I bought several bags of chips the other day, all of them the familiar Lays brand, and am preceding to work my way through them. Bag number one, on the left: Mexican Tomato Chicken Flavor. Oddly, there's a picture of the cover of both a tomato and a gravy boat full of hollandaise sauce, neither of which seem particularly Mexican or chickeny to me. The taste is not bad: it's not loaded with oregano or cumin as you might expect, but is a rather sweet version of a barbecue flavored chip. It's pleasant enough, but nothing to write home about, although I do seem to be spending time on an Easter Sunday blogging about it. Yeah, well, it's worth mentioning in passing, that's the best I can say of this. Saucy treat number two: This is, and again, I am not kidding, French Chicken Flavor. French Chicken--to me this is a hint of some delicious tarragon-infused treat. What it is, basically, is your basic Lay potato chip with some fussy, almost undetectable powder clinging to it which tastes faintly of salt, powdered sugar, and MSG. It actually tastes more like a regular Lays potato chip than the plain ol' "American" flavor we buy over here. Pleasant, but not worth it.
Since I had both of these bags (yes, I shared a bit with the dogs) during the course of a single day, you can understand why I chose to have beer for dinner, in an effort to rid my body of that much sodium and MSG. I have a brunch to go to today at The Den, which is normally a sports bar (precisely the reason we six single ladies chose to breach its perimeters on today, The Lord's Day) but which used to have good brunches. I don't know if their own particular and peculiar brunch special is still up--you used to have your choice of a milkshake or a mimosa as a side order at breakfast--but I will report back to you. Today's Chip Du Jour is the most horrific one I have ever seen and I am probably going to have to get sloshed at brunch in order to open the bag, let alone dump out and sample the contents.
What gastronomic horror can be causing me this much agony in advance? Is it the Green Tea with Lemon Flavor? Cucumber Flavor, or the other version available in the "lite" (Read: dehydrated) chip, Green Cucumber Flavor? Oh hell no: it's not even Italian Red Meat Flavor. It is--brace yourself--HOT AND SOUR FISH SOUP FLAVOR. Hey, try topping your next casserole with THAT.
BTW--tomorrow is Anzac Day. If you don't know the story of the Anzac push in WW1, look it up. My grandmother lost her true love to World War One and it may or may not be true that on Anzac Day she wore black and walked around saying mysterious things like "Bloody Winston Churchill!" In any event, if you can attend an Anzac service, do so: very moving, very beautiful, and enough to turn you Quaker on the spot. The daughter of a long line of people who served in the military, I am convinced that making war is evil, but self-defense is mandatory. I'll do my bit to remember the boys by doing something other than making Anzac biscuits or picking up anyone from Down Under to share our breakfast. (Come to think of it two of my dining companions are Kiwi and Australian.) How about this: I promise to remember that I am a guest in this country and to act as a good ambassador by my cheerful and polite attitude. Yeah, I know, I do that perfectly every frickin' day.
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