick Cut Sea Salt (they've released [I think] a couple flavours since, but I believe this is the first). Made in Atlantic Canada with white potatoes. White potatoes, Covered Bridge, say what? They smell like oil, don't look extremely thick cut. Appear to be kettle cooked. First chip tastes like a standard kettle cooked plain chip. The salt flavour is relatively minimal...lets see what the back of the bag says..yup, 9% per 50g, these are light on salt. Good mid weight crunch, possibly slightly lighter than mid weight. I don't mess with plain/salt/sea salt chips on their own very often. I was hoping these would be proper thick cut, but I honestly wouldn't have been able to tell you that they would be labeled thick cut in a blind taste test. I'm missing the dark russet. Good chip...

Slide (Gourmet Potato Chips) has 2 BBQ flavours. I previously provided my words about the Honey BBQ , but tonight I'll be stepping into the Spicy BBQ arena. Thick cut, medium crunch that turns to creamy potatoness. The seasoning is a nice spice that feels jalap based. There's a lot of well done bbq flavour, it's not quite burnt but it's on the well done side. I want to say there's significant garlic in the mix as well, it really shows up in the aftertaste (that or I'm crazy). The spice is nice and flavourful, but somewhat overpowers the BBQ of it all.   Upon skimming Dizzee Rascal's wiki tonight it came to my attention that he was convicted (March 2022) of assaulting (June 2021) his former partner. I wrote the paragraph below before reading that portion of the wiki, and I decided that it was okay to keep it because the intent is to point out that genres and flavours are sometimes hard to discern the differences between sub genres. Fix Up, Look Sharp wa...

 Can one, or better yet should one, separate the art from the artist. What if the artist appeared to be okay when the art initially came out however as they aged became a taint. I'm not quite sure. If you own an album, or piece of art, that you purchased without knowledge of  the creator having significant faults should you still be able to hold onto that piece of art and let it represent what it did when it was originally purchased, or should new knowledge allow that art to be tainted. The discussion around the art definitely has to change. Lets say that there's a band and one of the people in the band is a chud, however the other members seem to be okay. Is the chuddiness enough to taint even the most significantly beautiful pieces of art. There's an almost infinite number of examples, and depending on your morals some are good and some are bad. There are some, like the Warped Tour pedo bands that it's like, yeah you should have been able to read between the lines. Th...

 Anticipation can go one of two ways. You always hope for your expectations to be met, but quite often you're left with the taste of dirt in your mouth. When I first reached out to get some Slide (Gourmet Potato Chips) I pointed my bat towards the Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar as being the grand slam. Thick cut chips with the prime go to chip seasoning flavour, yes please.  Earlier this year Wasted Wax let on that there was a Quit It! LP in the works that would be out this year. From the onset of that announcement I was stoked. I thoroughly enjoyed River Jacks so I couldn't see why the next project wouldn't be anything shorty of a banger. I was met with a faint vinegar scent when I cracked open the Slide S&V. The crunch is mid to heavy weight which quickly gives way to the buttery texture that I've enjoyed with previous bags of Slide Chips. These beauties are THICK cut. The vinegar, as it smelled, is present but not overly aggressive. You really get the malt flavour ...

 Ruffles teamed up with KFC this summer to put out an Original Recipe Chicken flavour of potato chips. There's some tang to these lil potato circles. Standard Ruffles mini ridges. Bitta sweetness. Are there 11 herbs and spices? I dunno, probably, it tastes like KFC chicken batter. Tastes high in sodium, but it's only 13% per 50g. There's some pepper up in there. Medium crunch. Definitely on the all dressed family tree, just sans vinegar. The kids ate 3/4 of the bag before I got to them..which actually works out really well, 45g is a good quantity, otherwise the herb and spices would take over. It's been a minute since I've had KFC, the chicken cuts the aggressiveness of the herbs and spices a bit more than the potato chips...but on the flip side, these chips are less likely to give me terrible diarrhea, so I'd say it's a wash. If you find a bag they're worth picking up, I just wouldn't bother with a 6 pack. Hey ruffles, if you're going to colab, ...

 What happens when you mix Grumpster, Small Crush, The Moore Family Band and Dog Party? We'll find out when the Doki Doki LP comes out. Based on the first 3 singles I Was Killing It Man , Liar Liar and I Can't Fight This Crazy Anymore it's going to be varied across the punk and pop/rock spectrum. I Can't Fight This Crazy Anymore is the song that has me really excited for the album to come out, it's fronted by Small Crush's Logan Hammon and has that sweet Small Crush 90's influenced danceable alt-rock sound that is just infectious. Wooo yeah! So have another bag of Slide Gourmet Potato Chips in front of me tonight, the flavour du jour is Honey BBQ. I think these are going to be sweet with a mild kick. Not sure how the thick cut butteryness will blend in.  The smell like BBQ with some oil (canola). The flavour is slightly sweet, a bit of honey lemon twang. With this flavour I can taste a bit more of the potato skins. The BBQ is low in the mix, but pops out i...