French Fry Diary 659: Cape Cod Waffle Cut Barbeque Ranch Potato Chips

When I first saw these at Rastelli's, I must admit I was pretty angry. The store had gone from a place I would go because they had Charles Chips to a place I likely wouldn't go otherwise. Oh, they still carry Charles, but only in the $14 tin cans.

I was vowing to never come back unless this changed when I saw the Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Potato Chips in the Waffle Cut Barbeque Ranch variety. They were worth a try, even though of course there was no guarantee that Rastelli's would ever have them again.

I had tried the Sea Salt flavor a couple years ago and praised the dippability factor of these chips. They are still aces in that department, very thick and still better than Herr's Lattice Cut chips. The barbeque flavor is solid and smoky, so the chips are good whether you dip them or not.

French Fry Diary 612: One Potato Two Potato Sweet Onion Potato Chips

One of my favorite local grocery stores, Gennuardi's, closed recently. While they are much missed, in their place a new place opened - Rastelli Market Fresh. This grocery store is kinda like Whole Foods meets Shop-Rite plus beer and wine. Nice selection, I like it, and the best part is that they have Charles Chips. They also have One Potato Two Potato chips too.

I've reviewed a One Potato Two Potato selection before, the Hawaiian BBQ. This time I picked out the Sweet Onion Kettle Potato Chips. These chips are cooked in small batches in expeller-pressed sunflower oil, with no gluten, no MSG, no GMO, no artificial flavors, and no preservatives. What do they have? The ingredients include potatoes, sugar, salt, and garlic and onion powders. The bag also has fun tater trivia too.

When I opened the bag there was a pleasant sweet Vidalia onion aroma inside. It reminded me a bit of the sugary onion ring snacks I sometimes get, and as mentioned above, they do have sugar. They are indeed sweet and oniony, and yummy. As a bonus, they are also in those cool crunchy twisted shapes that come from kettle cooking, so they are great for dipping.

These are good chips, recommended, another thumbs up for One Potato Two Potato.

French Fry Diary 577: Charles Chips

I've talked about Charles Chips briefly once or twice before on this blog. They used to be one of my favorite potato chips, especially their barbeque variety. I remember grabbing a snack bag for lunch a few times a week when I worked Pennsauken in the 80s and 90s. At the time I started French Fry Diary however, they were pretty hard to find - only at Cracker Barrel or a mom and pop deli in the same strip mall as Cool Dog Café - and then they vanished altogether.

They're local, out in Pennsylvania, which in my time writing about potato chips, I've learned is where many chips come from. Started in 1942, with the ingenious business model of home delivery in huge cookie tins, they've been doing this for almost three-quarters of a century. The Bride fondly remembers getting those Charles Chips cans just like milk brought by the milkman. However, sadly, just like milk delivery, the chips stopped coming directly to homes in 1974.

The Charles Chips company began to have financial troubles in the 1990s as they were sold several times to various unsuccessful owners who often fell to bankruptcy and other problems. Recipes were changed, distribution suffered, and soon Charles Chips were gone or just about impossible to find. The Scardino family bought the company in 2011 with the intent of online sales and bringing the memorable tins back. So far so good.

Reminiscing recently about milk delivery, and home chip delivery as well, The Bride and I looked Charles Chips up online. We could have gotten three bags - Original, Barbeque, Waffle (rippled) - in a tin for roughly $25 or without for $20. We had no idea what we'd do with the big cookie tin when the chips were finished, so nostalgia aside, we opted for without. And being so close to the factory (in general), there was no shipping fee.

A little less than a week later, our package with. The three nine ounce bags arrived unharmed, marked fragile, and well packed. The bags themselves seemed a bit streamlined from what I remember, but that's okay, I hoped the taste was unchanged. Notably I'd never tried the Waffle chips from Charles before, and their Barbeque was among my favorites. I hoped it was the same.

The Original chips were very simple - potatoes, cottonseed oil, and salt being the only ingredients, so they're all natural and gluten free as it says on the bag. Honestly I remember Charles Chips being a bit bigger and thicker than these. Now they have more of a Lay's feel, but with a much better taste. Honestly though I remember them being great, but these are only just okay.

Next up, I tried the Barbeque chips, and expectations were high, but cautious after my experience with the Original flavor. While these were not the barbeque potato chips from Charles that I remember, these were still quite good. These chips were notably bigger than the ones in the Original bag, and possibly thicker. The flavor was similar to Wise Honey BBQ with just a tad more sweet and honey taste. I liked these quite a bit, but as I said, not the chips I remember at all. I think there's been a recipe change in the intervening years.

The Waffle chips are decidedly thick and excellent for dipping. They are comparable to Lay's Wavy, but better. Yes, it's another Lay's comparison but this one's a good one. I liked these a lot, so it's two out of three, not bad for mail order chips. Maybe next time we will get the tin, and maybe just the Barbeque or the Waffle.

French Fry Diary 223: Cracker Barrel

The Cracker Barrel in Mt. Laurel is almost completely hidden on Route 73, unless you know it's there, you will completely miss it.

Now I used to come to Cracker Barrel all the time but not to eat. Most Cracker Barrels have old-fashioned general stores in them, their Old Country Store, in their words. Before these chips went out of business (or out of the area) the stores used to carry delicious Charles Chips. These chips were fantastic, many folks might remember they came in a big cookie can sometimes. Well, when Cracker Barrel stopped carrying Charles Chips, I stopped coming. I think they carry Route 11 chips now.

The Bride and I had planned an excursion to the Elevation Burger at the Moorestown Mall but when the hours given on their phone message didn't match the hours on the door we ended up looking at a sadly dark and locked Elevation Burger. On the dejected drive home we decided on the hidden Cracker Barrel.

I was brave and in a living-dangerously mood so I ordered a hamburger steak and steak fried. I know, I'm daring. The food came very quickly and was warm, not hot so I wonder if it was cooked to order.

The fries were natural cut steak fries, warm and kind of soggy, but as good as they could be in that condition. The food was not bad, but then again, it wasn't that good either, you know?

Bonus points - while they serve Coca-Cola products, they also serve ice cold Stewart's root beer from the bottle. Nice.

On the way out, as you have to pay your check in the Old Country Store, we ended up purchasing a few old timey items - Moon Pies, coconut patties, a bottle of Sioux City Sarsaparilla root beer and a box of original Saratoga potato chips - but that will be for another FFD entry, folks, be patient!