French Fry Diary 656: Passover Potato Chips

A strange thing happens around this time every year. Shop-Rite starts carrying lots of off-brand potato chips (and potato sticks), one that even I, regarded as a chip expert by some, have never heard of. It's because of Passover, and like the sweeter tasting yellow cap Coca-Cola, there is extra need for kosher potato chips.

Herr's and other major brands offer kosher or parve potato chips, but as I said, Shop-Rite brings in more specialty items during this time of year. They are usually placed in one special section of the store, the Shop-Rite I visited in Cherry Hill had a larger than usual area. I plucked a couple samples from the display to try, and review of appropriate.

First up is Kettle Chips BBQ from Manischewitz, the king of kosher products, best known for their wine, matzo, and even potato latkes. These chips are pretty good on the healthy scale, with no transfats, no cholesterol, no preservatives, and no artificial flavors. The chips are thin with a nice crunch, heavy seasoned but with a mild smoke flavor.

Bloom's is a company that specializes in kosher products. They "search the globe to bring you the best," including cakes, candies, chocolate syrup, potato stix, potato chips, and potato snack fries. I chose one of the last bunch, Bloom's Bar-B-Q Fries.

After tasting these flat French fry shaped potato strips, I'm glad I opted for the barbecue flavor, because otherwise these flat (in more ways than one) things would have been flavorless. I did not like these. At all.

Next up are the Diddles, no seriously, that's what they're called. These potato snacks made from potato flakes are imported from Israel and distributed by the Paskesz Candy Co. I picked up the Diddles B-B-Q Potato Snacks. Yes, they're called Diddles. These are hollow cylinders similar in texture to flavorless cheese puffs and not in a good way. They did not smell good when I opened the bag and did not taste much better. Ick. Seriously if you told me these were made of styrofoam, I'd be inclined to believe you.

Lastly I tried the Lieber's offering. After Diddles, I was hopeful that this last bag would be more, oh I don't know, conventional. Referred to as simply Lieber's Ripple Potato Chips and being made from only potatoes, cottonseed oil, and salt, these looked like exactly what I needed.

These chips were quite nicely thick with good ridges, perfect dipping chips. There were a bit salty however, and while I like salt, especially on potato chips, this was a bit much. Also, there were a lot of black spots and burnt edges, things you don't usually see anymore in the big brand names. All in all, a decent chip, except for the salt.

So we have a weak two out of four for this selection of Passover potato snacks. Perhaps I selected badly. Any recommendations for next time?

French Fry Diary 417: Gedilla Fries

I picked these up shortly after I got the Sensible Portions snacks. I was kinda expecting them to be similar but such was not the case.

First off, these "Fries" manufactured by Gedilla are made from actual potatoes, not corn or dehydrated potatoes. That's kinda a first for me when it comes to potato snacks that are not chips. They're also kosher year round.

Unlike the aforementioned Sensible Portions product, these are not straws or even fry shaped. These are flat, two-dimensional versions if anything. They could be used for dipping, but for the most part, they are too short for that.

I'm glad I got the barbeque flavor so they had some taste to them. Without it they would be bland as cardboard. The barbeque flavoring is barely hot but does leave a not pleasant aftertaste. I won't be getting these again.

French Fry Diary 380: Dirty Potato Chips Mesquite BBQ

This is part two in our series on the longest name ever on a bag of potato chips. It kinda gives new meaning to the phrase 'all that and a bag of chips.' Part one can be found here. Okay, let's do this, today I am reviewing (let me take a breath) "Dirty" All Natural Potato Chips Mesquite BBQ We Kettle Cook In A Premium Peanut Oil Blend For A Crunchier, Tastier Potato Chip! Whew.

I've done the regular dirty chips before and I was very unimpressed. I recall comparing them to communion wafers because of their lack of flavor and seasoning. These, being Mesquite BBQ, I'd hoped would be different. That's why I picked them up the last time I was at the Cool Dog Cafe for a to go order.

On the bonus side, they have no transfats, no artificial colors or flavors, no MSG, no preservatives, and are kosher and gluten free. Unlike their regular brothers these do have flavor, a nice hot barbecue taste. As a matter of fact they have a lot of seasoning. They also have a nice kettle cook, with wavy shapes good for dipping. Recommended.

French Fry Diary 343: Burger.Org

For various reasons, four games in, and The Bride has yet to make it to a Philadelphia Wings home game. She also hasn't gotten to see our friends Judy and Marc who are also season ticket holders. Actually Judy is an old friend, went to high school with The Bride, and some college with me. Her husband Marc and I have become quick new friends. Although I think he was puzzled the first time he saw me taking photos of fries.

The Bride's first attend-able game was a day game so Judy and Marc planned a lunch get together beforehand. Knowing of my peculiar food fetish and catastrophic pickiness, they chose a burger place in Philly that also had, you guessed it, the favorite fried food. And that's how we got to Burger.Org.

Burger.Org has a healthy edge, serving all organic meats and offering a heavily vegan and gluten free menu. The meat had no artificial ingredients, antibiotics, or preservatives. 100% organic they claim, and that even includes stuff like the shakes and the fries. So basically everything you, ahem, I could possibly want, only healthier.

So what do you think I ordered? I got the burger, a Coke (yeah, I know, I was surprised too) and fries what else? The Bride was a bit disappointed that she couldn't get a cheeseburger, and we both were as they didn't offer shakes until summer. Notably the fries are considered Basary, which basically means meat. In other words, it's like the McDonald's beef tallow oil secret - fries cooked in the same oil as the meat.

I got the plain fries but they also had spicy, which I wish I'd gotten, and sweet potato. Marc got the sweet, and let me try one or two. Well, one, he didn't actually see me take the others. They were spiced with cinnamon, which was to die for. We have a new sweet potato fry champion.

The regular fries are fresh cut natural cuts and quite tasty but needed a little something something - a dipping sauce, some spices. And get them while they're hot, do much tastier hot, and excellent with malt vinegar.

The burger was awesome, one of the best I've had in a while. And the bun was homemade and terrific. The Bride enjoyed her sausages, and Judy and Marc enjoyed their wings. Really, there's not much that wasn't recommended, and the portions were huge. Cheese and shakes aside, this place rocked.

And the Wings? Yeah, they finally won. I guess The Bride is a good luck charm, and she'd better stop missing games...

French Fry Diary 218: Passover Surprise

I attended Pesach the other night with The Bride's family. This was actually a big deal as I'm not Jewish, and The Bride was out of town. However I married into a wonderful loving family so they brought the goy along to share in the holiday. I love these folks a lot. Sometimes they even put up with my Christmas tree and Easter egg silliness.

The big surprise, and the reason I'm talking about this here, was finding French fries on the table. Just for the record, for those who don't know, the favorite fried food is not standard operating procedure for Passover, even though they were kosher. Suddenly amidst some strange and exotic foods (yes, even after almost two decades) was a plate of familiar fried friends.

These fries were natural cut Russet potato wedges, tossed in olive oil, seasoned and baked - all courtesy of a family friend who's also a wonderful cook. They were crisp on the outside and soft and hot on the inside - the perfect combination for any fry. They were great, and for this naive goyim boy - no offense to the cook, the brisket, the gefilte fish, or the terrific company - they were the best thing on the table.

Thank you and Happy Pesach!

French Fry Diary 208: "Dirty" Potato Chips

I think this potato chip wins for most words on the front of their bag. They're all natural, and their name is "Dirty" Potato Chips, of the Sea Salted variety. Underneath that it says, "We Kettle Cook In A Premium Peanut Oil Blend For A Crunchier, Tastier Potato Chip!" Yeah, just like that, all capped, a grammarian's nightmare, and I don't know why.

Other than the annoying caps, these chips should make the Health Nazis happy, as they have zero transfat, no artificial colors or flavors, no MSG, no preservatives, no wheat glutens, no artificial sweeteners and they are also kosher as a bonus. They should love these babies.

I didn't. They are virtually tasteless, almost like deep-fried Communion wafers, if you can imagine. The bag says 'sea salted,' but I couldn't tell if there was any salt at all - it certainly didn't taste like it. They are kettle cooked as mentioned above, and quite crunchy, but tasteless. These are the tofu of potato chips. Fail.