Bret’s La Bretonne Subtiiilement Beurrée

 Purchased, you guessed it, from a motorway service station in France, this interesting crisp is just delicious. There were other flavours on offer in the little shop (where I also bought a packet of extremely good ham for our picnic lunch), but this looked the most intriguing.

So yesterday I put out a bowl of crisps for the Chef which he shoved to the far end of the table for fear of eating too many, and I sat down on the sofa with the packet. And ate far too many all at once.

Just delicious. A gorgeous buttery taste which may sound wrong, but trust me, it’s so right. Lovely crisp bite as always from Bret’s, finely crinkled, irresistible. Buy some to try if you see them, but possibly only available in France.

And they remind me quite strongly of the long lamented M&S Reduced Fat Buttered Baked Potato crisp which was great. It really was.

Magicorn Eazy Pop Microwave Popcorn Butter

Just for a change I thought the reluctant taste testers might like to try microwave popcorn. Butter flavour. And it is fun to stand by the microwave listening to the pops, waiting for the popping to run down and almost stop so you know it's time to whip the bag out and open it gently. Yum!

The trouble with microwave popcorn is that you get a vast pile of it all at once, and if you don't eat it quickly and while it's hot, somehow you lose the attraction of having gone to the trouble of sticking a packet into the microwave.

The packet says perfectly popped in minutes! And it was. Very nice properly popped popcorn, lightly salted and not too much butter. So probably better for you than one with masses of butter dripping all over... although I do like too much butter myself.

Proper popcorn should have a light almost velvety texture and squeak when you bite it. This does. It's not a brand I have ever seen before but I might just try the other flavours. Very nice.