Miss Vickie's Applewood Smoked BBQ

Crafted with care since 1987 says the packet. Many of the crispy snack companies I have discovered have been set up far more recently so this probably qualifies as a fairly long standing brand of snack.

I read that Miss Vickie's started out as a farm house crisp made by a a couple called Vickie and Bill Kerr who farmed in Ontario (which is in Canada) but at some time it was bought up by Frito-Lay's. Which means of course that like so many crispy snacks it belongs to the mega marketing monster that is PepsiCo.

So far I have only tried one packet of Miss Vickie's crisps and that not very enthusiastically. Partly because as you probably know I'm not mad for barbecue or BBQ as a flavour. I know a lot of people who love barbecue but I could live without ever tasting another BBQ flavoured crisp. And then there's another reason. As I write I have 7 pills to take each day and one of them, I forget which, has a depressing side effect: it affects your appetite. And in my case it means I don't really fancy crispy snacks just now. I'm just hoping I get over it.

These are the Miss Vickie's flavours listed on Wikipedia: 24 of them and only 2 discontinued. I'm a bit sorry I shall never get the chance to try the Honey & Roasted Garlic flavour. which sounds rather interesting.

• Miss Vickie's Original Recipe (1987)
• Miss Vickie's Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar (1987)
• Miss Vickie's Jalapeño (1998)
• Miss Vickie's Hand-Picked Jalapeño (1999)
• Miss Vickie's Country Onion with 3 Cheeses (1999)
• Miss Vickie's Roasted Garlic & Herb (2001)
• Miss Vickie's Harvest Onion (2002)
• Miss Vickie's Sweet Chili & Sour Cream (2003)
• Miss Vickie's Lime & Black Pepper (2004)
• Miss Vickie's Smokehouse BBQ (2005)
• Miss Vickie's Honey & Roasted Garlic (2005) (Discontinued in 2009)
• Miss Vickie's Roasted Red Pepper Grill (2006)
• Miss Vickie's Vintage Cheddar & Red Onion (2007)
• Miss Vickie's Creamy Buttermilk Ranch (2008)
• Miss Vickie's Unsalted (2008)
• Miss Vickie's Mesquite BBQ (Discontinued in 2008)
• Miss Vickie's Rosemary & Basil (2008)
• Miss Vickie's Crinkle Cut Original (2009)
• Miss Vickie's Balsamic Vinegar & Sweet Onion (2010)
• Miss Vickie's Reduced Fat (2014)
• Miss Vickie's Applewood Smoked BBQ (2015)
• Miss Vickie's Sour Cream & Caramelized Onion (2016)
• Miss Vickie's Harvest Cheddar and Herbs (2017)
• Miss Vickie's Farmhouse White Cheddar (2017)                               

I am going in to work about 6 hours a week now (don't knock it I can't manage any more just yet) and took this packet in to see what the reluctant taste testers had to say. I'm sorry to have to tell you that most of them quite forget they need to tell me what they think, but Slightly Red Haired Bristolian was pleased to approve these crisps.

Not very large crisps, with a slightly heavy bite and a very bright colour, these crisps seem to me to taste strongly of applewood (which I wrongly imagined to be one of the ingredients - it's not). Strange and not really for me. Still, Smokehouse BBQ (on the list above) sounds a lot nastier.

PS The Chef tried one of these crisps and thought it was horrible. He absent mindedly had another and before he knew it had eaten a whole bowlful.

7Days Bake Rolls Salt

We had left over guacamole from the other night's chicken tortillas (possibly as unauthentic as can be but the Chef has lived in Mexico) so the Chef said he'd buy some crisps to eat it with. I suggested Bake Rolls but apparently the Garlic flavour which the Chef likes best sells out really quickly and they don't get more Garlic Bake Rolls until all the other flavours like Pizza and Mushrooms & Cream ones have gone too.

But he went down the road anyway and came home with this packet of Salt flavour. Which sounds rather dull doesn't it? I mean... just Salt? However, since there was nothing else in the house suitable for scooping up guacamole, we tucked in. And were pleasantly surprised.

Tasty. A very nice combination of saltiness and fabulous crispy baked taste. It's a shame that guacamole isn't very photogenic but then green gloop rarely is, but I think we can recommend this crispy snack as one of those that don't seem to taste of much while at the same time tasting very good indeed. And just the job for scooping up a dip.

What do people do with crisp packets?

What indeed?

Well, throw them away mostly. Almost no crisp packets are currently recyclable in the UK so what are you, obviously a keen recycler and champion of the environment, going to do to salve your conscience? Perhaps you might make your own Christmas decorations? It may take you a while so better start now.

Or what about weaving a bag? There was a link to the instructions on the same page as the Christmas decoration suggestion but sadly it no longer works. But the photograph I have borrowed from that page shows the bags are very pretty. There's probably another place to find instructions; I expect I didn't look hard enough.

Of course handbag designer Anya Hindmarsh designed a bag to look like a crisp packet. Perhaps these bags are a trifle more expensive than a recycled crisp packet bag would be (18ct gold anybody?) and somewhat swankier than your average Lay's or Walkers packet they are rather fun. I want one! I'm going to borrow one of her images.

And what about making a dress or perhaps it is a wearable work of art? Here's a student called Rebekah modelling the dress she made from dozens of packets. I wonder how sturdy this is? From experience I know that crispy snack packets split very easily. I would have thought she might be better off printing the packet designs onto cloth; but then she would not have won an award for sustainable design.

As I said, crisp packets split very easily but I also wonder about washing them. They are usually so very greasy and I think you might get fed up with your project before you had produced anything clean and shiny enough to work with. So this dress may have won an award for sustainable design but I wonder how much precious water was used in its making?

It seems that one man from Hull grills (grills! you'd think a crisp packet would catch fire under a grill) empty packets and turns them into balls, which he will then makes into a work of art. Hull is the UK City of Culture this year and Gary Key has decided that's the way  he wants to join in. History has yet to relate whether or not Hull City Council will consider his offering to be art or not.

If you can't bring yourself to embark on any of these exciting, though possibly arduous projects, what about folding your empty packet into the smallest tidiest piece of rubbish possible? Here are some instructions to help you out.

A Visit to Reims in 2016 (France)

In fact despite me begging the Chef to stop in Reims because I long to visit the cathedral, we actually stop at Tinqueux which is a suburb of Reims. And 2 minutes walk from the very comfortable Novotel there is a giant Carrefour supermarché. And we pass through Tinqueux at least 4 times a year.

I love it. I enjoy shopping a lot and all the more if I don't actually need to buy anything. And frankly I don't need to buy crisps or crispy snacks. I just do.

Check out the huge array of crisps. I am certain the crisp market in France has got noticeably larger in the last 4 years, and certainly the range of crispy snacks was larger last year than in previous years.

I can see Pringles here, and the Carrefour own brand version, about 12 different flavours by the look of it. Also tubs of hula hoops which in the UK come in packets not tubs. And then to the left of the Pringles we move into the Biscuit apéritif section where the products are usually packaged in boxes.

I have scrutinised this photograph very carefully and have determined that there are 13 different Lay's flavours on the shelf; Poulet Rôti (roast chicken), Fromage (cheese), Cheese & Onion (yes, that's French for cheese & onion), Jambon Braisé (braised ham), Paprika, Bolognaise, Spicy (French for spicy), Barbecue, Moutarde Pickles (French for mustard and pickles, a very weird but rather fabulous flavour if you ask me but I have only tried the Bret's version), Saveur Giant (bonkersly this appears to be French for cheeseburger flavour these days), Salt & Vinegar (you guessed, French for salt & vinegar), á l'Ancienne which is a sort of old fashioned style of crisp the French seem to be very fond of, and Deep Ridge Barbecue. Phew. 

Lay's crisps of course are not available in the UK. We have Walkers instead with a rather different selection of flavours. We have Cheese & Onion but not cheese flavour. Salt & Vinegar but not Spicy or Moutarde Pickles. As for Saveur Giant! I have tried a number of these so I'll put some links in for you.

We also have Market Deli crisps in the photograph (2 flavours on the shelf), and Kettle Chips (2 flavours) and Tyrrell's. I wonder what the difference is between Sea Salt & Black Pepper and Sea Salt & Crushed Black Pepper? (4 flavours).

Then there are the French crisps. Vico Grillade aux herbes. I haven't tried this flavour and it sounds rather good. I haven't tried á l'Ancienne either but I can live with that because I think it's a rather dull kind of crisp. There are 3 kinds of Carrefour own brand crisps and then the Bret's crisps. Bret's crisps come from Brittany and feature flavours that are a little bit different; Chèvre (technically goat, but in this case probably goat's cheese), and au Comté which is a very nice French cheese and Chocolat Piment (chilli chocolate).

If you stand back, or in my case sit down, and list all the crisps in this photograph which is obviously not all the crisps in the store, it adds up to a vast number of crisps and crispy snacks. Huge numbers of crisps and snacks in dozens hundreds of flavours are manufactured all over the world. Tall taste tester suggested the other day that I should write a book about crisps but I think this is it. I have posted 741 different crisps and articles about crisps and photographs of crisp packets and reviews taken from magazines and newspapers. 741!! I guess I didn't look at the numbers recently. That's amazing. But it still doesn't qualify me as an expert when there are so many crispy snacks out there.

Here's what I bought at Carrefour in August 2016. See the Lay's Saveur Giant at the front? Oh dear. What a grumpy review I wrote abut that crisp.

Smiths Potato Crisps tin found on Ebay

I chanced to see this pretty vintage crisp tin on ebay and entered a very low bid. I don't really enjoy auctions so I didn't think about it again. Apparently nobody else thought about it either and so I won the auction and the tin was delivered to me today.

I love tins. I really like interesting packaging of any kind (see my other blog: there are links on the right of this page) but you cannot beat a good tin. And oddly, while I have more than 30 tins for sweet biscuits or chocolate, I only have 6 tins for crispy snacks; one Ritz Cracker tin, one Walkers Crisps tin, three different tins for ROKA Cheese Crispies and now one for Smith's Crisps.

I imagine this is because people are prepared to invest more in a biscuit or a box of chocolates. And if the biscuits or chocolates come in a tin, hey! that sounds like a pretty good present for Auntie Madge or maybe even Uncle Dick. Few people give a prettily wrapped packet of crisps as a present. I can't think why not. One of my favourite Christmas presents was a homemade selection box of little bags of crisps. Brilliant.

Think about it. That Star Wars lunchbox you were thinking of buying for your 6 year old nephew's birthday will be a whole lot more exciting if you cram in a couple of packets of Smith's Twisted Flamin' Hot or Smith's Spicy Tomato Flavour Snaps. And if your sister doesn't like her children to have crisps..... Well, it's only once a year.

Anyway, back to my handsome new/old tin. I'd love to know how old it is because the way the blurb talks about crisps it's as though they are a whole new concept. Serve crisps with your morning bacon, chops & steaks, fish, poultry or game, cocktails etc. it says on the end of the tin. Crisps with fish? Really? I never heard of that before. Exciting stuff. I can't really see it though, especially as I don't eat fish.

And on the other end it says No picnic basket is complete without Smith's Potato Crisps. Always take a supply when cycling, walking, fishing etc. etc. Doesn't it seem odd to think of a world where you had to be told to take a packet of crisps with you. And please note; there's no mention of a packet, just "a supply". Do you suppose that in what ever olden day world this tin comes from you would actually buy your crisps by the tin?

Sounds unlikely doesn't it? But when I was a small child in the early 1960s (and I have written about this before) we used to buy ROKA Cheese Crispies in a tin. Which was expensive. So I wonder how expensive Smith's Crisps were, and did they really come in a tin? I haven't researched this at all so you may know more than I do.

The tin is about 6.25" x 4.75" x 3.25" ( 570 x 110 x 801mm) so not very large. About the right size in fact for a small packet of crisps. At a squash. So don't forget that modern packets of crisps are giant, and you shouldn't eat a whole one all by yourself. Moderation is the key.

Plain crisps with a little blue bag of salt remind me of the Smith's crisps of my childhood. Today they are made by Walkers but you can still see the Smith's logo on the packet.

And if you are interested here's the tapestry I used as a backdrop to my photographs today. I think my Auntie V probably worked it. She was rich and had no children, and her husband (he was my great uncle) spent her money yachting. Their large house was full of beautiful things including this once fabulous footstool. But at only 8" high and 18" x 28" in this house it was a major trip hazard so the stool had to go. The tapestry I will frame because it's much too wonderful to roll up and keep in a drawer. The tin will go into the bookshelf with the rest of the collection.

A Visit to Bern in 2015 (Switzerland)

I am still mostly not at work (so far I've managed two hours at a time, two days last week: it was exhausting) but I am feeling better enough to attack all the tasks that have been sitting uncompleted on my own computer.

Way back in in 2015 I started a photobook. I usually make one for our proper holidays; a visit to Florence or Venice or somewhere, but I don't usually make a book for day trips. But in 2015 we didn't go away. We stayed home, either in the UK or in Switzerland, and made some amazing day trips.

Why am I telling you this? Because the first was a visit to Bern. Just for the day. By train. And while we enjoyed looking at the fabulous clock (800 years old according to wikipedia) and the weird statues Bern has to offer, and the fascinating way that restaurants in a city full of politicians and tourists are so reluctant to serve lunch at lunchtime (we eventually found a charming cafe run by Italians who seemed to know most of their customers by name), and the trams, and the bears (no longer thank goodness kept in a horrible concrete pit), and the fountains, we were delighted to end the day at a department store. What's better than a little light shopping?

Globus doesn't have a branch in Sion which is our nearest city, so I wasn't aware what a lovely shop it is. And I didn't know that in the basement it has a wonderful food department. Globus is handily close to the railway station so we knew we didn't have far to drag our purchases. So we bought delicious fresh pasta, and wine from the canton of Bern, and could I resist investigating the crisp department? What do you think?

Look, here's a reminder of what we found at Globus. The top shelf has Boxerchips (from Ireland) and the bottom row has Burt's (British, from Devon I think), Nandos (not sure but certainly available in the UK) and Roger's, which are from Belgium.

Globus does also sell own-brand Globus tortilla chips. but as I noted in my post they are not made in Switzerland at all but in the Netherlands. And if you like you can read all about my purchases by clicking on the links.

Pringles Original "Perfect Flavour in Every Bite"

I had to go into the hospital yesterday morning for an echo bubble test on my heart (I think that's what they call it), and have a blood pressure monitor fitted. This is horrible. I hate having my blood pressure taken; it's really painful. So I was feeling rather gloomy and in need of cheering up.

Luckily the hospital has a small shop. Quite a nice shop with lots of useful stuff for patients like extra pants and hand cream. It sells a selection of less than healthful drinks and snacks not ideal in a hospital (but also healthy fruit) and lucky for me I spotted some small tubes of Pringles at the back.

Pringles have recently been advertising an updated version of their crispy snacks featuring "perfect flavour in every bite". I don't eat Pringles very often so I honestly cannot remember how patchy, if at all, the flavour was before.  Basically "original" is quite a strong salty taste and as always with Pringles they leave a tingle in your lips. But tasty.

Do beware that this extremely tasty taste comes from 9% of the recommended daily intake of an average adult. And this in a a 40g tub of snacks. Really a lot of salt. But only the plus side; suitable for vegans.

Whether it's the case or not it seemed to me that these updated Pringles are slightly finer than before which I think is an improvement. And the Chef agreed. Certainly there were more broken bits of Pringle in the tube so maybe they are slightly thinner than before. I really do think this gives a nicer snack.

Pringles were recently named and shamed by the Recycling Association because their packaging is almost impossible to recycle. I see you can recycle the plastic lid but the metallic/card tube must be a nightmare. Come on Kellogg's, you bought this brand is 2012. Isn't it time to redesign the tube?

Back to the hospital today for a 72 hour heart scan. Oh joy.

Good Housekeeping Magazine: Gourmet Salt & Vinegar Crisps

I don't normally see Good Housekeeping Magazine so I wasn't really aware they had a "Taste Test" feature although it isn't a surprise. It looks like a regular monthly feature and could probably be a taste test of anything from plum jams to baked beans to ready to cook frozen prawns. Who knows? Except a regular Good Housekeeping reader. Anyway, lucky for me that the September 2015 issue I chanced to pick up while I was waiting to see Porsche Fan Chiropractor happened to be a review of crisps.

Not just any old crisps either, although they are nearly all supermarket own brand crisps which many reviewers consider beneath contempt. Pah! What do they know? There is nothing the matter with supermarket crisps; some of them are extremely good. We have offerings from both Sainsburys and the Co-op on our Recommended list (see right).

Here we have salt & vinegar crisps which of course is one of the original crisp flavours in this country, and gourmet salt & vinegar at that.

Well now, you're probably thinking "Hang on there Miss Cheeseburger-Crisps, this is September 2015 you're talking about. Isn't that rather a long time ago?". Yes, it is. But the reluctant taste testers and I tried the winning crisp in November last year and if it isn't still available I'd be very surprised because we thought this was pretty tasty.

The taste testers at the Good Housekeeping Institute tested salt & vinegar crisps from seven supermarkets and here we have the winning crisp Co-op Truly Irresistible Sea Salt and Chardonnay Wine Vinegar Crisps which were awarded 80 points out of 100.

Runners up were Waitrose Sea Salt & Somerset Cider Vinegar Hand Cooked Crisps 74/100

Tyrrell's Sea Salt and Cider Vinegar Crisps 75/100

M&S Hand Cooked Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar Crisps 76/100

And Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Sea Salt & Cider Vinegar Hand Cooked Crisps 76/100.

The reluctant taste testers and I haven't tried all of these crisps. But here's what we thought of two of them. And it might be worth our while seeking out the others if they are still available.

By the way, I did admit to Porsche Fan Chiropractor that I had torn a page out of one of the only two magazines in the waiting room. He didn't seem to mind.

Ideal Choco Crisps

So (taking advantage of the current style of explanatory speech), so I was looking at Amazon a couple of months back and spotted these chocolate coated crisps which looked rather interesting. But I told myself that there were plenty of crisps in the shops and anyway I was shortly going to be visiting a massive crisp heaven supermarket in France so it would be silly to buy them off Amazon.

Fast forward to the other day when we suddenly needed one of those lampshade ensmallifier rings that make the bit of your lampshade that sits on the part the bulb goes into smaller. Yeah I didn't know what they were called either but it turns out that Amazon's search engine was able to help me out there. Anyway, lovely old Amazon alerted me to the fact that Choco Crisps were now reduced in price. So I bought a packet.

And?

Well, these Spanish crisps come in two silver baggies inside a cardboard box. I went into work for a cup of coffee this week because I've been missing all the taste testers and they claim to be missing me. Plus, Tall taste tester emailed to say they have been finding themselves very short of potato based snacks. So I took one of the little silver baggies in with me. Well, I thought they might be disappointed if I arrived minus potatoey products.

Guess what? All the reluctant taste testers said they liked them. "Wrong but good" said Tall taste tester taking another. "Oh these are quite nice" said Tall Elegant taste tester. Yes, quite nice plain crisps with quite a lot of quite nice chocolate. As you can see from the photograph it's almost quite nice chocolate with a crisp on top.

Not sure I would buy them again though because to be honest crisp plus chocolate is slightly weird.

Corkers Simply Sea Salt in a box

When flying home from Geneva to London the Chef and I discovered this interesting box of crisps on  the list of snacks offered by Easyjet.

 I was pretty sure we had tried a Corkers crisp before and I was right: it was a sausage and mustard flavour we bought at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.  And those crisps came in a normal style of packet. I checked the Corkers Crisps website and it seems that normally their crisps do come in a regular packet as before, so maybe the box is just for planes.

This is actually a pretty good salted crisp and the Chef and I wolfed them down quite quickly.

And this is a better recommendation than it sounds, because your sense of taste is less good than usual at altitude. So if you think it tastes good at 30,000 feet, then it really does.

The packet tells me that Corkers Crisps hold the Guinness World Record for biggest ever packet of crisps and have sent a packet into space! I hardly know what to say to that. They also claim that people prefer to snack on crisps while watching television rather than chocolate. Hmmmn I think the Chef would have something to say about that.

On top of everything, they have a nice little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly.