Category Archives: Junk Food

Junk Food

Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Sea Salt, Cheddar and Ranch

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A little while ago, I got an email from someone named Doehne Duckworth offering to send me some free samples to review.

That was it. No product name, no pictures. Just two sentences. Mysterious.

Thankfully, Mr. Duckworth (whose name immediately invokes childhood memories of Scrooge McDuck swimming in a pile of gold coins) had an email address that Google led me to his product’s website: Deano’s Jalapeños. (Editor’s note: since the writing of this post, Deano’s Jalapeño’s website has gone down for remodeling. Consider this an archive of the beauty that it was before remodeling!)

I was met by fire gifs running down the side of the home page, which is always a sign of awesome. I was also met by the headline, “The Newest and Most UniqueSnack Food Available in the Universe”.

Fire gifs and typos. Red flags for most websites, but I’ve learned to take these things in stride when it comes to most small business’s sites, especially when it comes to the food industry. If I’d judged every local restaurant by their poorly-constructed website, I would have missed out on some of the most delicious food in my area. They’re doing the best they can, and sometimes that means asking your nephew to set up your website.

Plus, I could not ignore the brazen claim of being the newest and most unique snack food available in the universe. Not just the country, or even the world. The universe. Eat your heart out, Curiosity rover. Whatever you wind up finding on Mars, it won’t be anything like Deano’s Jalapeño Chips. Deano knows this.

I still didn’t really understand what these chips were, though. At first glance, it doesn’t sound that new or unique at all. Jalapeño chips? Welcome to the rest of the snack aisle, Mr. Duckworth.

But as I read on, I discovered that Deano was on to something different. To quote their website, “…everyone was trying to make their potato chips taste like jalapenos. Why not just use a real jalapeno!”

Why not, indeed! To explain a little further: “The award-winning flavor of Deano’s Jalapenos comes from the fact that there are no potatoes involved. Instead, this handcrafted snack is made from fresh jalapeno peppers that are sliced paper thin, kettle fried to a spicy crisp, and given a dusting of sharp cheddar, ranch or sea salt. It’s a snack that packs a late-hitting heat with a warm, salty flavor that becomes just a little addictive.”

Fresh, fried jalapeños? I was sold. And just a few days later, I had a lovely little package in my mailbox. To my delight, this included one package of each flavor. Here we go!

Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Sea Salt

I like the package design, in terms of both aesthetics and practicality. First off, Deano has chosen to go the pouch route with a tear-off resealable top. The use of the resealable top in the snack world strikes me as fairly recent; off the top of my head, it seems most popular with things like beef jerky and…well, beef jerky is all I can think of right now.

I’ve only encountered one line of chips that employs the resealable top, and the first time I saw it, I thought, why isn’t every chip manufacturer doing this? The only answer I could think of is that they’re in with Big Chip Clip. It’s like cans that haven’t yet employed pull-tab top technology – I now get irritated any time I have to use a can opener, and it’s not just because I’m left-handed.

Deano’s is a small company, however, and they don’t kowtow to Chip Clips. Thus, the glorious resealable pouch.

Each of Deano’s three varieties of chips has a different design that ties in with the flavor. With Sea Salt, we are transported to a tropical island, complete with palm tree, waves, seagulls, and a wooden surfboard.

I want to lounge on a beach while my Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Sea Salt are served with a Mai Tai by a hunky shirtless man who does not speak English.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I opened the bag. I had no idea what actual fried, sliced jalapeño chips would look like. Now that I’ve seen them? Well, they aren’t exactly pretty, but they do look pretty authentico.

Upon first glance, it was obvious that these are, indeed, real jalapeños, that have, indeed, been fried, and have also, indeed, been covered in sea salt. Truth in advertising, this is.

Deano’s Jalapeño Chips can rival any other chip in the crunch category, thanks to being fried, and they are also deliciously salty, thanks to the giant chunks of sea salt visible on each piece. Unfortunately, I had a lot less slices and a lot more broken pieces, which could have been due to shipping, but it also gave it the odd appearance of looking like fried seaweed.

While the salt and crunch were excellent, I struggled to find the true taste of the jalapeño pepper inside the chip. Oh, don’t get me wrong; Deano’s brought the heat. That part was unmistakable, and kept building as I ate, until I was wishing for that Mai Tai.

However, part of the reason I love fresh jalapeños is their flavor, and I had a hard time finding it here. Maybe it was the frying process. Maybe the heat overwhelmed it. But the true taste of the pepper got a little lost somewhere. While that was disappointing, I still found myself tossing these crunchy little critters in my mouth, even as that genuine pepper heat started to make my nose run. Snot just adds to the flavor!

Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Cheddar

Deano’s took a mildly different turn on their Cheddar Jalapeño Chip packaging. Added are the phrases “try a slice of spice” and “made in Vermont”, which should inspire confidence, because when I think spicy peppers, I think…Vermont.

Cheddar’s packaging has the standard Deano’s logo, but varies from Sea Salt in ways I find, frankly, confusing. Gone is the surfer/beach theme, now replaced with…flames? I don’t know what cheddar has to do with flames. They’re still jalapeño chips, which means they’re all hot, right? And what’s with the generic green tattered-edge cheddar logo? That would have been a good place to stick a cheese wedge or something.

I want to be surrounded by kokopellis and  cute little gecko lizards while I eat Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Cheddar. A man wearing a sombrero and poncho should bring me a margarita.

More slices and less broken pieces in this one. Also, a familiar friend – neon orange flavor powder!

Having eaten pretty much every one of Frito-Lay’s 2,000 “cheese plus spicy flavored” chip iterations, I was curious to see how Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips would compare. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the cheddar flavor tasted more like actual cheese than your run-of-the-mill cheese-flavored chips.

The spicy heat was present, just like with the Sea Salt variety, but I actually found more of the jalapeño pepper flavor itself present in in Cheddar chips. I have no idea why, but it was there, and it was welcome. The pepper flavor, the heat and the cheddar all worked in unison to create a delicious crunchy snack.

Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Ranch

Let’s call Deano’s Cheddar packaging a misstep, because Ranch brings it back around. Here we have a beautiful sunset as a backdrop to some cacti and desert brush. The flavor is announced on a perfectly appropriate wooden sign that is askew, because every ranch sign should be askew. And check out that jalapeño – it’s been lassoed. Yee-haw!

I want a dude to ride up on his horse and pull me up onto the saddle as a woman in a pearl-studded cowboy shirt rings a triangle, letting us know it’s time to eat some Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Ranch. I would also like to be served a mug shaped like a cowboy boot containing some Shiner Bock to compliment my chips.

The Ranch Jalapeño Chips looked remarkably similar to the Sea Salt variety; there was no dusting of little red and green flecks that I generally associate with ranch-flavored chips.

At first glance, I attributed this to Deano’s being a smaller company that used more “authentic” means of flavoring. Don’t ask me what authentic ranch flavor powder consists of; I was just giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, it seems that the ranch flavoring was hard to find because it wasn’t really there in the first place. I caught a bit of the familiar tanginess of typical ranch chip flavoring as an aftertaste, but for the most part, Deano’s Ranch Jalapeño Chips suffered the same problems as Sea Salt – nice heat, but little pepper flavor. At least with the Sea Salt variety you got a lot of saltiness to go with your heat; with Ranch, it was mostly just crunch and spice, through and through.

I had high hopes for Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips. In the end, there were ups and downs. If you want to compare them to regular chips that claim to be spicy, Deano’s definitely wins. They’ve also got a great crunch to them. Out of the three varieties, I enjoyed the Cheddar the most, but the other two fell short on delivering the true flavor of jalapeño, and while the Sea Salt was, indeed, salty, the Ranch chips couldn’t bring the flavor.

Despite some their shortcomings, I still found myself liking Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips in general. They are, indeed, quite the unique snack. You’re going to look way cooler eating a bag of Deano’s than a regular ol’ bag of Doritos. Even if looks like you’re eating fried seaweed while snot runs down your face.

(Editor’s Note: Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips were provided for free courtesy of Deano’s Jalapeños. Thanks, Mr. Duckworth!)

Deano’s Jalapeño Real Sliced Chips Sea Salt, Cheddar and Ranch

  • Score (Sea Salt): 3 out of 5 people who think you’re eating fried seaweed
  • Score (Cheddar): 4 out of 5 missed cheese wedge opportunities
  • Score (Ranch): 2.5 out of 5 cowbells
  • Price: Free!
  • Size: 2.25 oz. bags/pouches
  • Purchased at: Received in the mail for free, but once Deano’s Jalapeños website comes back up, you should be able to purchase them there.
  • Nutritional Quirks: Real fried jalapeño slices. Beat that, Doritos! Also, the Ranch variety contains parsley. Parsley…ranch?
Junk Food

Disney Deliciously Wicked Gourmet Candy Corn Candied Apple and Blackberry Magic

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I’ve mentioned before that my mom sends me care packs full of goodies for pretty much every holiday. Yes, I am a grown woman, but that doesn’t make it any less awesome.

She always seems to have a little surprise up her sleeve, too. Nestled amongst every candy bar you could name morphed into a pumpkin, these lovely gems arrived: Disney Deliciously Wicked Gourmet Candy Corn.

I know, I know. Candy corn. Candy corn that claims to be gourmet, at that. But this ain’t no pound of Brach’s, we’re talking about here.

There are six products in Disney’s Deliciously Wicked line of candy. First off, “Deliciously Wicked” is a wonderful moniker. Second, each of the six gets its own evil Disney villainess to represent it.

I only have two, but they’re all so lovely that I felt they all deserved mention. Here are the other four: The Evil Queen’s Sour Green Apple Saltwater Taffy, Maleficent’s Fiery Cinnamon Saltwater Taffy, The Evil Queen’s Pumpkin Spice Candy Corn and Cruella de Vil’s Red Velvet Cake Saltwater Taffy. Check out this site to view them all in their lovely glory. Always glad to see Maleficent getting some love.

While I would have liked to sample some taffy, I’m happy with what I’ve got. My mom must have psychically known I was tired of seeing pumpkin-spice flavored candy, so she picked the other two candy corn flavors. Let’s check out what we’ve got, here!

Disney Deliciously Wicked Gourmet Candy Corn Candied Apple

Say what you will about Disney; for all their faults, they know how to make some motherfucking product packaging. Glossy box, beautiful fonts, cohesive design, and no lack of detail. It’s little touches like this on the back of the box that make such packaging so complete:

In case you’re just now breaking Amish or whatever, that really pissed-off lady on the front of the box is the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

As you can see, she’s quite the angry bitch. I won’t give you the whole background on her, assuming you have Google on your Internet, but they’ve captured the essence of her quite aptly on the package. You think you’ve got a sadistic boss? Feel lucky you didn’t accidentally plant some white roses instead of red ones. The Queen of hearts is very fond of decapitation, and I imagine this package captures her mid-screaming, “Off with their heads!”

What do caramel apples have to do with the Queen of Hearts? At first, I couldn’t really find a connection, but then I realized, hey – caramel apples – apples impaled on sticks – decapitated heads on sticks!

I have no idea if this was Disney’s intention, but I’m going with it.

Even less intentionally, quite a few of my Candied Apple Candy Corns seemed to be missing their heads, but that happens when you’ve got a candy with a thick base and a pointy end. The color scheme of the candy itself was very apt and self-explanatory; brown caramel base, bright red apple middle, and the classic candy corn white tip.

Despite their cuteness, my first whiff was not encouraging. The Queen’s Corn smelled like a caramel apple candy that had been stored inside a plastic ALF mask since 1987. One that a kid was so enamored with that he wore it and refused to take it off for two weeks before Halloween actually arrived. Not an encouraging introduction.

The taste was unfortunately much the same. Of course, most of candy corn is sugar, so that was definitely present, but the caramel and apple flavors were both off and overwhelmed by that plasticky taste. Out of what little I could taste of the intended flavors, the caramel was “eh”, but the apple was straight-up chemical-tasting and fake.

I demand the head of whomever created the flavors of Caramel Apple Candy Corn!

Disney Deliciously Wicked Gourmet Candy Corn Blackberry Magic

Another lovely rendering of a classic Disney villain. Quick look at her symbol on the back of the box:

“Aw, it’s an adorably rendered international symbol of poison, positioned right above the opening of a box full of candy! Nothing wrong with that!”

If you just escaped from a commune of Luddites, Disney helpfully lets you know that this is Ursula from The Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid is the very first movie I can remember seeing in a movie theatre. I was rather young, but I don’t recall being very scared of Ursula, despite her large and intimidating presence. Perhaps that’s because, in addition to being a scary mersoul-trapper, she was also sassy. It’s hard to be afraid of a fat lady with tentacles instead of legs when she’s singing catchy songs.

I’m pretty sure she’s also the only being with tentacles besides Cthulhu that doesn’t immediately make me think of horrible hentai. That’s a serious compliment, Ursula.

Again, lovely design on the box, and the portrayal of Ursula shows that she is both evil and totally embracing her obese sauciness. Girl knows she owns it.

These are “Blackberry Magic” candy corns, which is a pretty solid connection, since Ursula does employ what you could call black magic, and it gives Disney the perfect excuse to make a lovely Ursula-color-themed candy corn.

My camera apparently hates the color indigo, but this is a fair enough approximation of the color scheme. They couldn’t be more perfectly tailored for Ursula: deep purple base for her tentacles, a lighter indigo for her torso, and even the white tip fits with her hair! I feel like I should display them in my living room rather than eat them.

Sadly, my nose also agrees with this first impression. Blackberry Magicorns smelled like a Glade “approximation of berry” air freshener that had just been installed in a newly sanitized bathroom.

Ursula’s Corns fared a little better than the Queen’s upon tasting, but not by much. There actually was something of an approximation of blackberry flavor in there, but once again, it had to play second fiddle to the inescapable taste of chemical plastic. Ursula needs to go back to her cauldron and rethink this particular dark magic spell.

Disney is one of the masters of creating polished packaging, and these Deliciously Wicked Candy Corns are no exception. I wish I’d never opened the boxes and instead just set them on a shelf to admire the artistry and the fun candy corn colors.

Unfortunately, my job is to actually taste things, and that’s where these candy corns go wrong. The Queen of Hearts’s Candied Apple tasted like plastic upon bad caramel upon chemical apple, and Ursula’s Blackberry Magic tasted like plastic upon some approximation of blackberry that came somewhat close to succeeding, but failed again in the chemical territory.

As I’ve said before, I give big points to Halloween packaging, which I definitely have to factor into my score. Sadly, the R&D taste development department didn’t have the same luck as the marketing department, and therein lies the downfall of these candy corns, which taste anything but gourmet.

At least for a few days, the Queen and Ursula will be placed where they rightfully should be: on my shelf of Halloween decorations that are inedible.

Disney Deliciously Wicked Gourmet Candy Corn Candied Apple and Blackberry Magic

  • Score (The Queen of Hearts’s Candied Apple): 2 out of 5 decapitated heads on stakes
  • Score (Ursula’s Blackberry Magic): 3 out of 5 squirming tentacles
  • Price: Free!
  • Size: 9 oz. box
  • Purchased at: Somewhere in California
  • Nutritional Quirks: Made mostly of sugar and corn syrup, but it’s the artificial flavoring that spooks me.
Junk Food

Count Chocula Treats

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I can’t find anything on the Internet that indicates Count Chocula Treats existed before this year, so I’m going to declare them a new Halloween product for 2012. Go ahead, try and refute me. Just don’t be surprised when you see someone wearing a hockey mask standing outside your window. That heavy breathing sound when you pick up the phone? Ignore it, I’m sure it’s nothing.

Count Chocula and his friends Boo Berry and Frankenberry have been around for over 30 years, making October mornings just a little more awesome for kids. Due to some kind of gross oversight, I was never one of those kids.

It doesn’t make sense. My mom loves Halloween. I love Halloween. I grew up in a time where parents weren’t worried about vaccines causing autism or sugary breakfast cereals turning their kids into obese blobs. I ate Lucky Charms and Frosted Flakes with the best of them. So how come I never ate any of the General Mills monster cereals? It is a perplexing mystery.

No use crying over unspilled sugary milk, however. Last year, I tried Boo Berry cereal for the first time. Now I’m going to sink my teeth into Count Chocula, this time in Treat form.

I usually give big points to any Halloween packaging that’s overstuffed with ghosts, goblins, ghouls, and whatever else you can fit onto a box or wrapper. Basically, I want everything to look like a Michael’s craft store threw up all over it.

That said, I like the cohesive minimalism Of Count Chocula’s Treat box. The color palate sticks to differing shades of brown, which keeps things looking clean and on-target with the product. Count Chocula keeps his appropriate font, and the other text also has a sufficiently spooky font.

The Treats are described as “Chocolatey Cereal Bar with Spooky-Fun Marshmallows”. Boo Berry also used the phrase “Spooky-Fun Marshmallows”, which I kind of like, but I also think General Mills isn’t giving kids enough credit. Just calling them “spooky marshmallows” would up the Halloween factor, and I can guarantee no child is going to be frightened by practically-formless blobs of sugar. By just calling them spooky, the fun is implied.

Moving on to Count Chocula himself. He has gone through several redesigns over the years, but his general undead spirit remains intact. I never really took a good look at him before now, but upon close inspection, he’s quite the interesting form of vampire.

First we have the cape with the giant collar, which is required for any self-respecting bloodsucker (or chocolatesucker, in this case). Then there’s his fabulous double-pointed hairstyle, which very few people could pull off, but Count Chocula does it with finesse and also with a wicked widow’s peak that would make any self-respecting vampire jealous.

The Choc-Man starts getting weird when we begin examining facial features. I respect his pointy ears that seem to extend almost beyond the top of his skull, But what is with that schnoz, man? I’ll skip right past the racist Jewish joke and ponder the idea that the Count is somehow related to Pinocchio and he just told a really big lie. I hope it’s not about the marshmallows being spooky-fun, or that his Treats are “naturally” flavored. He’s already got a loophole in describing the bars as “chocolatey”, which implies some degree of chocolateness but makes no claims in regards to actual chocolatude.

Maybe his big nose helps him to sniff out chocolate. Like Toucan Sam’s, it always knows.

I never noticed this before I started a triple-digit-wordcount-breakdown of every damn aspect of Count Chocula like he was auditioning for America’s Next Top Monster, but what is happening with his fangs, if you could even call them that? Dude, are you a vampire or some sort of undead human/nutria hybrid? It’s a good thing he’s a chocolate vampire and not a blood-sucking vampire, else he’d just be ineffectively trying to gnaw on people’s necks until they just got uncomfortable and squirmed away. Also, General Mills apparently does not provide dental insurance, because the poor Count has lost all his teeth except for two. That is sad.

Now that I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time completely sperging out on Count Chocula, let me just completely contradict everything I’ve said and say that Count Chocula is awesome. It’s our flaws that make us beautiful, right? He may a buck-toothed big-nosed chocolate vampire, but he’s our buck-toothed, big-nosed chocolate vampire, dammit.

If you ask me, the one flaw in this packaging is that there’s too much emphasis on the cereal bar. You’ve already hooked us with Count Chocula and the promise of spooky-fun; I really don’t care what the dang thing looks like. The fang-ished guy doesn’t even make an appearance on the bar wrappers themselves. Give the immortal man his deserved time to shine (note: shine should not come from the sun).

Count Chocula Treats, much like the Count himself, aren’t exactly pretty, but sure do have a lot going on. Just on the surface, I could see chocolate chips, chocolate drizzle, Count Chocula cereal, and even a peek of marshmallows. There also seemed to be a sheen of chocolate glaze, and oh, by the way, the entire foundation of the bar is made out of chocolate.

In other words, this ain’t no Nutri-Grain breakfast bar. This is a chocolate mecca in cereal bar form. It’s seriously no wonder the Count lost all but two of his teeth.

But was it worth it? My mouth says yes. Biting into a Count Chocula Treat creates an instant chocoparty in your mouth. The Chocula cereal adds one of the many chocolate dimensions and a bit of crunch. The marshmallows are more formless and less spooky-fun; I think there’s a marshmallow ghost assistant that adds that chewiness and flavor that makes this a Treat (think Rice Krispies) and not just a “bar”.

My biggest complaint about these Treats is that the spooky-fun marshmallows are mostly hidden inside the bar and have no discernible form. At first, I thought this was a design flaw in the bar, but the more I looked on the Internet, the more I became convinced that Count Chocula cereal’s marshmallows never actually had a form. Just amorphous blobs. Hey, blobs have their own place in the Halloween echelon, but I’d like to see some effort to make them look like…something. Fangs, maybe?

The chocolate chips, drizzle topping, glaze and chocolate foundation all add to the overall chocolatey taste, but it’s the taste and texture of the Count Chocula cereal and the marshmallow goo that really makes Count Chocula Treats come together, as it were.  If you’re not a fan of chocolate or marshmallow treats, you’re obviously going to hate this. If you love Count Chocula cereal and have always wished it could be made into an even less healthy and more chocolatey S’mores-like food, then these bars will make your Halloween just that much more happy.

Completely unrelated note: Count Chocula Treats were listed on my receipt as “COUCHO”. Little-known fact, Count Chocula is a long-lost Marx brother!

Count Chocula Treats

  • Score: 4.5 out of 5 pretty women being mildly irritated as Count Chocula tries to gnaw their necks
  • Price: $2.66
  • Size: Box of 6 0.85 oz. bars
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Each bar contains a surprisingly low 100 calories, but they are also rather small at only 0.85 oz. per bar. But who cares about calories; it’s Halloween!

Dinosaur Dracula and The Surfing Pizza also bit into some Count Chocula Treats.

Junk Food

Cadbury Screme Egg

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Now this is Halloween. I hope those four simple words got that song from The Nightmare Before Christmas stuck in your head, because I have had it stuck in mine for three days now. I could think of worse Halloween songs. See: The Worst Witch.

Now you really hate me. We’re off to a great start.

The packaging of Cadbury Screme Eggs is simplistic but effective: black background, green oozy blob, and purple accents. Oh, sure, black and orange get all the attention around this time of year, but I think green and purple are the backup players that really add to the Halloween spirit.

And, of course, there’s the name. Could a candy be more primed for a Halloween makeover? Just pop an S on “creme” and you are set.

Cadbury wasn’t content to just make a slight name change and re-decorate some foil, however. More on that in just a second.

Screme Eggs are new in the US this year, but they’ve existed in the UK for…I’m not sure how long, but at least a year. I know this for a fact, because a friend of mine (the same one that sacrificed herself to ingest a pizza stuffed with hot dogs just for the sake of JFB) sent me a Halloween care package last year from the UK that included these eggs. Unfortunately, due to accursed international shipping, the package didn’t arrive until after Halloween was over.

I should have told November to screw off and reviewed the awesome sampling of products anyways, but for some reason I took a hard line on Halloween. I ate the goodies, but I really should have reviewed them. I have regrets, but also bragging rights that I ate Cadbury Screme Eggs before most people in the US had this opportunity. The regret still lingers, however.

Looks pretty innocuous, right? Just another already-existing product with some Halloween packaging. Yawn.

JFB confession time: I hate eggs. I have hated eggs for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to hate eggs; it makes ordering breakfast an unjust challenge. I have often seen breakfast products and thought, “That sounds delicious…too bad it’s an omelet.”

I wish I could say that I’m up for anything when it comes to reviewing foods, but I just can’t bring myself to eat things with eggs in them. I’d consider it a grand character flaw, but I’m sure most people out there have at least one food that they just can’t stand. Eggs are my kryptonite.

This all leads up to an anecdote: when I was a child, I was absolutely convinced that Cadbury Creme Eggs had actual egg inside. Try as she might, my mom could not convince me that these eggs were nothing more than a sugary Easter treat that just happened to look like an egg, inside and out. It took years before I was willing to try one. Kids are stupid.

However, perhaps if I’d had Cadbury Screme Eggs in my life as a child, I would have been much more willing to try them.

AAAHHHHHH! That’s not the typical white-and-yellow filling of a Cadbury Egg! The yolk has been replaced with green ooze! You’ve now completely won my heart, Cadbury Screme Eggs. You’re my Ectoplasm hero.

And yes, as a youth I probably would have been more willing to try an egg with green ooze inside than one that somewhat simulated actual egg filling. Kids.

Not one to rest on their slimy laurels, Cadbury also has a very Halloweenie website, complete with haunted house, bats, and a Halloween countdown clock on the home page. It also has suggestions for Halloween activities like “eyeball race” (hells yeah!) and “pin the wart on the witch”, which I think should replace pin the tail on the donkey year-round.

There’s also a Halloween trivia quiz, with questions like, “Why were Jack o’Lanterns created?” and multiple choice options like “People were lonely and found the face comforting.” It is rather adorable. Let’s face it, Cadbury Screme Eggs are for kids, and adults like me who turn into kids when October 1st rolls around. I also like the idea of lonely people carving into squash because they need a friend. “Oh Jack, you’re such a good listener. No hard feelings about scooping your guts out, right?”

As for the taste, if you’ve eaten a Cadbury Creme Egg, you’ve tasted a Cadbury Screme Egg. Sugar goo inside a milk chocolate shell. Oh, sure, they could have changed the flavoring of the green goo to green apple or something, but you know what? I love Cadbury Screme Eggs just the way they are. Good packaging, fun website, and green ooze inside.

My only bone to pick would be that the egg itself doesn’t have a cool skull on it, but after careful consideration, I think leaving the egg as-is works just as well. It’s innocence betrays nothing of the fun ghost goo that lies inside. It’s like a wall at a haunted house that suddenly drops away to reveal a bloody psychopath who wants to cut you in half with a chainsaw. Halloween is a time of surprises.

As an added bonus, I’m now halfway to making green eggs and ham, and I don’t even have to eat real eggs!

Cadbury Screme Egg

  • Score: 4.5 out of 5 disembodied heads covered in slime
  • Price: $0.79
  • Size: 1.2 oz. egg
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: These things are almost literally pure sugar. Parents BEWARE
Junk Food

Limited Harvest Flavor Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis

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I have to say, I’ve been disappointed by this year’s Halloween-themed food offerings. Given, my expectations are pretty high – I expect pretty much every food packaging on grocery shelves to be covered in bats, ghosts, and witches, and the contents possibly coated in Ectoplasm.

I understand that this is unrealistic, and I applaud companies for at least trying, like the Candy Corn Oreos, even if the results are less than stellar. But if I see the words “pumpkin spice” one more time, I’m going to cause an incident in aisle three that may impede my ability to do my usual grocery shopping in the future, unless I can get away with blaming it on a poltergeist.

I also realize that making something “Halloween-flavored” has some pretty strict limitations. Eating ghost-flavored Doritos would probably pretty disappointing; I’ve never tasted a ghost, but I imagine they aren’t very flavorful. Maybe cold, at best. Likewise, I would hesitate to eat a Snickers bar that had spiders instead of peanuts in it.

…Actually, that would be kind of awesome, but I understand where they could run into some problems with that.

All this complaining leads up to one of the few new Halloween offerings I’ve seen this year: Limited Harvest Flavor Milky Way Caramels.

Okay, so there’s no ghouls or goblins on the packaging, and it’s technically not a Halloween offering, it’s a “Harvest Flavor”, which is an odd thing to call a flavor, but I’ll go with it. At least it has a cute little leaf logo.

Because I so desperately want this to have some semblance of Halloween to it, I like to think the candy on the bottom is actually vomiting out the words “Caramel Apple” in delicious caramel ooze. That’s good ooze vomit control, right there. Excellent cursive. Vomiting pumpkins the world over could take a lesson from this barfing piece of candy.

These candies are called “Minis”, and for obvious reasons. Milky Way Caramel Apples are only available in this size and in this package, which means they’re obviously made for trick-or-treaters. Piece of advice: if you’re going to give these out, give more than one per child. Kids are demanding, these days. Fun Size or egg on your house.

Getting to the candy itself: imagine you’re a youth, living in, say, Massachusetts. It’s October; the leaves are turning a myriad of beautiful colors, there’s a brisk chill in the air, but it’s not cold enough that your Ghostbusters jacket can’t keep you warm. You and your parents have made the drive out of the bustling metropolis and are at an orchard where, for a price, you now have a basket in-hand to perform your own manual labor.

You’re on the quest for the perfect apples. You need a little help to reach the taller ones, but in the end, you’ve picked the ripest, reddest, juiciest apples you could find.

Once you’re home, your mom painstakingly melts both cubes of caramel and chocolate chips on the stove while you dutifully shove popsicle sticks up the ass of the very best of the apples you’ve picked. You wait with anticipation until, finally, it’s time to dip. First the caramel, then the chocolate, and then it’s time to bite into that juicy, sugary, perfect apple. It’s harvest time, and life is good.

Now, forget all that.

Okay, that’s not exactly fair. Caramel Apple Minis have the typical Milky Way chocolate coating and caramel upper layer, but you can see that the lower nougat layer is lighter than typical Milky Ways. It’s actually rather close to the color of the inside of an apple.

It’s not just the color that’s different, however. Upon biting into one of these Minis, my mouth was instantly flooded with apple flavor. The chocolate and caramel flavors were immediately overwhelmed.

Exactly what constitutes “apple flavor”? Well, it’s a little hard to describe. It’d be easy to say that it tasted like a green apple Jolly Rancher, or a green apple Jelly Belly, or…well, any of the innumerable green apple-flavored candies that have snatched the title of “go-to green flavor” from lime in not-so-recent years. RIP, lime. I miss you.

But this candy was different. It wasn’t sour like other apple candies. It actually kind of tasted like…apples?

Don’t fall out of your chair in shock quite yet, though. It was more like a hint of real apple with a healthy chemical artificiality. I know it’s weak, but my first impression was, “This is…weird.” Not helpful, really, but there it is. It was unique in that it almost pulled off an actual apple taste, but that taste was ruined by the strength of the artificial taste. In fact, even though these candies were less than bite-sized, after eating only two, the chemicapple taste lingered well after I was done, and I’d had my fill.

I have to say, I was expecting disaster from Limited Harvest Flavor Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis. What I got was a surprising and unique apple flavor that wasn’t a total disaster, but far from a tasty autumn treat that mimics an actual caramel apple. The apple flavor was too chemically and artificial, and it overwhelmed the chocolate and caramel, leaving an unpleasant aftertaste that didn’t leave me wanting to come back for more.

As always, I give points and appreciation to Milky Way for trying to go beyond just throwing a bat on the wrapper or changing the shape of the candy to a pumpkin, but I can’t give a total thumbs up on these Limited Harvest Flavor Caramel Apple Minis. If I were a trick-or-treater, I’d be excited to see this new product in my pillow case (as long as there was more than one), but I’d wind up going back to my A-pile Fun Size Snickers and Twix pretty quickly.

Limited Harvest Flavor Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 puking pumpkins
  • Price: $2.79
  • Size: 11.5 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Target
  • Nutritional Quirks: Nothing remotely apple-related listed as an ingredient, so I guess the mysterious “artificial and natural flavors” are what make the apple magic happen. I’m leaning more towards the “artificial” part.

Candy Blog, Fatguyfoodblog and The Impulsive Buy also reviewed these little buggers.

Junk Food

Doritos Jacked Enchilada Supreme and Smoky Chipotle BBQ

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Another Frito-Lay chip, another XXXtreme chip name. Ruffles became Ultimate; Doritos are now Jacked.

The word “jacked” does not immediately bring up positive connotations; when I think jacked, I think “jacked up”, like, “Oh man, you totally jacked up that guy’s face!”

Of course, now I’m old, so it’s more like, “Oh man, I totally jacked up my back while I was sleeping last night.”

Doritos seems to have a different definition of the word, however. According to the front of the bag, Jacked means “Bigger. Bolder. Thicker.”

Okay. Obviously not my first guess, but hey.

The back of the bags expounds. “It came without warning: a NEW, extreme snack sent to shock your taste buds with MIND-BLOWING flavor and a bigger, bolder, thicker CRUNCH than you’ve ever experienced before.”

The caps emphasis is all Doritos, because everyone knows caps lock means EXTREME. Or Jacked. Or maybe Doritos is just screaming at me, it’s hard to tell.

I like the idea that Doritos Jacked “came without warning”. It makes the chips sound like an old-school horror-movie monster. “It came without warning: SLIGHTLY LARGER AND THICKER TORTILLA CHIPS.” If I was your mom, I’d tell you not to eat Doritos Jacked in the dark before bedtime. You know how you get flavor dust nightmares, dear.

"Mommy, can I sleep in your bag tonight? I had that dream about those Jacked chips again."

As you can see, Jacked Doritos are indeed larger than regular Doritos, and they are also thicker. Plus side: there were almost no crushed chips in either of the bags I purchased. Negative: being larger, they are harder to shove mindlessly into your mouth. It took me at least two bites to get through each chip. Potential for double-dipping increases greatly.

Doritos Jacked comes in two flavors, Enchilada Supreme and Smoky Chipotle BBQ. Consider your mind blown all over the chip aisle of the convenience store.

Doritos Jacked Enchilada Supreme

I love enchiladas, but I had doubts about just how Supreme these Enchilada Doritos would be. According to the back of the bag, “Experience the RUSH of bold cheddar cheese & tangy salsa: then a WAVE of sizzling Mexican spices that’ll leave your taste buds BEGGING for more.”

That’s quite the promise of Flavor Country.

I wasn’t exactly sure what the “bolder” part of the Jacked equation was, but it seems to translate to “we left the chips in the flavor dust-sprayer an extra few minutes”, because these bitches be covered in powder. I’ve always appreciated finding those half-dozen Doritos in a bag that seem to have gotten an extra dust, and it seems like that’s the case with all the Jacked chips.

Unfortunately, I’ve been disappointed by Doritos and their promises of brain-spraying flavors before, and Enchilada Supreme was no exception. Again, I appreciated the heavy coating of powder, but the flavors here were nothing new. Imagine Spicy Nacho Doritos with just a hint of enchilada sauce, and that’s just about it. Does that count as a WAVE of sizzling Mexican spices? Not particularly.

Doritos Jacked Smoky Chipotle BBQ

I’d love to tell you how Doritos described these chips on the back of the bag, but we had a little…review malfunction in my household, resulting in the chips being eaten and the bag being thrown away before I had a chance to write down whatever ridiculous copy the Doritos marketing team came up with.

As an apology, I’ll use my powers of creativity and experience reading the backs of Doritos bags to make up my own description. “Your mouth parts will CRAVE this HIROSHIMA-LIKE EXPLOSION of barbecue and AUTHENTIC chipotle flavor that is so AMAZINGLY SMOKY you’ll think you just stepped into a Memphis jazz bar and someone threw a slow cooked brisket RIGHT INTO YOUR FACE. EXTREME BOLDNESS CRUNCH YOU LIKE A HURRICANE”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Please do not mistake the accidental consumption and subsequent disposal of the bag as an overpowering eagerness to eat such delicious chips; I would describe the situation more as “these are here, and we are running out of room in the cupboard”.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, and for good reason. I’ve railed against the use of chipotle as a flavor description when there is no discernible chipotle flavor, and sadly, that remains true here. There is a little bit of smokiness, but the dominant taste is your typical barbecue chip flavoring with a definite sweet side.

Call it a personal preference, but I just don’t truck with BBQ-flavored tortilla chips. Something about the sweetness just doesn’t jive with the flavor of the tortilla chip itself. Like Enchilada Supreme, Smoky Chipotle BBQ Jacked chips are heavily coated with flavor dust, which works against the chip in this case, as it only emphasizes the sweet barbecue flavor.

The premise of Doritos Jacked chips is “Bigger. Bolder. Thicker.”, and I’d say they pretty much deliver on that tagline. They are bigger, but do you really need a bigger tortilla chip? They also do seem thicker, but not to the point of hurting your teeth, and this seems to prevent chip breakage, which I call a plus.

As for the claim of being bolder, if we’re taking that to mean more flavor powder, they do certainly deliver on that front, too. While this works for Enchilada Supreme, despite the lack of originality in flavor, it works against Smoky Chipotle BBQ, which is just too sweet and lacks any chipotle flavor.

Does the world need Doritos Jacked? Not really. I get enough crunch from regular Doritos, and I don’t really want a tortilla chip that is too big to fit in my mouth. While I am a fan of heavily-dusted chips, there’s nothing original about Enchilada Supreme, and I found Smoky Chipotle BBQ straight-up unappealing.

If the Doritos Jacked line comes out with more flavors, I’m give them a try, because I’m a sucker. But for now, I’m perfectly content with regular ol’ Doritos.

Doritos Jacked Enchilada Supreme

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 flavor dust nightmares
  • Price: $1.49
  • Size: 3 3/8 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Circle K #2821
  • Nutritional Quirks: Do tomato and garlic powders count as “sizzling Mexican spices”? Because that’s the closest I could find on the ingredients list.

Doritos Jacked Smoky Chipotle BBQ

  • Score: 1.5 out of 5 briskets in your face at a Memphis jazz club
  • Price: $1.49
  • Size: 3 3/8 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Circle K #2821
  • Nutritional Quirks: No chipotle listed as an ingredient. Sigh.
Junk Food

Limited Edition Candy Corn flavor creme Artificially Flavored Oreo

3 Comments

It’s only mid-September, so you may be wondering why I’m reviewing a candy corn-flavored cookie. Well, first of all, mid-September is Halloween time. I don’t care what you say; from now until October 31st, I will submerge myself in as many ghosts, ghouls, bats, witches, zombies and fake blood as I can, and I will do it with no apologies.

Second, the Internet seems to have exploded with Candy Corn Oreo mania. Why? I have no idea. As we continue to descend into oddly-flavored snack food madness, Candy Corn Oreos seem like a rather mundane thing to get crazy about. But hey, I go where the Internet goes. And here we are.

I’ve been calling them Candy Corn Oreos, but their official moniker is Limited Edition Candy Corn flavor creme Oreos. This irritates me for two completely trivial reasons. Shouldn’t that be “flavored creme”? And why is it spelled “creme” instead of “cream”? Is there a difference? I can’t seem to find one, beyond using French spelling to look fancy. You are Candy Corn Oreos. You are not fancy. You have flavored cream.

Actually, wait, the official official name is Limited Edition Candy Corn flavor creme Artificially Flavored Oreos. So maybe they didn’t want to have two “flavored”s in one…eh, I give up.

I know, I know. I’m being nitpicky. I think I’m just cranky because I’m all out of candy corn-related material. When I reviewed Candy Corn Dots, I noted that people either love or hate candy corn. A year later, I reviewed M&M’s White Chocolate Candy Corn, wherein I made the same observation, and also linked to the same Lewis Black skit on candy corn, in which he is much funnier than I am anyways, because he’s Lewis Black.

Please, everyone: stop making things that are supposed to taste like candy corn. For my sake. I’m starting to look like a schlub at open mic night over here, sweating and pulling at my shirt collar. Even the drunks are getting tired of my old material, and they’re already blacked out.

Well, let’s get this over with, then.

Jesus Christ, Nabisco, you are giving me no breaks, here. Look at this minimalist packaging. “Hey, here’s a cookie, and some CG candy corns of varying sizes, in case you did not understand that these are Candy Corn Oreos.”

Actually, the more I stare at it, I like the way the candy corns increase in size, giving the illusion that they are coming closer and closer to you. That big guy in front looks like he’s about ready to jump right off the package and fuck my shit up. The cookie and the Oreo logo can barely contain him. He’s all like, “Hold me back bro, hold me back!” I bet he wouldn’t even know what to do with himself if they let him go. All the candy corns in the background are just rolling their eyes. “Ugh, Gary does this every time he drinks.”

Upon opening the package, I was assaulted not by Gary, but by the overwhelming smell of sugar. I literally did one of those “whoah, back that shit up” moves, like when you sniff a carton of expired milk, except less gross and more “I think I just got a cavity through my olfactory senses”.

Heh. It looks like a candy corn butt.

I’d go on another inappropriate rant about how the white tip of candy corn is not properly represented, but I guess you could say the Golden Oreo cookies themselves serve that function. You slid by on a technicality, Nabisco.

What’s more important here is that the flavor of the candy corn is not properly represented. I tried, I really did. I ate like, four cookies. I licked the cream – er, creme. If I tried really hard, I thought I could maybe taste some residual candy corn flavor, but mostly it was typical sweet vanilla-ish Oreo frosting and Golden Oreo cookie.

My husband swore he could taste the candy corn, but try as I might, I just wasn’t getting it. And you know what? I’m pretty okay with that, because I think I’d rather have a regular Golden Oreo than a candy-corn flavored Oreo.

I appreciate the efforts of any snack company that makes special seasonal products, but if you’re going to put out some Limited Edition Candy Corn flavor creme Artificially Flavored Oreos, they should probably taste like candy corn. These Oreos won’t go to waste, but I also won’t feel much Halloweenier eating them, which means they’ve missed their mark. Maybe I’ll dunk them in a nice, tall glass of fake blood to get more into the Halloween spirit.

Spirit? Get it? I hope so because I’m going to use that joke about 50 more times before Halloween is over. Enjoy!

Limited Edition Candy Corn flavor creme Artificially Flavored Oreo

  • Score: 3 out of 5 candy corn butts
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 10.5 oz. package
  • Purchased at: Target (exclusive)
  • Nutritional Quirks: Does not taste like candy corn, but you’ll still get a hearty helping of sugar!

Dinosaur Dracula, GrubGrade and The Impulsive Buy also reviewed these cookies.

Junk Food

Ruffles Ultimate Kickin’ Jalapeño Ranch Chips, Smokehouse Bacon Dip and Beef N’ Cheese Dip

11 Comments

Snack food companies love to throw around words like “extreme” (or Xtreme, or XXXTREEEME), “intense”, “maximum”, and all manner of other adjectives that they want you to think makes their product seem like the craziest, most flavorful, most BLOWIN’ YOUR MIND food you’ve ever eaten.

And I fall for it every time.

Well, not exactly. I don’t expect said product to explode my head, blowing my brains all over my kitchen, or even just make me say, “Wow, that was intense.” But every time I see one of these adjectives on the shelves, I have to at least give it a glance. It is just my nature.

This time, it took a brief post on Facebook to catch my attention. Namely, a post from Ruffles proudly letting me know that their Ultimate Beef N’ Cheese Dip contained real beef brisket.

Such a matter-of-fact post, and yet, to my trained eye, I was instantly revolted and intrigued at the same time.

Soon afterward, I saw a commercial for Ruffles Ultimate that was 30 seconds of so much stupid that I had to take an inordinate amount of time pausing and rewinding it to break it down for all of you:

We open with three shlubs playing poker; balding shlub #4 walks in with his innocent-looking girlfriend (played by actress Emily Chang, whose IMDB credits include “Sexy Nurse” and “Flight Attendant”) and asks if they have room for her. She smiles, all “what are these cards and chips (get it? Poker chips in a chip commercial!) and Texas Hold ‘Em oh my goodness” and the shlubs are immediately roped in by her good looks and seeming gullibility.

She sits down; there’s a bag of Ruffles Ultimate Kickin’ Jalapeño Ranch chips and a jar of Smokehouse Bacon Dip already in front of her chair, which begs the question: who was eating the chips and dip before she arrived? Did Dave just go to take a piss and was instantly usurped by the arrival of a female? Was it some sort of shrine to a dead friend and former poker buddy, who refused to play unless chips and dip were provided for him and him only? I guess we’ll never know.

She sits down and immediately says, “Mmmm, new Ruffles Ultimate,” which is a thing nobody in real life would ever actually say, and sticks a chip into the jar of dip, shoving it into her mouth with lightning speed, like she hasn’t eaten in days.

“Never seen ridges this deep,” she says, pile-driving another dip-loaded chip into her mouth. But wait! What has happened? Innocent girlfriend is suddenly wearing oversized sunglasses and a Bedazzled pair of headphones!

“ Is [sic] there chunks of bacon in this dip? Awesome!” The “awesome” is said in a reverent whisper I would reserve for, say, watching a live feed of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars while in a public library. As she says this, she makes an almost O-face and her sad-sack boyfriend sitting next to her leers. Once dressed modestly, she is now wearing a spaghetti-strapped tank top. One of the shlubs announces that he is “all in”, which I’m sure he wishes he was, in a different context.

“Bro, [unintelligible] me a cold one,” she says, now wearing a blinged-out necklace and a tight leather jacket over her tank top.

“I love you so much right now,” her boyfriend says, immediately getting up to do her bidding. It’s obvious he likes this dressed-for-the-club chick over the nice, sweet girl he walked in with, pre-Ruffles. This is sad but telling. My feminist hackles rise like the ridges of Ruffles Ultimate chips.

“Whatchoo got,” one of the guys off-camera says, in a desperate attempt to sound cool in front of the newly-sexified girlfriend while the boyfriend is in the kitchen, oblivious to one of his friends making what I assume is a double entendre.

“Ba-ZIIIIING,” she says, which is also something nobody has ever actually said, and throws her cards down. “Love boys night out,” she says, and takes, like, three chips from the pot. I take this to mean she has no idea how to play poker, and was just randomly throwing cards down and taking chips. Poker chips, not Ruffles chips.

This scene ends abruptly, leaving me to believe that the guys continue to let her win by just throwing down random cards and taking arbitrary amounts of chips from the pot, all in the hopes of having a quad-way with her as she shovels more and more Ruffles into her mouth.

“The new Ruffles Ultimate: snack like you mean it,” a voiceover says, trying his hardest to sound like the manliest man in the land. What does that phrase even mean? Have I ever snacked like I didn’t mean it? I’ve never taken anything with “sleep-eating” as a side effect, so I guess I wouldn’t know.

That sure was a hell of a lot of words to describe a commercial. Heck, you can just watch the damn thing here.

Now that I’m thoroughly disgusted with Ruffles’ advertising agency and myself, let’s get to the actual food. The word “disgusted” may or may not come up again.

Ruffles Ultimate Kickin’ Jalapeño Chips

What makes these chips “ultimate” is explained right on the front of the bag: “HARDERcore ridges for hardcore dips”.

While I’d love to go on a rant about the use of the non-word “hardercore”, there’s an even deeper issue here. Deeper than one stupid commercial. Deeper than hardercore ridges. It’s called manvertising, and Frito-Lay’s Snack Chat post makes it clear that that is what they’re going for:

“The chips rock ridges twice the size and depth of the ridges in original Ruffles Potato Chips and come in a variety of real food flavors sure to satisfy any guy gathering. The thick, deep ridges in the chips allow for guys to load up on hearty flavor with new hardcore dips…”

I’m trying desperately to stay on-topic, but I have to at least mention the ridiculousness of the phrase “real food flavors”. Have you ever seen a chip that was not “real food” flavored?

“Oh man, you gotta try these new PVC Pipe Pringles. Tastes just like plastic!”

“Check out these limited edition cotton-flavored Doritos!” (Never got past test marketing; potheads and those suffering from hangovers complained of cotton mouth.)

Okay, okay, I got it out of my system. Anyways, I don’t go around burning my bras, but stuff like this is so blatantly sexist that my feminist hackles can’t help but go up. I really don’t mind if products that are obviously intended for guys, like, say, Old Spice deodorant, are directly marketed to the male gender, but things like low-calorie soda or chips with bigger ridges can be enjoyed by both genders.

More on this later. Oh, that’s right. We’re not done yet.

Here’s some words about these stupid chips. As you can see, they do have deeper ridges, but they aren’t much thicker than regular Ruffles. Will deeper ridges alone allow for less chip breakage when dipping? We shall find out in a moment.

As for the flavor, I’m completely dismissing the “Kickin’” part because that’s just regular ol’ unnecessary adjective addition, which has become pedestrian in this day and age of snack food marketing. It’s like when you type the same word over and over again; after a while, it loses all meaning and your eyeballs just pass right over it. I don’t even care that Ruffle is doin’ the whole gerund-abbreviation thin’. It don’t mean nothin’.

The jalapeño flavor does have some actual heat to it, which is always appreciated in a product that claims to have some spice goin’ on. The ranch flavor was surprisingly strong, especially on the finishing end; it lingers more than the jalapeño flavor, but has an authentic ranch flavor that I enjoyed.

Oh, by the way, the back of the bag also says, “Your hunger’s about to get kicked in the tail by the hottest ranch this side of Carson City.”

If you don’t quite get the joke there, you’re obviously an out-of-touch woman, or a sissy man who has never been with a legal whore. Watch out; Ruffles will revoke your Man Card for such an offense.

Ruffles Ultimate Smokehouse Bacon Dip

The jar wants to make sure I know that there’s real bacon inside, which is not inherently bad, because, hey, bacon, but I’m a little disturbed at what this bacon is suspended in. The name of the dip is completely bacon-centric, but its creamy whiteness left me unsettled.

I decided to plow ahead without reading the ingredients on the jar and let my tongue decide what was going on. It’s not like I wasn’t going to eat it anyways, and ignorance is bliss, right?

I also decided to try to Smokehouse Bacon Dip with the Kickin’ Jalapeño Ranch Chips, because that’s what Emily Chang did in the commercial, and I always follow the serving suggestions of snack food manufacturers.

Speaking of which, why not just have Emily Chang turn into a dude at the end of the Ruffles Ultimate commercial? Who wants a sexy chick interrupting your male-bonding poker game? After all, nothing says “completely heterosexual guy gathering” like getting something thick, white and creamy all over your hands with your best buds?

Damn these hackles! So distracting! Anyways, as you can see, Ruffles Ultimate chips immediately failed the “hardercore” test, breaking almost immediately after contact with the thick dip. Way to fail at the one thing you claimed you could accomplish, Ultimate chips. I just so happened to have a bag of regular Ruffles in my cupboard, so I thought a comparison might be in order…

Well, this is awkward...

Ouch.

As for the taste of the dip, it was…well, kind of bland, really. Kind of like a half-assed blend of ranch and sour cream flavors. Out of the three rather large chipfuls of Smokehouse Bacon Dip I ate, only one actually contained a chunk with texture that suggested I was eating a piece of bacon, and even then, it was limp and chewy.

The bacon flavor itself, despite the jar’s claim of real bacon, tasted more like Bacon Bits, and was more of an aftertaste. It’s sad when “bland white stuff” taste overwhelms “real bacon” taste. It even overwhelmed the bit of heat from the chips, somehow. I never knew bland could be so strong.

In hindsight, I’m glad I tried the dip before I read the ingredients. Some of the ingredients with sub-ingredients (have I used the word “ingredients” enough yet?) include “sour cream flavor”, “smoky bacon type flavor” and “butter type flavor”. I’ve never seen so many types. Especially without the grammatically appropriate hyphens.

Ruffles Ultimate Smokehouse Bacon Dip wasn’t gross, per se; it was just bland and disappointing. I wasn’t exactly expecting to be blown away with awesome bacon flavor, nor was I expecting to suddenly be wearing ridiculous bejeweled headphones. I was just expecting something beyond blah. I also was not expecting butter type flavor.

But Smokehouse Bacon Dip is joy in a jar compared to what was to come next…

Ruffles Ultimate Beef N’ Cheese Dip

And here we have the dip that started it all. There’s real beef inside, which I already knew from the Facebook post that told me it contained not just real beef, but real beef brisket.

No questions regarding meat content here; when I opened the lid, I was greeted with, well…that. Ominous lumps hiding just under the surface of a sea of processed cheese. I was already filled with trepidation.

The Ultimate chips fared better with this dip, as the cheese was less thick than the Smokehouse Bacon Dip.

However, the regular Ruffles fared just as well, so Ultimate still loses.

These were the first and last two bites of Beef N’ Cheese Dip I will ever experience. I wanted to stop at one, but I already had the second chip loaded up, and I thought the dip deserved at least two chances.

Let me explain further…

Ruffles Ultimate Beef N’ Cheese Dip is horrible. As the dip first entered my mouth, my taste buds were met with processed cheese flavor, which was not unexpected. However, it went beyond just processed, and ventured into, no, past the worst elementary-school-cafeteria nacho cheese you’ve ever tasted.

And then there was the beef. The chunks were visibly large, but also disturbingly soft. The more I chewed, the worse it got. It started out like a bad piece of meat from a can of Dinty Moore stew, but quickly turned into what I can only describe as “value” generic-brand dog food. I’ve never tasted dog food, but I’ve certainly smelled it, and the “beef brisket” chunks in this dip must be close to what you’d feed your dog if you hate it and want it to die. It is animal cruelty disguised as human chip dip.

Just when I thought it couldn’t be worse, the cheese goo from Hell and the dog food chunks somehow conspired to make the aftertaste even worse. Sometimes I go into food knowing that it’s going to be bad; I steel myself, but soldier on. This…this I was not expecting. The taste lingered in my mouth like a wretched food poisoning-induced vomit, which was appropriate, because I actually felt nauseous after eating it.

I was actually hungry before I had started this review; after the Beef N’ Cheese dip, I honestly had no desire to eat anything, instead dousing my mouth with a cold, bitter mug of coffee that had been hanging around for hours. I verbalized actual “ugh” and “bleeeeeh” sounds as I reeled around my house, which may sound overdramatic, but I was alone, and the sounds were genuine.

The taste refused to leave, like an animal had died inside the wall of my house, except the only exterminator that could eliminate this putrid flavor would be the cold, bony finger of Death himself.

Okay, that last part was a little overdramatic. But only a little.

Overall, my Ruffles Ultimate experience was far from ultimate. The flavor of the Kickin’ Jalapeño Ranch Chips was okay but nothing original or fantastic, and the deeper, wider ridges were actually less effective in preventing chip breakage when up against a thick dip.

The Smokehouse Bacon Dip was hardly a bacon party in my mouth, and the dip itself, chock full of “type” flavors, had hardly any flavor at all. I don’t expect a whole lot out of a jarred, shelf-stable dip, but I expected more than a vaguely sour cream/ranchy base with some chewy bits of fake-tasting bacon.

Last and most definitely least, the Beef N’ Cheese dip was a horrorshow that makes me wish I had a time machine so I that I could go back and tell myself to never read Facebook again just so I had never known it existed. I just realized I never bothered to read the ingredients on the jar of this dip, and you know what? I’m not going to. I’ve already been traumatized enough. I don’t need any further confirmation that this dip is made from the Devil’s jizz and boiled chunks of old horse meat.

Oh, right, I actually forgot about my hackles for some minutes, there. Here’s a parting quote from Frito Lay North America’s Vice President of Marketing: “Guys live for larger-than-life moments that fuel legendary stories they share for years. Male bonding is a rite of passage for guys, and what better way to bond than by attending one of the most exciting parties on the planet. The Ruffles Ultimate line was created to fuel epic moments. It’s in moments like these, often over a bag of chips, where recounting the tale is almost as fun as being there the first time.”

These are some of the dumbest words about any food product I’ve ever seen in print. I could rip it apart for another good 500 words, but I already never want to see the words “Ruffles” and “Ultimate” in the same sentence ever again.

The “party” he’s referring to is some Maxim tie-in contest that has since expired. Consider that a blessing, although nothing makes a for some male bonding and a legendary story with an epic moment quite like a circle puke of fake cheese and dog chow all over a group of Maxim models. Hardercore.

Ruffles Ultimate Kickin’ Jalapeño Ranch Chips

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 hardercore chips more fragile than the bones of a post-menopausal woman with osteoporosis
  • Price: $4.29
  • Size: 8 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: These are chips. Blessedly, they’re just chips.

Ruffles Ultimate Smokehouse Bacon Dip

  • Score: 1.5 out of 5 BA-ZIIIINGs
  • Price: $4.49
  • Size: 15 oz. jar
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: Sour cream type flavor. Smoky bacon type flavor. Butter type flavor.

Ruffles Ultimate Beef N’ Cheese Dip

  • Score: 0 out of 5 circle vomits
  • Price: $4.49
  • Size: 15 oz. jar
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: Since I refuse to read the actual ingredients – Devil’s jizz and old horse meat.

Other reviews of Ruffles Ultimate products: Brand Eating, The Impulsive Buy, Fatguyfoodblog

Junk Food

Birthday Cake Oreo Limited Edition

4 Comments

Happy 100th birthday, Oreos! Well, actually, that was on March 6th. Please accept this store-bought card with a funny “belated birthday” joke in it. It also has a joke about you being old, because you are!

That said, Oreo is celebrating their birthday with the very appropriately named Birthday Cake Oreos. LOVE the packaging, first of all. It’s like somebody got a cake from the Kroger bakery, then took the time to buy 12 different alphabet candles to spell out “BIRTHDAY CAKE”, which I would find an odd thing if it were on my birthday cake, but hell, at 100 years old, Oreo can do whatever it wants.

There’s also a bow wrapped around the package (well, not literally, but printed on the- you know what, I’m sure you can figure it out), completing this impromptu birthday party by letting you know this package of Oreos is Nabisco’s gift to you. I don’t usually give other people gifts on my birthday, but I’m a selfish bitch like that.

Attached to the bow is a tag, which reads in font so small even with my eyeballs two inches from the actual package can barely make out, “Oreo 100th birthday celebrate the kid inside Limited Edition 1912 – 2012”.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think you need to access your inner child to celebrate Oreos. Adults like Oreos. Besides, for some people, accessing their kid inside might result in some repressed memories coming forward and lots of tears. It’s no fun to be eating Oreos while you’re crying into your milk because Uncle Dan touched you in bad places and you’d pushed that memory down for 20 years.

Let’s get back to happier topics. Like Birthday Cake Oreos!

Look at that! It’s straight Oreo logo on the other side, but this side gets a special “Oreo 100” with an adorable little birthday candle on top. I love this kind of attention to detail.

The first thing that hit me when I opened the package was a very strong odor of, shockingly, birthday cake. Well, birthday cake, general sugar, and a bit of Oreo cookie. But the birthday cake smell surprised me. I know they’re called Birthday Cake Oreos, but I’ve learned not to trust what packaging tells me the product inside is going to taste like.

I, of course, immediately twisted the top off of one of the cookies, because that’s what you do when you have an Oreo in your hand. The packaging hinted at the prospect of sprinkles inside the signature creamy filling, and there were indeed sprinkles. Not a bad assortment, either! Almost all of ROY G. BIV was represented, and not very sparse. Adorable.

All signs have pointed to birthday cake, so far. But what about the taste?

First of all, if you live in Idon’tknowwhereistan and don’t know what the outside of an Oreo tastes like, a.) you’re probably not reading this, and b.) it’s a crunchy, crumbly chocolate cookie. The end.

The filling really does taste like birthday cake! Or, at the very least, birthday cake frosting. I wish the sprinkles had been crunchy little bits, which would have been fun, but they seem to be there mostly for decoration. It’s sweeter than normal Oreo filling – actually a little too sweet for my taste, but someone with a sweeter tooth would definitely enjoy it. You can still taste the traditional flavor of Oreo filling, but the cake taste is a surprisingly accurate addition.

I call Birthday Cake Oreos a success. The packaging is festive, the design on the cookie is a nice touch, the sprinkles are super cute, and they really did make the filling taste like cake frosting. My only complaint is that they are too sweet for my taste. Birthday Cake Oreos are a limited edition, so celebrate their 100th birthday while you can!

Birthday Cake Oreo Limited Edition

  • Score: 4 out of 5 alphabet birthday candles
  • Price: $2.99 (on sale; regularly priced $3.69)
  • Size: 10.5 oz. package
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirks: Sugar is the very first ingredient listed. Cavities ahoy!
Junk Food

Screaming Yellow Zonkers!

34 Comments

SNEAK PREVIEW ALERT! Screaming Yellow Zonkers will not be in stores until May 15, so don’t run out looking for them until that date!

Screaming Yellow Zonkers! Popcorn is something I seem to remember from my childhood (like Pop Qwiz), but don’t recall ever trying (probably because I was too busy eating Pop Qwiz). According to Wikipedia, which is the only real source of information I could find, so take all this with a grain of salt, Zonkers (I am dropping the exclamation point from now on since it’s annoying to have every word after that get auto-capitalized) were first introduced in the late 1960s. According to me, that was a run-on sentence.

For what seems like an innocuous snack food, Zonkers has quite the interesting history. Instead of pasting the entire Wikipedia article here, get off your Internet ass and read it yourself.

It seems they always had a sense of humor, and it seems they’ve kept that tradition alive, which just tickles my knickers. These days, food packaging is either THIS IS HEALTHY AND A SERIOUS MATTER or THIS PRODUCT IS SO FUCKING EXXTREEEEEME IT WILL LITERALLY BLOW YOUR MIND STRAIGHT OUT THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD. A little tongue-in-cheek is refreshing. Enjoy these commercials from the 1970s(?) and 1980s(?)  I especially like the latter; when was the last time you saw someone convulsing on the ground to advertise for a product?

Case in point: the top of my box says, “open here, but don’t get mouthy with me!” Get it? MOUTHY? Man, I’m the only one who appreciates a good pun anymore.

Zonkers were discontinued in 2007, but now they’re making a comeback! Which is obvious, since I am reviewing them. In true Zonkers fashion, on the side of the box they explain their absence:

“You may have noticed that have BEEN GONE for a while, and you can blame Bill for that one. He’s one of those bottom of the box KERNELS that’s missing some of his BUTTERY GLAZE, if you know what I mean. He decided that we needed to get out of this box and go on a trip to ‘FIND OURSELVES’. It was somewhere between here and there we had our A-HA MOMENT. We had it good, really good, so we came SCREAMING BACK to the good life!”

Damn that Bill. I bet there wasn’t a kernel of truth to his entire story. I hope they popped him right in the face.

Sorry, I’m being really corny.

Now that’s how you rock some puns.

ANYWAYS. Zonkers came back in four limited edition retro-looking boxes, and here they are! (You can see an example of an old school box on the Wikipedia page I referred to earlier that none of you clicked on.)

I wound up with limited edition box #3.

I’m happy with my box. I think it’s the most sinister-sounding. I imagine my box of Zonkers hovering around my house for days. I catch glimpses of it in the window, but think my eyes are playing tricks on me. Then, late at night, as I’m watching a rerun of Golden Girls, it suddenly bursts through my front door, eyes wild. “Did you MISS ME, baby?” It says, right before it violently stabs me 17 times, laughing maniacally the whole time.

Screaming Yellow Zonkers should be happy I’m not on their marketing team.

I should probably get to the actual product at some point. Given that “Screaming Yellow Zonkers” gives you zero clue as to what the actual product is, the box goes on to describe the product as “crispy butter-glazed popcorn snack!” Zonkers loves exclamation marks.

I’m not sure exactly what a Zonker is, but these little guys are certainly Screaming Yellow. This is not a color that occurs in nature. The glaze just adds to the unnaturalness. I feel like I should be repulsed, but I’m really not. I’ve eaten blue popcorn before. How many times am I going to reference Pop Qwiz in this review?

Considering I hadn’t viewed those commercials before I ate Zonkers for the first time, I was surprised to find that there was quite a bit of sweetness to them. I suppose I shouldn’t have been, but I’m dumb, whatever. It’s impossible to not immediately think of Cracker Jacks when you eat them. They feel exactly the same in your hand – glazed and a little sticky.

They also taste remarkably similar; take out the nuts and exchange caramel coating for butter coating, and there you have it. There’s really no better way to describe them.

The taste combination of butter and sugar is disconcerting at first, and yet I found that I kept eating them. After my mouth accepted the combination, I actually started liking them, until my sugar limits kicked in. The glaze also gives them a nice crunch, which I liked. It feels like one of those snacks you sit down with in front of the tv, and before you know it, you’ve eaten the entire box and consumed 360 calories.

Would I buy again? (Or in this case, use my own money to acquire.) Probably not. I like popcorn, and I like butter, but I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, and Screaming Yellow Zonkers are pretty damn sweet. While I accepted the combination of butter and sugar surprisingly easily, I can see how it would not sit well with others. I wish they could have been butter-glazed without the sugar, but I’m pretty sure you can’t glaze anything without using sugar, so I guess I’ll just have to wait for some sort of futuristic non-sugar-glaze technology.

While I didn’t like the sugar, I have to give props to the Zonkers marketing team for their excellent sense of humor. It’s not going to make me like the popcorn any more than I did, but I appreciate their efforts nonetheless.

If you like sugar and you’ve always wished Cracker Jacks had no nuts and tasted like butter, then you’ll like Screaming Yellow Zonkers. Unfortunately, they don’t come with a surprise toy. I only ate Cracker Jacks as a child because I was hoping for some temporary tattoos.

Screaming Yellow Zonkers will be available exclusively at Walgreen’s nationwide, so don’t search your local grocery stores fruitlessly, because you’ll only be met with heartbreak.

Required disclosure: my box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers was provided to me as a free sample by ConAgra Foods. As always, I remain objective and often insulting.)

Screaming Yellow Zonkers!

  • Score: 3.5 out of 5 sticky fingers. I hate having sticky fingers.
  • Price: Free sample, but you can score a box for $1.00
  • Size: 3 oz. box
  • Purchased at: Sent to me, but you can find them exclusively at Walgreen’s nationwide
  • Nutritional Quirks: That shade of yellow does not occur in nature.