Happy Halloween!

French Fry Diary 731: Idaho Spud

On a recent trip to Rocket Fizz, the amazing nostalgia soda and candy store, I picked up a candy bar called Idaho Spud, thinking it would make a good entry for French Fry Diary.  I got rather concerned shortly after purchasing the candy bar on the ride home.  It was squishy.  Not surprising in the hot Florida sun, but I was hesitant about opening it when I got home.

Having never heard of the Idaho Spud candy bar before, I did a little research before opening what might be a melted mess when finally revealed.  Idaho Spud has been around since 1918, one of the most successful candy bars produced by a small company, and as promised on the wrapper, "The Candy Bar That Makes Idaho Famous." 

The Idaho Spud is a coconut flavored marshmallow, covered in chocolate, then covered again with coconut flakes.  It's odd shape resembling a potato is where the name came from... but should it be squishy?  Before I tear away the wrapper, I should mention I was unable to find the meaning of the word Owyhee on the packaging other than it's a river in Idaho.

The candy was squishy, but more of a spongy to match the marshmallow center, but the chocolate and coconut flakes were definitely crumbling apart. Now I'm not much of a coconut guy, but this was all right, better than meh, but not great.  No potatoes, and not really looking like any potato I've seen, but worth trying out. 

French Fry Diary 725: Lay's Milk Chocolate Covered Potato Chips

We've talked about chocolate covered potato chips before. Usually it's a special or gourmet thing. Here a major potato chip company, Lay's, has them, of course in limited edition just for the holiday season.

Now I got the Wavy Milk Chocolate, but they are also available in Dark Chocolate, and Milk Chocolate with Almond Bits. These are decisively decadent, but it is worth mentioning that the Dark have less calories. That said, they're not too bad. Just don't eat a few bags in a sitting, even though they're just fifteen chips per bag.

The chips are thin, but not completely covered with chocolate so you get a good portioning of both the salty and the sweet. These are really good, they almost melt in your mouth, and they just might be a bit addictive. Yeah, that's a recommendation. Good thing they're only around for a limited time.

French Fry Diary 692: Chocolate Covered Potato Chips

Chocolate covered potato chips. As it says on the bag of Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate Covered Potato Chips, "Can you imagine?"

I remember the first time I saw such a thing. I was maybe nine and my big sister Bobbie had taken me to Strawbridge's in the Echelon Mall and among the other exotics inside the glass candy counter like rock candy and fancy cashews and orange jells (the last both still favorites), were rippled potato chips covered in chocolate, both milk and dark. Can you hear the trumpets?

Nowadays you can find them at most indie and chain candy stores, and at Trader Joe's. Of course Joe has them, he even has, wait for it, chocolate covered orange jells. I know, madness. And it's supposed to be a health themed grocery store. Shhhh... don't let the secret out.

Joe's chips are also ripple chips, very crunchy and salty, and drenched in luscious milk chocolate. These are so good. You get about a dozen chips in a bag, which is fair, but my favorite way to eat them makes more (well, maybe). I put 'em in the fridge then smack the bag on the counter - instant bite-size pieces.

These are great, a terrific sweet and salty snack. Recommended.

French Fry Diary 653: Crunchy Cookie Chips

This is an interesting item. My friend Marni, who is always on the lookout for potato chip oddities, found these for me. From HannahMax Baking, these are Crunchy Cookie Chips. She got me the Chocolate Chip variety but they also come in Sea Salted Peanut Butter, Oatmeal Raisin, Cinnamon Sugar, Original, and Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip.

Why am I talking about them here though you're probably wondering. Because they're more than cookies, they're chips. As the packaging promises, "Tastes like a cookie, eats like a chip." That's just about right on target with these large flat crispy and crunchy chocolate chip cookies. They also have that addictive chip vibe of not being able to eat just one.

And it gets better. These Crunchy Cookie Chips may seem decadent but the truth is they no artificial flavors, artificial colors, preservatives, transfats, or GMOs. The sugar, sodium, and cholesterol are all there but at reasonable levels. Sounds like a win-win.

These are very good, so if you like cookies and you like potato chips, you can kill two birds with one stone. Buy two bags, as they will go quickly. Glass of milk required. Thanks, Marni!

French Fry Diary 620: Wild Ophelia BBQ Potato Chips Chocolate Bar

This was one of the treats I was looking forward to in my Christmas present from friends Dom and Cindy this year. As you might recall, they gave me the gift of some very odd potato chips variations. One I was eager to try was this - Wild Ophelia All Natural Smokehouse BBQ Potato Chips Dark Chocolate Bar.

There are a few companies involved here in this unusual flavor combination - Wild Ophelia, Vosges, and The Billy Goat Chip Company. Supposedly it's all about connecting American farmers with chocolate. To that end we have here 70% cacao dark chocolate and Russet Burbank Potatoes mixed up in this all natural, gluten free, with no preservatives, treat.

It came in a slim fancy hard paper sleeve and was sealed in foil inside. Once opened, there was an overwhelming but good dark chocolate aroma. It's a rich dark chocolate, perhaps too rich, and like most potato chip candy bars, the chips are crushed up into tiny pieces and mixed into the chocolate.

Quite honestly the chip to chocolate ratio is quite low, but when you do bite a crunch you do get that spicy slow burn smokehouse barbecue flavor. That said, I wish there was more chip, and quite possibly a milk chocolate instead. I think this dark stuff might be too rich for my blood.

This was a nice treat, not as good as others of this type I've had, but pretty good. I'd have this again. Thank you, Dom and Cindy!

French Fry Diary 109: Poll Results Spring 2010

The poll question of the moment on French Fry Diary for the last few months has been Best thing to put -on- fries, or dip fries -into-... Your answers are below:

Ketchup got 45% of the vote and cheese got 39%. These are the standards. Everybody likes ketchup (apparently, even though I don’t) and cheese fries are pretty darned popular. Next up is malt vinegar with 27% of the vote. These folks are either from the UK, have visited there or just stumbled upon this one. Similarly also from Europe, we get the mayo vote with 15%.

A notable 11% also like dipping their fries into their milkshakes just like I do. And we’ve talked about this before, I might be an oddball, but I’m not alone. One of my other favorites, barbeque sauce got a respectable 17%.

The pride of Canada, gravy, and disco chili fries each got 13%. Chocolate and maple syrup each pulled in 3%, while mustard, ew, got 11% of the vote. A recent favorite of mine, honey, which I’ve been putting on baked Nathan’s fries while they cook for an extra tasty sweet treat, got 7%.

Now ten percent of the vote went to ‘other.’ Now if you voted for ‘other,’ please do drop me a note and let me know what exactly you had in mind for your fries – I would love to know!

French Fry Diary 60: The Irish Hog

For a little while now it has seemed like This Is Why You’re Fat hasn’t really been trying. When we get entries like the perfectly delectable and nearly harmless chocolate-cover potato chip, I would think it’s time to re-access the website and its mission statement.

However, this week they have redeemed themselves with the Irish Hog. This work of cholesterol-death-art is a deep-fried spiral-cut potato encasing a strip of deep-fried bacon, served with brown sugar BBQ sauce. And artery-clogger or not, it looks delicious, Health Nazis be damned.

It looks like This Is Why You're Fat is back on track, back on the fat track, that is, and that's a good thing.

Picture courtesy of The Spiteful Chef.

French Fry Diary 40: IKEA… Fries?

I wish I could be more positive about this one, but I just can’t. Finding French fries in new and interesting places is a pleasure and an adventure. It is truly one of the best parts of this job – unless they suck, and trust me, IKEA fries do indeed suck.

For those not in the know, IKEA is that funky Scandinavian place with all the cool furniture that sometimes can drive you insane putting it together by yourself when you get home. For quite some time I have been hearing rumors that IKEA also had a restaurant, and that the food was really quite good. As you can imagine, my first thought was of the fries, so I set out to try them.

Now mind you, I had been warned. I was told repeatedly that the fries at IKEA were bad, even crappy, and that I wouldn’t like them. But, I have a duty here, and like my friend Ben, I decided I had to try them, so you won’t have to.

These are really crappy fries. Wow. Yeah, really crappy. IKEA fries are diner quality regular cuts with lotsa batter, like lotsa batter in the manner of the old KFC Extra Crispy chicken recipe, and that’s not a good thing. This is truly the invisicoat from Hell. Once you get through the coating there’s a processed mashed potato taste inside. Not hot, barely warm, and served cafeteria style, these are probably the worst fries I’ve had in quite some time. I barely ate more than half a dozen of the wretched things in the photo shown. And then I couldn’t even give the rest away.

Friends assure me that the mashed potatoes are good, and I myself can attest to the ‘cholad ljus’ chocolate bar being quite tasty, and some of the furniture at IKEA is great – but whatever you do, stay away from these crappy fries.