I found Guinness Rich Chili Potato Chips at my local Sprouts Store for $2.50. This brand of chips came in two flavors plain and rich chili. I went with rich chili because it was vegan and I didn’t have to worry if a weird animal product was in it.

The bag says that the chips are hand cooked and are made with all natural flavors. I liked how sturdy the chips are with a really good crisp crunch. The chips seemed oil free and came in nearly perfect potato sliced shapes.

I opened the bag and took a big whiff. To me it smells like burnt tomato soup.

I tasted a chip.

Gosh…..

How do I describe this….

The chips are dusty with seasoning.

It taste like a cross between eating  from a really big pot of burnt (the really burnt part) burnt tomato soup, cigar ash and what I can only describe as spoiling perspiration with a bitter finish. I actually ate three chips hoping the taste would change. As I ate the chips the bitterness was just too overwhelming for me and the taste was just awful.

I can’t help but wonder if this is a defective bag of chips because I can’t imagine that someone would make chips to forking taste this bad.

These chips are not for me but your opinion may differ.

Your opinion may differ.

Not Worth a Fork!

That was my Forking Review for Guinness Rich Chili Potato Chips.

The Forking Truth

(Apologies in advance if photos are upside down or sideways…Got an appointment to see a computer person to get fixed)

I noticed a food critic from a certain newspaper earlier this year wrote a plea to restaurants to stop serving ten certain dishes that are found on many restaurant menus. One of these dishes in particular is salmon with a vegetable and a potato. Some of these ten dishes he just thinks are boring, tiered of, uninspiring or not original enough and other reasons. I find this is a fishy reading to me….

The Food Critic went so far to say something like….If every restaurant just replaced salmon with something original or hard to find that menus would be so much better. I’m not against original or far off creative dishes and I do agree with the critic that many menus choices can be tweaked to be more interesting. That really IS.. a good idea. I just think it’s especially not fair to pick on the salmon dish. That is fishy to me….because…..

The Forking Truth is that this is Phoenix Arizona……. The Desert. We are far from water and it’s usually hot here so very little fish makes it here. You just don’t get much edible fish here. Often on many but not all restaurant menus salmon is the only fish option on the menu. The Forking truth is that most people would want a vegetable and maybe a potato if they were eating salmon. I’d be bummed if I didn’t have a vegetable with my salmon and would feel cheated if the restaurant didn’t give me a potato, rice, a fun grain or noodles with my entree.

I don’t understand why the critic didn’t suggest to to remove a steak from the menu. Isn’t steak a similar dish with a piece of meat vegetable and potato? We have lots of steak around Phoenix and it’s pretty easy to pick up pretty good steak at any of the grocery stores here. Everyone in every home can have a nice steak dinner tonight in the Phoenix area tonight it they prepare it themselves or go out to dine.

Getting back to Salmon I don’t know if I took what he wrote the wrong way but it really bothered me that he partially attacked salmon being on many menus. I do look forward to salmon on menus since it’s a treat that I can’t purchase fresh tasting anytime I want from my local stores. Sadly most of the time it’s not fresh tasting to say the least and more often than not it’s inedible and spoiled and I usually have to make a forking trip back to the market to return it. I almost never purchase what they call fresh fish here anymore. If I want to eat salmon I usually have to go out to dinner to forking eat salmon.

Many of the best restaurants in the country do offer salmon on their menus.

I partially enjoyed this salmon I had in at Bouchon in Napa California.

I FORKING doubt I’d be the one telling a 7 star Michelin Chef Thomas Keller that he needs to take salmon off his menu because it’s boring……….. but maybe a food critic would??? I know I forking wouldn’t.

I also enjoyed this Salmon I had at L’Atelier in Las Vegas Nevada.

I also doubt I’d tell the multi Michelin star Chef,that is Chef of the Century and also Meilleur Ouvrier (France Best Craftsman Award) Joel Robuchon that he needs to be more original. Could you forking imagine that?…….(people have forking been shot for less)…. Here is that piece of fish with vegetables and potato! It was stunning and fabulous among one of the best dishes I ever had. I could never get board of something this well done.

I certainly think Chef Keller’s and Chef Robuchon’s restaurants made exquisite dishes that were amazing and not boring and they were salmon.

I don’t think it’s the protein really that makes the dish fabulous. I do admit a certain skill is needed to make the protein shine….But isn’t it really more about the spices and vegetables and how they work together? It boils down to the flavor…that is what you remember.

Part of the joy of going out for a great dinner are the original, different and classic dishes on menus. It’s thrilling when a dish is made with  ingredients that are very hard to find like fresh truffles, finger limes, bamboo fungus, red sorrel and corn smut  or an unusual spices.

I also would like to enjoy restaurant classics that seemed to have disappeared from most menus like Chateaubriand, Duchess Potatoes, Tables-side service menu items and Real Fondants (lava kind of cakes not frosting).

I sure hope the local restaurants ignore the critic’s plea to rid their menus of salmon. Not everyone out here would prefer offal (organ meat) to salmon and not everyone here has developed a craving for nearly raw eggs in cold broth.

Let’s give this plea a spin just for my amusement ……. I can write that I’m tired of Hamburgers and Chocolate Cake. Because I can find Hamburgers and Chocolate Cake on almost any menu out there almost anywhere. How original is a hamburger? French Fries are always on menus with hamburgers. Can’t Chefs be more creative and figure out something more interesting than French Fries to go with burgers? Every restaurant that serves cake always has Chocolate Cake on the menu. A million other flavors are out there you know. How about Salmon? Ever heard of Salmon Cakes?

Now that is something to write about!

Sometimes you Read Fishy Things!

The Forking Truth

Key Lime Might Be the New Chocolate.I’ve recently noticed that there is a whole world of Key Lime flavored things  co-staring in the sweets department everywhere I go.

The Key Lime is a small thin skinned seedy lime that turns yellow when ripe.  Key Limes are higher in acid, aroma, sweetness and bitterness than a Persian Lime.The Key Lime is best known for flavoring the Key Lime Pie that is associated with the Florida Keys.

I saw some Key lime Coconut Patties.

Keylime Pie filled Chocolates.

Key lime Cookies.

Key Lime White Chocolate Cookies. (excuse the poor photo)

I never thought I’d ever come across Key Lime Pie Gum.

Some sort of Key Lime Candy Disk.

Key Lime Cake Mix and Frosting

Key Lime Candy Crunch

Key Lime Fruit Slices made by Cavalier Candies.

Key Lime Starlight Mints

I’d never imagined I’d ever come across so many Key Lime Flavored things.

Key Lime might be the new chocolate.

The Forking Truth

Live a little and Forking try a new pepper!

There’s a whole world of different peppers out there and they all taste different.

I decided to try the peppers in my cabinet and will try to describe how they taste.

To taste the spices I used a mild slice of cheese and hoped the flavor of the pepper would get absorbed into the cheese.

I’ll start at about 7:00 on the plate and work my way clockwise till I get in the middle of the plate.

Nora Pepper-Earthy and fruity with a little heat- more smokey/earthy than Aleppo Pepper. Nora Pepper is a staple in Spanish Cooking.

Aleppo Pepper- More sweet and fruity than the Nora Pepper. Slight earthy-smoke flavor with Medium heat.

Malabar Pepper- A familiar all purpose pepper black pepper but very flat one note tasting after tasting Tellicherry Pepper.

Tellicherry Pepper- Sweet smooth black pepper taste that doesn’t burn mouth like the Malabar.  Leaves a hot finish.

Piment D’ Espelette – Unique- Like super really good but better spicy paprika. Fruity, medium spice and more.

Cayenne – Smokey, earthy, hot, slight bitterness.

Shredded Red Pepper – Fruity with mild heat. Almost herbal taste.

Szechuan Pepper – (not a true pepper) Mix of lemon, ginger and tea leaves. Not hot but mouth numbing. To be used with hot peppers so you can enjoy them more.

White Pepper – Taste nothing like black pepper although white peppercorns are just ripe black peppercorns.  To me white pepper has a dusty potato skin taste. Kind of hot. I like to use some white pepper for potato dishes, risotto and gnocchi.

Live a little and Forking try a New Pepper.

The Forking Truth

The Carrot Cake Hershey Kisses are only sold at Walmart stores. I thought this seemed like an interesting flavor of candy as it’s something that I think was never done before.

I found that when you chomp them down you get way more of the sweetness.  This candy runs on the sweet side for candy. I think the candy kind of taste best this way when you just eat it. However you can experience much more complexity if you let the candy melt in your mouth.

To me this candy kind of  taste like you scraped out a spoonful of carrot cake frosting with some of the cake in your frosting followed with a chemical aftertaste when you just eat them.

When you let it just melt in your mouth there is more of a show and the flavors that come to you in layers.

I was hoping to start with a hint of buttery carrot taste that I didn’t get. Instead I just got sweetness that tasted like lower quality white coating of some sort. Then an unpleasant  gritty texture came to my mouth. Suddenly a taste came that was something that reminded me of my childhood…..forking Play Doh-

(a child’s modeling clay) No I never ate Play Doh but I still remember the scent of white Play Doh and that’s what I got in my mouth. Soon the taste changes again and I could taste something that tasted like cream cheese frosting and next came an almost realistic kind of tang like from cream cheese.  Some spices followed that seem a little gingery and lastly I get a bang of a possible raisin or raisin like flavor. Sadly the finish leaves my mouth with that darn chemical aftertaste.

Almost  good!

Rated 1/2 a Fork because it’s a mix of good and not so good

To each his own. This is only my forking opinion and your forking opinion may differ.

The Forking Truth