Food Legend

Food reviews and tales from one man's food adventures
MCDONALD’S CALIFORNIA BURGER I did it, Mum! I went to McDonald’s! Phwoar, it’s been absolutely ages. Don’t know why I’m not in there every day to be fair. I mean, come on, what else is there to do these days? You know it’s Summer (is it Summer?) when McDonaghee’s drops their USA range. Oh shit boy, it’s popping off like a cowboy on a bucking bronco! Giddy up! There’s been all these burger brioche trends of the last latelies but for a real taste of America…you gotta get down McDonald’s. Right? The concept goes that they introduce a new US inspired burger each week for five weeks or some such. I wish I was such an intrepid explorer that I’d be down the front each week Monday morning come the close of breakfast; sadly, alas. There’s one with a nacho on it, there’s one with BBQ sauce on it, hell there’s even one with cheese sauce on it! Sadly it was cheese sauce week (AKA California burger) today and so I ended up with probs my least desired of the bunch. Sad times. Well, not really, it’s never a sad time in McDonald’s (unless you get a Filet ‘oh’ Fish). Have you ever seen anyone sad in there? Hell no! Everyone’s having an absolute whale. The California burger also featured bacon, beef patty, “slivered” onions, cheese slices too incase you weren’t cheesing your t’s off already on the cheese sauce. Did I mention lettuce as well? You know the drill. So it was a bit of a long boat, it looked more Nordic when I opened its casket. Quids in, I thought. I should mention, at this juncture, that I opted to supersize my meal (YODO!) and I told McDaddy to give me the “Crisscuts” upgrade on the fries. Weird name, felt a bit weird saying it…crisscuts. So called because it’s a criss-cross lattice work with a touch of the crinkle cut about it…just got that now, crisscuts! Of course! They came with a sour cream and chive dip. My drink was a Coke, thanks for asking. Lady Legend plumped for the quarter pounder meal, medium size with a coke too; great minds! My McDonald’s method is to concentrate on the fries (or crisscuts) at first, neglecting the burger until at least halfway through the fries and then I pop the box like I’m not bothered and it’s like “let’s go”, or whatever. Of course whoever I’m with is already halfway through their burger at this time and they’ve usually asked a question like, “have you not had any of your burger yet?”. Guess I do it this way to prolong the inevitable: the end/death. I did that today but with these special edition burgers I’m always a little keener to unbox. It was big and flat, not unlike a tramp’s shoe. The burger was leaking out of the bun at all sides (the side boob of the burger world) and I did not mind a jot. The “white sauce”, seemingly applied by palette knife, gave me a little more cause for concern. Lady Legend just labelled it a carbonara burger and she’s not far wrong! I’m not anti-white sauce (I’ve had some great times with mayonnaise) but I’m a mite troubled by cheese sauce if I sit back to think about it. There was a lot of white sauce knocking about; white sauce on my burger and white sauce dip (the aforementioned sour cream and chive) for my crisscuts. Too much sauce on a burger makes me less likely to enjoy it fully. You can’t relax if you constantly fear leakage from your bun’s back end (as in life), it can make the bun plates shift too which is obviously far from ideal. I may have spoken about this in prior blogs but too much sauce also means that you have to look at your burger more, and one of my pet peeves is people who look at their burgers too much. It’s possible to eat something without constantly looking at it, try it! People who stare at their burgers an inch from their face, rotating it, looking round corners and angling their heads for the next bite…ugh. Get a room! Anyway, cheese sauce yeah, not ideal but actually ok! I didn’t open the bun so I can’t tell you about the exact spec under the hood but I could taste that all elements were present. As usual you’re left with a clump of fallen lettuce in your bun box. It’s like the fast food equivalent of dunno, a sock in a washing machine? Sweetcorn in a po…oh it’s a gift actually. I love eating the lettuce scraps at the end of the show, everything at McDonald’s tastes like a burger. The lettuce tastes like a burger. How have they done that? No gherkins on the California burger by the way, I did miss that. I didn’t miss much else. I was nervous about missing the fries due to my crisscuts selection but the crisscuts turned out to be a lot of fun; they were suitably crunchy with a satisfying size mix (plus one rogue fry for the win). The dipping sauce was stronger than you’d imagine but that’s no bad thing. On finishing my meal I felt light as a leaf. I asked Lady Legend what she would wish for if she had one wish. I didn’t listen to what she said but when she asked me I said, “more crisscuts!”. “But you could just go up there and buy more food”, she said. “They wouldn’t serve me”, I said, “you’ve had enough they’d say”. I fantasised silently about going to the counter and ordering the exact same thing, like I’d just come in, wondering if the person who’d served me last time would say anything. I supposed that no-one had ever done that. I bet no-one has ever done that without prefacing their order with “me again!”, laughing and rocking back on their heels slightly. It was a good show, I wouldn’t race to get there before Sunday but if you need a special edition in your life then you could definitely do worse. Hang on ‘til next week if you can dough, kid! I’ll be back to McDonald’s, many times in my life, it’s a great chain and I’d like to eat burgers there forever. I already proposed to Lady Legend…that we go back there next week. She didn’t want to talk about “next time” during the actual time (of eating) but you know when a girl says no, she really means yes. If you’re looking for a great time (like we had) then you can visit the very same McDonalds in Levenshulme, it’s next to KFC, you can’t miss it! Grab a slice of the full Food Legend walking tour by visiting the ALDI a few units down. You gotta see it to believe it! This post was sponsored by McDonald’s in Levenshulme (I wish).

MCDONALD’S CALIFORNIA BURGER

I did it, Mum! I went to McDonald’s! Phwoar, it’s been absolutely ages. Don’t know why I’m not in there every day to be fair. I mean, come on, what else is there to do these days? You know it’s Summer (is it Summer?) when McDonaghee’s drops their USA range. Oh shit boy, it’s popping off like a cowboy on a bucking bronco! Giddy up! There’s been all these burger brioche trends of the last latelies but for a real taste of America…you gotta get down McDonald’s. Right?

The concept goes that they introduce a new US inspired burger each week for five weeks or some such. I wish I was such an intrepid explorer that I’d be down the front each week Monday morning come the close of breakfast; sadly, alas. There’s one with a nacho on it, there’s one with BBQ sauce on it, hell there’s even one with cheese sauce on it! Sadly it was cheese sauce week (AKA California burger) today and so I ended up with probs my least desired of the bunch. Sad times. Well, not really, it’s never a sad time in McDonald’s (unless you get a Filet ‘oh’ Fish). Have you ever seen anyone sad in there? Hell no! Everyone’s having an absolute whale. The California burger also featured bacon, beef patty, “slivered” onions, cheese slices too incase you weren’t cheesing your t’s off already on the cheese sauce. Did I mention lettuce as well? You know the drill. So it was a bit of a long boat, it looked more Nordic when I opened its casket. Quids in, I thought. I should mention, at this juncture, that I opted to supersize my meal (YODO!) and I told McDaddy to give me the “Crisscuts” upgrade on the fries. Weird name, felt a bit weird saying it…crisscuts. So called because it’s a criss-cross lattice work with a touch of the crinkle cut about it…just got that now, crisscuts! Of course! They came with a sour cream and chive dip. My drink was a Coke, thanks for asking. Lady Legend plumped for the quarter pounder meal, medium size with a coke too; great minds!

My McDonald’s method is to concentrate on the fries (or crisscuts) at first, neglecting the burger until at least halfway through the fries and then I pop the box like I’m not bothered and it’s like “let’s go”, or whatever. Of course whoever I’m with is already halfway through their burger at this time and they’ve usually asked a question like, “have you not had any of your burger yet?”. Guess I do it this way to prolong the inevitable: the end/death. I did that today but with these special edition burgers I’m always a little keener to unbox. It was big and flat, not unlike a tramp’s shoe. The burger was leaking out of the bun at all sides (the side boob of the burger world) and I did not mind a jot. The “white sauce”, seemingly applied by palette knife, gave me a little more cause for concern. Lady Legend just labelled it a carbonara burger and she’s not far wrong! I’m not anti-white sauce (I’ve had some great times with mayonnaise) but I’m a mite troubled by cheese sauce if I sit back to think about it. There was a lot of white sauce knocking about; white sauce on my burger and white sauce dip (the aforementioned sour cream and chive) for my crisscuts. Too much sauce on a burger makes me less likely to enjoy it fully. You can’t relax if you constantly fear leakage from your bun’s back end (as in life), it can make the bun plates shift too which is obviously far from ideal. I may have spoken about this in prior blogs but too much sauce also means that you have to look at your burger more, and one of my pet peeves is people who look at their burgers too much. It’s possible to eat something without constantly looking at it, try it! People who stare at their burgers an inch from their face, rotating it, looking round corners and angling their heads for the next bite…ugh. Get a room! Anyway, cheese sauce yeah, not ideal but actually ok! I didn’t open the bun so I can’t tell you about the exact spec under the hood but I could taste that all elements were present. As usual you’re left with a clump of fallen lettuce in your bun box. It’s like the fast food equivalent of dunno, a sock in a washing machine? Sweetcorn in a po…oh it’s a gift actually. I love eating the lettuce scraps at the end of the show, everything at McDonald’s tastes like a burger. The lettuce tastes like a burger. How have they done that? No gherkins on the California burger by the way, I did miss that. I didn’t miss much else. I was nervous about missing the fries due to my crisscuts selection but the crisscuts turned out to be a lot of fun; they were suitably crunchy with a satisfying size mix (plus one rogue fry for the win). The dipping sauce was stronger than you’d imagine but that’s no bad thing.

On finishing my meal I felt light as a leaf. I asked Lady Legend what she would wish for if she had one wish. I didn’t listen to what she said but when she asked me I said, “more crisscuts!”. “But you could just go up there and buy more food”, she said. “They wouldn’t serve me”, I said, “you’ve had enough they’d say”. I fantasised silently about going to the counter and ordering the exact same thing, like I’d just come in, wondering if the person who’d served me last time would say anything. I supposed that no-one had ever done that. I bet no-one has ever done that without prefacing their order with “me again!”, laughing and rocking back on their heels slightly.

It was a good show, I wouldn’t race to get there before Sunday but if you need a special edition in your life then you could definitely do worse. Hang on ‘til next week if you can dough, kid! I’ll be back to McDonald’s, many times in my life, it’s a great chain and I’d like to eat burgers there forever. I already proposed to Lady Legend…that we go back there next week. She didn’t want to talk about “next time” during the actual time (of eating) but you know when a girl says no, she really means yes. If you’re looking for a great time (like we had) then you can visit the very same McDonalds in Levenshulme, it’s next to KFC, you can’t miss it! Grab a slice of the full Food Legend walking tour by visiting the ALDI a few units down. You gotta see it to believe it!

This post was sponsored by McDonald’s in Levenshulme (I wish).

LEVI ROOTS PIZZAS Who the hell is Levi Roots? Said nobody, ever. We’ve all got a Levi Roots story. Levi Roots was my Nan’s window cleaner, my Dad went to school with Levi Roots, I saw Levi Roots at Woodstock. Was that Levi Roots in the bushes? Was that Levi Roots on the bus? Your doorbell rang but when you opened the door there was nobody there…it was Levi Roots. Same when you answer the phone but there’s no voice at the end of the line. Let us get some misconceptions about Levi Roots (real name Bob Merlot) out of the way. Firstly, he did not invent jerk chicken. Secondly, he did not win The Weakest Link. Thirdly, he doesn’t wear Levis (he wears the same pair of Eclipse jeans that he wore before he became famous! Similar to the way that Seastick Steve wears the same shit hat from when he used to ride trains). Roots was formally introduced to the nation on “Dragon’s Den”, a very popular television programme of our time. We’re not sure that it’s still on but we used to watch it when we were eating our tea sometimes when the batteries had fallen out of the freeview remote. I won’t explain the concept as I’m sure you’ve all been there. Our man, Roots, was on it pitching his “Reggae Reggae” sauce, a sort of jerk marinade-cum-condiment. “The dragons” didn’t know what was going on. Interestingly, Duncan Bananatime still thinks that Roots invented jerk chicken. He doesn’t get out much. I don’t recall exactly what happened but I’m pretty sure that none of the judges were that bothered (condiment jaded) until Levi Roots whipped out his acoustic and started singing about his sauce. I can’t remember the medley but it had words in it equating food with music, love and the like. You have to remember that this improv set from Roots sort of pre-dated X-Factor (maybe) so the nation was, at the time, bereft of “live music”. You might say it captured the nation’s imagination. It certainly captured the dragons’ imagination! They were falling over each other to get their wallets out. Theo Defeatist famously remarked that “it was the best thing I’ve heard since sliced bread” but then again, coming from a guy who works in a pencil factory…I dunno, not the best judge perhaps. Deborah MeatHam really loved it too because she was a bit of a flower child back in the day and it brought loadsa memories gushing back. Peter Jones (no funny name for him), famously only 30 years old, couldn’t relate to either the reggae reggae sauce or the reggae reggae music but he sort of knew they had on a hit on their hands. All of the dragons signed Levi Roots in a £1,000,000 contract and a star was born. At first the dragons couldn’t decide which path to send Roots down – food or music. He ended up going down the music path because he had some gigs lined up already; little did he know that it would become the start of his “never-ending tour”.  The tour eventually ended after Roots completed the circuit of student unions (supported by Craig from Big Brother #1). Students can be a fickle crowd and once the initial novelty had worn off, they were left with a jerk onstage with no sauce. Tact was immediately switched to food and thus, the production line began. Reggae Reggae sauce everywhere. Absolutely everyone bought a bottle. Hell knows I did. We didn’t marinade anything in it but we enjoyed dipping our chips in it ‘til it went weird in the fridge. It was a bit of alright but not much of a culinary leap from say, brown sauce? Still, the public lapped it up. The dragons and Roots spread the Reggae Reggae sauce franchise as thin as they could and ended up with lucrative cross-brand tie-ins such as with Subway’s Reggae Reggae sub. There were ready meals (Ready Ready meals?) and even restaurants and pubs were cashing in on Reggae Reggae on their specials boards. He does a drink, I’ve seen it, maybe more than one. It’s a fiery ginger beer. It’s no biggie, it’s not even as good as Olde Jamaican ginger beer. I don’t remember it being fiery. The Roots packaging is iconic. Well, not iconic, maybe the opposite of iconic. No-one’s going to be touting it as the best packaging design since the Jif lemon. It’s basically a rip off of the old skool (lol) iPod adverts, a prancing silhouette in that vein but with added reggae reggae appeal (dreadlocks). I guess it’s Levi Roots. Then it’s Jamaica colours too and it’s this weird uPpEr aNd LoWeRcAsE text because that’s all sunshine and fun too, apparently. It’s more KoRn to me. Look out for keywords in Levi Roots product blurbs like “sunshine” and “fabulocious” (inexcusable). He’s done loads of stuff anyway and not all of it good. His product range is supposed to be all about making Caribbean food accessible but like I say, he didn’t invent jerk chicken. Making it more accessible seems to equal making it microwaveable and tasteless? To be fair, he is making Caribbean food more accessible…in pound shops! What about these pizzas, eh? Picked up a brace in a low hour at my local Co-Op. £3 each, fair enough. I was after relatively low-emission (effort-wise) pre-lash stomach lining and Co-Op’s scant range left no other option.  I was embarrassed carrying them home in Co-Op’s famously see-through carrier bags; you could spot that trademark Roots packaging a mile off. There goes someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, they’d think. Steady on, I’m not above it. Lord knows I’m not above anything. I’m a big pizza guy and if there’s a celebrity chef (no matter how tenuous) endorsed NEW pizza on the market then I’m going to spend my hard-earned on it, by hook or by crook. I just wished at the time that my cargo was more discreet. The “flavours” (weird when people talk about pizzas as flavours) were enticing, reggae reggae jerk chicken and cracked black pepper beef. On paper, yep, I’m having it. But pizza isn’t eaten on paper so how did it translate to plate? Bit crap to be fair. It was OK but the on-paper part had my expectation levels built high. With this new pizza lease of life, Roots has gone for the Dr Oetker template. It’s almost exactly the same, same kind of thin crust and generous but finely ground toppers (meat-wise that is). Dr Oetker is good though, the best frozen pizza for my money. This wasn’t frozen by the way, it was chilled. The sauce on these isn’t tomato, it’s…you guessed it. They weren’t sickly like other tomato-sauce-alternative pizzas can be (HELLO anything bbq based from Dominos) but not being sickly is hardly a sole life goal to aspire to. They weren’t bad, they were just meh. Can’t be bothered carrying on. Levi Roots isn’t a bad man, the dragons probably are. They all need to pull fingers out of their arsies. See ya!

LEVI ROOTS PIZZAS

Who the hell is Levi Roots? Said nobody, ever. We’ve all got a Levi Roots story. Levi Roots was my Nan’s window cleaner, my Dad went to school with Levi Roots, I saw Levi Roots at Woodstock. Was that Levi Roots in the bushes? Was that Levi Roots on the bus? Your doorbell rang but when you opened the door there was nobody there…it was Levi Roots. Same when you answer the phone but there’s no voice at the end of the line.

Let us get some misconceptions about Levi Roots (real name Bob Merlot) out of the way. Firstly, he did not invent jerk chicken. Secondly, he did not win The Weakest Link. Thirdly, he doesn’t wear Levis (he wears the same pair of Eclipse jeans that he wore before he became famous! Similar to the way that Seastick Steve wears the same shit hat from when he used to ride trains). Roots was formally introduced to the nation on “Dragon’s Den”, a very popular television programme of our time. We’re not sure that it’s still on but we used to watch it when we were eating our tea sometimes when the batteries had fallen out of the freeview remote. I won’t explain the concept as I’m sure you’ve all been there. Our man, Roots, was on it pitching his “Reggae Reggae” sauce, a sort of jerk marinade-cum-condiment. “The dragons” didn’t know what was going on. Interestingly, Duncan Bananatime still thinks that Roots invented jerk chicken. He doesn’t get out much. I don’t recall exactly what happened but I’m pretty sure that none of the judges were that bothered (condiment jaded) until Levi Roots whipped out his acoustic and started singing about his sauce. I can’t remember the medley but it had words in it equating food with music, love and the like. You have to remember that this improv set from Roots sort of pre-dated X-Factor (maybe) so the nation was, at the time, bereft of “live music”. You might say it captured the nation’s imagination. It certainly captured the dragons’ imagination! They were falling over each other to get their wallets out. Theo Defeatist famously remarked that “it was the best thing I’ve heard since sliced bread” but then again, coming from a guy who works in a pencil factory…I dunno, not the best judge perhaps. Deborah MeatHam really loved it too because she was a bit of a flower child back in the day and it brought loadsa memories gushing back. Peter Jones (no funny name for him), famously only 30 years old, couldn’t relate to either the reggae reggae sauce or the reggae reggae music but he sort of knew they had on a hit on their hands. All of the dragons signed Levi Roots in a £1,000,000 contract and a star was born.

At first the dragons couldn’t decide which path to send Roots down – food or music. He ended up going down the music path because he had some gigs lined up already; little did he know that it would become the start of his “never-ending tour”.  The tour eventually ended after Roots completed the circuit of student unions (supported by Craig from Big Brother #1). Students can be a fickle crowd and once the initial novelty had worn off, they were left with a jerk onstage with no sauce. Tact was immediately switched to food and thus, the production line began. Reggae Reggae sauce everywhere. Absolutely everyone bought a bottle. Hell knows I did. We didn’t marinade anything in it but we enjoyed dipping our chips in it ‘til it went weird in the fridge. It was a bit of alright but not much of a culinary leap from say, brown sauce? Still, the public lapped it up. The dragons and Roots spread the Reggae Reggae sauce franchise as thin as they could and ended up with lucrative cross-brand tie-ins such as with Subway’s Reggae Reggae sub. There were ready meals (Ready Ready meals?) and even restaurants and pubs were cashing in on Reggae Reggae on their specials boards. He does a drink, I’ve seen it, maybe more than one. It’s a fiery ginger beer. It’s no biggie, it’s not even as good as Olde Jamaican ginger beer. I don’t remember it being fiery. The Roots packaging is iconic. Well, not iconic, maybe the opposite of iconic. No-one’s going to be touting it as the best packaging design since the Jif lemon. It’s basically a rip off of the old skool (lol) iPod adverts, a prancing silhouette in that vein but with added reggae reggae appeal (dreadlocks). I guess it’s Levi Roots. Then it’s Jamaica colours too and it’s this weird uPpEr aNd LoWeRcAsE text because that’s all sunshine and fun too, apparently. It’s more KoRn to me. Look out for keywords in Levi Roots product blurbs like “sunshine” and “fabulocious” (inexcusable). He’s done loads of stuff anyway and not all of it good. His product range is supposed to be all about making Caribbean food accessible but like I say, he didn’t invent jerk chicken. Making it more accessible seems to equal making it microwaveable and tasteless? To be fair, he is making Caribbean food more accessible…in pound shops!

What about these pizzas, eh? Picked up a brace in a low hour at my local Co-Op. £3 each, fair enough. I was after relatively low-emission (effort-wise) pre-lash stomach lining and Co-Op’s scant range left no other option.  I was embarrassed carrying them home in Co-Op’s famously see-through carrier bags; you could spot that trademark Roots packaging a mile off. There goes someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, they’d think. Steady on, I’m not above it. Lord knows I’m not above anything. I’m a big pizza guy and if there’s a celebrity chef (no matter how tenuous) endorsed NEW pizza on the market then I’m going to spend my hard-earned on it, by hook or by crook. I just wished at the time that my cargo was more discreet. The “flavours” (weird when people talk about pizzas as flavours) were enticing, reggae reggae jerk chicken and cracked black pepper beef. On paper, yep, I’m having it. But pizza isn’t eaten on paper so how did it translate to plate? Bit crap to be fair. It was OK but the on-paper part had my expectation levels built high. With this new pizza lease of life, Roots has gone for the Dr Oetker template. It’s almost exactly the same, same kind of thin crust and generous but finely ground toppers (meat-wise that is). Dr Oetker is good though, the best frozen pizza for my money. This wasn’t frozen by the way, it was chilled. The sauce on these isn’t tomato, it’s…you guessed it. They weren’t sickly like other tomato-sauce-alternative pizzas can be (HELLO anything bbq based from Dominos) but not being sickly is hardly a sole life goal to aspire to. They weren’t bad, they were just meh. Can’t be bothered carrying on.

Levi Roots isn’t a bad man, the dragons probably are. They all need to pull fingers out of their arsies. See ya!

AINSLEY HARRIOTT SZECHUAN HOT & SOUR CUP SOUP Ainsley Harriott, memember him? Prolly a bit before your time to be honest. He used to be on TV in the 80s when there was only four channels. He pre-dated cooking channels and all these other non-terrestrial beings. Heck he even pre-dated channel 5ive and LIVE TV! There were no topless darts or even topless weather when Ains was swabbing the decks on Ready, Steady, Cook. RSC was a cracking little show, prolly due for a comeback to be honest. Back when cooking shows had concepts, RSC’s concept was that members of the public were told to bring a carrier bag filled with ingredients…only they weren’t allowed to fill the bags, they had set rules like a budget of £5 or they were only allowed five items. There were two teams of two, each consisting of one television chef and one pleb (the bringer of the bag), Ains was the bridge between the two, the middle man but then also the host with the most. The chefs had to mentally (and later physically) align the stars unfurled from their allocated pleb’s carrier bag, the aim being to form some kind of a legitimate meal constellation. Efforts were buoyed by the studio kitchen backline of unspecified storecupboard essentials…thank God, one could wang £5 on a bokkle of top quality olive oil alone! The aim of the game, as in life, was to win win win. Non-cooking studio audience members were given placards to hold up illustrating their allegiance to either green peppers or red tomatoes. Ains would mathematically work out the red/green ratio in milliseconds and then award the victor with either a golden tomato or a golden pepper.  During the show Ainsley would flit between teams, at pace, half-helping and half-dancing like some kind of frazzled flamenco waiter. He did some great impressions too and he made up fun nicknames for things like “Suzie Salt” for salt and “Percy Pepper” for pepper. He could make you laugh and make you cry, maybe the last true great entertainer? I don’t know. I should mention that he wasn’t afraid of sexing it up. He’d do off the cuff stuff like suggestively putting raw sausages in his mouth or prodding Anthony Wozza Thompson from behind with a courgette. Unexpected item in the bagging area. If Ainsley Harriott is before your time then you’re probably thinking wow, what a great guy, what happened?  The details are murky. He was thrown from his carriage at some point by the Fern Britton Gastric Band. Producers of the show were well aware that the show was fast becoming the Ainsley Harriott Experience, by replacing Ains with a younger squatter model the aim was to bring viewers back to the brand. Towards the end of Ainsley’s tenure, the concept of RSC was becoming ever lost; some plebs didn’t even get to empty their placcy bags before Harriott was off doing his Jim-Carrey-in-The-Mask routine for the full duration. Celebrity chefs would sit on counters twiddling their thumbs and watching the clock whilst Ainsley did his Elvis comeback ’68 rendition, the over-60 crowd bemused but clapping in tandem. Producers would be yelling down Ainsley’s earpiece lobbying for him to get on with the show, only latterly realising that he’d switched his earpiece for a butter bean in make-up. His japes were indeed legendary, who can forget the time that he didn’t say anything for the full show only to reveal and outpour a full jar of olives (brine and all) that he’d been holding in his mouth for the entirety. If anything, he was TOO much of a character…if that’s even possible. It’s like being too nice. Come on. Legendary japes cost Harriott his place on television. He was banished to that place that celebrities go after their day in the sun has faded. So sad, so true. He was homeless for a bit but now he’s back! In soup form! Oh that’s good you cry, you love chilled supermarket soups. Alas, you won’t find him in the chiller. Oh soup CANS, of course you cry, they’re doing some really great things with those these days. No, not in the tinned aisle. Cup soups, friends! It was Cup soups all along! Powdered sachet cup soups. But he’s not just a soup man, oh no, he does other water-activated semi-solid food states too! Risotto! Dahl! Others! He’s a powder man these days, a scientist, the Breaking Bad of celebrity-chefs-turned-supermarket-shelf-stackers. He seems to be doing it because no-one else is doing it. Other chefs are going nutritional, making “healthy” ready meals or unbelievably realistic pasta sauces, our Ains is going back to the future-basics; powder food in a digital age. It may seem to be a bizarre career choice but if you know his presenting work then you know that he doesn’t sing from the same hymn sheet as the rest of us. Ainsley has a full range of cup soups. I can’t recall the other flavours but I opted for the most enticing (imho) of the bunch, Szechuan (pronounced: sesh-wahhhhn) Hot & Sour. The packaging suggests “A taste of the Orient with tomato, chilli and a hint of ginger flavour”. Pretty accurate I suppose. The illustration on the packet shows a hard-to-doctor straight-up photo of the cup soup in action. Food packaging oft misleads with what lies beneath the cardboard but you can’t really polish a cup soup turd, the pic looks like an opaque broth with vague bits bobbing to the surface. That is what a cup soup is. This was slightly less opaque perhaps but I’ll give them that one for free.  It’s flavourful you know, I actually enjoy it. Cup soups have got a heavy diet stigma, one automatically thinks of a thousand Aunties dunking a thousand digestives in a thousand offices across the land. I can’t say that a cup soup holds up much as a substantial lunch for yours true but I have been enjoying this as a mid-afternoon substitute for a hot drink. It opens a lot of doors mentally when you start thinking it’s acceptable to sub a mug of drink for a mug of food. I’m down with it. And at 62 calories a sachet, it’s less than a can of coke. Can’t be bad? I’m seriously thinking about getting into cup soups. They’re cheap too as they’re so unhip. I don’t know if I’d return to this particular flavour, it didn’t exactly blow my socks off, though I imagine that cup soups have a fairly low ceiling with what flavour highs they can achieve from a powdered start. This promised hot and sour, it was hot due to kettle and not really sour – a 1 or 2 on the piquant scale.  It’s the best cup soup I’ve had in years but then it’s the only cup soup I’ve had in years. It had the usual suspects bits-wise…carrots, peppers, sweetcorn? It was cool anyway, a lot of fun. I’m going to go get into them now but I’ll only shop at Ainsley for my cup soup needs. I trust these powdered products as much as I would a Jamie Oliver parmesan. I’d opt for a fusion Ainsley over a stale old Batchelors or Weight Watchers any day, true to form he’s sexed up an ailing mid-afternoon market. Ainsy is a fallen angel who’s turned to the kettle-activated dark side of cooking. You’ve got to give him some mad kind of respect for that. Come on the Ains.P.S. There was “Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook” too but I can’t remember anything about it…not even the concept which is weird because the name spells it out you’d think? 

AINSLEY HARRIOTT SZECHUAN HOT & SOUR CUP SOUP

Ainsley Harriott, memember him? Prolly a bit before your time to be honest. He used to be on TV in the 80s when there was only four channels. He pre-dated cooking channels and all these other non-terrestrial beings. Heck he even pre-dated channel 5ive and LIVE TV! There were no topless darts or even topless weather when Ains was swabbing the decks on Ready, Steady, Cook. RSC was a cracking little show, prolly due for a comeback to be honest. Back when cooking shows had concepts, RSC’s concept was that members of the public were told to bring a carrier bag filled with ingredients…only they weren’t allowed to fill the bags, they had set rules like a budget of £5 or they were only allowed five items. There were two teams of two, each consisting of one television chef and one pleb (the bringer of the bag), Ains was the bridge between the two, the middle man but then also the host with the most. The chefs had to mentally (and later physically) align the stars unfurled from their allocated pleb’s carrier bag, the aim being to form some kind of a legitimate meal constellation. Efforts were buoyed by the studio kitchen backline of unspecified storecupboard essentials…thank God, one could wang £5 on a bokkle of top quality olive oil alone! The aim of the game, as in life, was to win win win. Non-cooking studio audience members were given placards to hold up illustrating their allegiance to either green peppers or red tomatoes. Ains would mathematically work out the red/green ratio in milliseconds and then award the victor with either a golden tomato or a golden pepper. 

During the show Ainsley would flit between teams, at pace, half-helping and half-dancing like some kind of frazzled flamenco waiter. He did some great impressions too and he made up fun nicknames for things like “Suzie Salt” for salt and “Percy Pepper” for pepper. He could make you laugh and make you cry, maybe the last true great entertainer? I don’t know. I should mention that he wasn’t afraid of sexing it up. He’d do off the cuff stuff like suggestively putting raw sausages in his mouth or prodding Anthony Wozza Thompson from behind with a courgette. Unexpected item in the bagging area. If Ainsley Harriott is before your time then you’re probably thinking wow, what a great guy, what happened?  The details are murky. He was thrown from his carriage at some point by the Fern Britton Gastric Band. Producers of the show were well aware that the show was fast becoming the Ainsley Harriott Experience, by replacing Ains with a younger squatter model the aim was to bring viewers back to the brand. Towards the end of Ainsley’s tenure, the concept of RSC was becoming ever lost; some plebs didn’t even get to empty their placcy bags before Harriott was off doing his Jim-Carrey-in-The-Mask routine for the full duration. Celebrity chefs would sit on counters twiddling their thumbs and watching the clock whilst Ainsley did his Elvis comeback ’68 rendition, the over-60 crowd bemused but clapping in tandem. Producers would be yelling down Ainsley’s earpiece lobbying for him to get on with the show, only latterly realising that he’d switched his earpiece for a butter bean in make-up. His japes were indeed legendary, who can forget the time that he didn’t say anything for the full show only to reveal and outpour a full jar of olives (brine and all) that he’d been holding in his mouth for the entirety. If anything, he was TOO much of a character…if that’s even possible. It’s like being too nice. Come on. Legendary japes cost Harriott his place on television. He was banished to that place that celebrities go after their day in the sun has faded. So sad, so true.

He was homeless for a bit but now he’s back! In soup form! Oh that’s good you cry, you love chilled supermarket soups. Alas, you won’t find him in the chiller. Oh soup CANS, of course you cry, they’re doing some really great things with those these days. No, not in the tinned aisle. Cup soups, friends! It was Cup soups all along! Powdered sachet cup soups. But he’s not just a soup man, oh no, he does other water-activated semi-solid food states too! Risotto! Dahl! Others! He’s a powder man these days, a scientist, the Breaking Bad of celebrity-chefs-turned-supermarket-shelf-stackers. He seems to be doing it because no-one else is doing it. Other chefs are going nutritional, making “healthy” ready meals or unbelievably realistic pasta sauces, our Ains is going back to the future-basics; powder food in a digital age. It may seem to be a bizarre career choice but if you know his presenting work then you know that he doesn’t sing from the same hymn sheet as the rest of us.

Ainsley has a full range of cup soups. I can’t recall the other flavours but I opted for the most enticing (imho) of the bunch, Szechuan (pronounced: sesh-wahhhhn) Hot & Sour. The packaging suggests “A taste of the Orient with tomato, chilli and a hint of ginger flavour”. Pretty accurate I suppose. The illustration on the packet shows a hard-to-doctor straight-up photo of the cup soup in action. Food packaging oft misleads with what lies beneath the cardboard but you can’t really polish a cup soup turd, the pic looks like an opaque broth with vague bits bobbing to the surface. That is what a cup soup is. This was slightly less opaque perhaps but I’ll give them that one for free.  It’s flavourful you know, I actually enjoy it. Cup soups have got a heavy diet stigma, one automatically thinks of a thousand Aunties dunking a thousand digestives in a thousand offices across the land. I can’t say that a cup soup holds up much as a substantial lunch for yours true but I have been enjoying this as a mid-afternoon substitute for a hot drink. It opens a lot of doors mentally when you start thinking it’s acceptable to sub a mug of drink for a mug of food. I’m down with it. And at 62 calories a sachet, it’s less than a can of coke. Can’t be bad? I’m seriously thinking about getting into cup soups. They’re cheap too as they’re so unhip. I don’t know if I’d return to this particular flavour, it didn’t exactly blow my socks off, though I imagine that cup soups have a fairly low ceiling with what flavour highs they can achieve from a powdered start. This promised hot and sour, it was hot due to kettle and not really sour – a 1 or 2 on the piquant scale.  It’s the best cup soup I’ve had in years but then it’s the only cup soup I’ve had in years. It had the usual suspects bits-wise…carrots, peppers, sweetcorn? It was cool anyway, a lot of fun. I’m going to go get into them now but I’ll only shop at Ainsley for my cup soup needs. I trust these powdered products as much as I would a Jamie Oliver parmesan. I’d opt for a fusion Ainsley over a stale old Batchelors or Weight Watchers any day, true to form he’s sexed up an ailing mid-afternoon market.

Ainsy is a fallen angel who’s turned to the kettle-activated dark side of cooking. You’ve got to give him some mad kind of respect for that. Come on the Ains.

P.S. There was “Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook” too but I can’t remember anything about it…not even the concept which is weird because the name spells it out you’d think? 

BOBBY’S CRISPY FRIES Walkers can jog on. There! I said it! Walkers? Throw me a lemon! Do one, mate. Pull the other one. Knit one, pearl one! I mean, what the hell. They’ve got Bore Story written all over them. When was one ever inspired to pick up a packet of Walkers? We asked “do you have crisps?” at the bar but we only accepted Salt ‘n’ Vinegar Walkers because needs musted. Yeah, they’re alright but they’re only ever alright. When was the last time you really savoured a pack? Maybe we bought the English Breakfast edition on a whim but we definitely regretted it after a whiff. Walkers are everywhere, they’re everyday, every shop in your world stocks them, if there’s only one bag of crisps on a shelf/rack/counter then you can bet it’s Walkers. They’re commonplace to the nth degree but they ain’t classic. They’re not classic like a can of Coke is classic. They’ve never even been close to classic, not even in the student sense of the word. Pulling a bag of cheese and onion out of your backpack isn’t going to be met by a “classic” from your peers. Pulling a bag of cheese and onion Walkers out anywhere isn’t going to raise anything, except maybe a collective sigh from commuters if you’re eating them on public transport. I mean, Gary Lineker. Gary Lineacre. Gary Linklater. In what boring boiled egg world is he the mascot of anything? Maybe the mascot of fair play or fair dos or fair enough. Maybe the mascot of a trouser press factory or some kind of mobility scooter garage. In fact, thinking on, he is the perfect match (whey) for Walkers. If Gary Vinegar was a food stuff, he’d be a Walkers crisp. He kind of just is a Walkers crisp. Think about it, you don’t really ever see him wet or out of his foil packet (suit). He’s just a crisp, oh man, shit. Sorry, carry on with what you were doing, I need a moment. And that’s why Walkers have him as their trophy boy! Because he’s family! Was he always a crisp? Well, he was a footballer once but he never got booked and he used to goal hang. Is that what crisps do? Of course a crisp wouldn’t “crunch” into a tackle! Would a crisp favour a tap in over a thousand yard rollicking half-volley screamer? I mean, it’s not what they do now, of course, but is that what they USED to do? Shit, shit, shit. I’m going through my books and I’m asking Jeeves but some parts of history just aren’t accounted for. They’re unplayable. I wish I could pinpoint the change, if there was a change; if forced I’d guess around the same age Michael J. Fox was when he turned in to a wolf. Teen Crisp. Any road, he’s a crisp now and that’s all that matters. Doesn’t even matter these days, you can get away with anything! Bobby’s on the other hand! What a guy! It’s unusual for yours, Flegend, to do any official research on a product or brand but Bobby’s is such a sleeper brand sprinkled in mystery salt that I felt compelled. Interestingly, I can’t remember most of it. I remember that Bobby’s is based in Bromsgrove. I don’t know where Bromsgrove is. I’m going to say either Midlands-ish or Kent-ish? Their whole back story reads like something out of Alan Sugar’s songbook. Bobby’s started as one man (Bobby?) driving around in a van, presumably selling crisps out of it.  The business then grew exponentially and now Bobby’s, the brand, has a fleet of eighty-six (or similar surprisingly low/high number) vans (lorries?) that spread Bobby’s gospel nationwide. It’s a great read and I recommend that you go and pick up a copy. I Wish I caught on to these budding businessmen when they’re travelling around Crapston Villas in their Del-Boy three-wheelers selling homemade beta versions of future mass marketables. Who decides that they’re going to make crisps anyway? Would your Mum and Dad be proud if you came home one day and declared, “I know what I’m going to do with my life! I’m going to make crisps!” Umm, son, you can’t make crisps…you just buy them…from the shop. I mean, how do you bag them? Can you get a small independent run of crisps made (in packets) on the cheap? Bobby did. Credit to the lad. Bobby’s, I’m sure they won’t mind me saying, are something of a budget brand. They usually sit a shelf or two lower than the bigger boys. But conversely the Bobby’s bags are substantially bigger than your so-called big boys. The price is small; you can usually pick up a packet for around the 35p mark. If the names “Spirals”, “Bacon Streaks” or “Onion Rings” mean anything to you then chances are you’ve been Bobbied. All fairly in your face stylistically and aromatically, Bobby’s doesn’t tread lightly in its trampling of ownerless folk crisp standards. The packaging is cheap and bold with the cover price practically exploding in your face. We’re happy to have the price point emblazoned, that way opportunistic corner shops can’t dick around with it like they do with Walkers and the like. My wallet has perhaps been more of a fan of Bobby’s than my mouth has over the years. Until now that is! Crispy Fries, oh my god, Crispy Fries. Bobby has ramped up his game so hard and from where! The prior smart price spin-offs and tribute crisps did nothing to prepare me for this. Crispy Fries are actually French fries, as in chips. I don’t know how they’ve done it but they’ve done it. I’m not talking potato sticks, “French Fries” (the crisps), or whatever the imitation of a shoestring fry was before. Crispy Fries are the real deal. They look like McDonalds fries. They look like freeze-dried fries. They’re working with the same subject matter (potato) so it shouldn’t be that shocking that in 2013 this is achievable but god, it is. Even the packet is revolutionary; it’s side opening! SIDE opening. What! Like a bag of chips you might get from a chip shop I guess. It’s actually beautiful that it is, it encourages the over-zealous fistful. Your ham fist would get stuck in a regular top opener, you wouldn’t be able to fudge them in fast enough. The taste is divine, simply salted like their hot counterparts; they’re officially the most moreish crisps on the market. You seem to get so many but then they’re gone. But it isn’t an unsatisfactorily quick demise, you really pummel them and for a time they take it. I hesitate slightly to label Bobby’s previous entries as “dirty” but you did, or I did, feel a mite soiled in the past after shovelling a bag of Bacon Streaks. With Crispy Fries, the prior guilt associations have been sent flying; Crispy Fries are refined, they’re artisan. It’s like Bobby has discovered the golden potato and he’s been widdling each Crispy Fry with the world’s greatest precision. Crispy Fries are so good that they make all crisp experimentation throughout history seem null and void. Even the standard shape of a crisp, your slightly bubbled oval, seems abstract by comparison. You idiots. All Johnny Public has ever wanted is a crisp rendition of a chip, a fry. Crispy Fries are on an introductory offer at the moment, a reassuringly (?) high price (for Bobby’s) of 69p, but to be honest I would pay anything for a packet of these puritans. I endorse you all to tread forth and find a bag of Crispy Fries from your nearest stockist and help fund future Bobby’s developments. After this, who knows what they’re capable of? I kind of don’t want them to do anything ever again because they’ve already peaked so hard. They rule my face. They’ll rule your face. You’ll do anything to grab a bag. I’m not often a crisp guy and I’m certainly not a brand loyalist or repeat purchaser on the crisp front but Crispy Fries have changed the game forever. I’m Bobby’s ‘til I die, I’m Crispy ‘til I Fry.

BOBBY’S CRISPY FRIES

Walkers can jog on. There! I said it! Walkers? Throw me a lemon! Do one, mate. Pull the other one. Knit one, pearl one! I mean, what the hell. They’ve got Bore Story written all over them. When was one ever inspired to pick up a packet of Walkers? We asked “do you have crisps?” at the bar but we only accepted Salt ‘n’ Vinegar Walkers because needs musted. Yeah, they’re alright but they’re only ever alright. When was the last time you really savoured a pack? Maybe we bought the English Breakfast edition on a whim but we definitely regretted it after a whiff. Walkers are everywhere, they’re everyday, every shop in your world stocks them, if there’s only one bag of crisps on a shelf/rack/counter then you can bet it’s Walkers. They’re commonplace to the nth degree but they ain’t classic. They’re not classic like a can of Coke is classic. They’ve never even been close to classic, not even in the student sense of the word. Pulling a bag of cheese and onion out of your backpack isn’t going to be met by a “classic” from your peers. Pulling a bag of cheese and onion Walkers out anywhere isn’t going to raise anything, except maybe a collective sigh from commuters if you’re eating them on public transport. I mean, Gary Lineker. Gary Lineacre. Gary Linklater. In what boring boiled egg world is he the mascot of anything? Maybe the mascot of fair play or fair dos or fair enough. Maybe the mascot of a trouser press factory or some kind of mobility scooter garage. In fact, thinking on, he is the perfect match (whey) for Walkers. If Gary Vinegar was a food stuff, he’d be a Walkers crisp. He kind of just is a Walkers crisp. Think about it, you don’t really ever see him wet or out of his foil packet (suit). He’s just a crisp, oh man, shit. Sorry, carry on with what you were doing, I need a moment. And that’s why Walkers have him as their trophy boy! Because he’s family! Was he always a crisp? Well, he was a footballer once but he never got booked and he used to goal hang. Is that what crisps do? Of course a crisp wouldn’t “crunch” into a tackle! Would a crisp favour a tap in over a thousand yard rollicking half-volley screamer? I mean, it’s not what they do now, of course, but is that what they USED to do? Shit, shit, shit. I’m going through my books and I’m asking Jeeves but some parts of history just aren’t accounted for. They’re unplayable. I wish I could pinpoint the change, if there was a change; if forced I’d guess around the same age Michael J. Fox was when he turned in to a wolf. Teen Crisp. Any road, he’s a crisp now and that’s all that matters. Doesn’t even matter these days, you can get away with anything!

Bobby’s on the other hand! What a guy! It’s unusual for yours, Flegend, to do any official research on a product or brand but Bobby’s is such a sleeper brand sprinkled in mystery salt that I felt compelled. Interestingly, I can’t remember most of it. I remember that Bobby’s is based in Bromsgrove. I don’t know where Bromsgrove is. I’m going to say either Midlands-ish or Kent-ish? Their whole back story reads like something out of Alan Sugar’s songbook. Bobby’s started as one man (Bobby?) driving around in a van, presumably selling crisps out of it.  The business then grew exponentially and now Bobby’s, the brand, has a fleet of eighty-six (or similar surprisingly low/high number) vans (lorries?) that spread Bobby’s gospel nationwide. It’s a great read and I recommend that you go and pick up a copy. I Wish I caught on to these budding businessmen when they’re travelling around Crapston Villas in their Del-Boy three-wheelers selling homemade beta versions of future mass marketables. Who decides that they’re going to make crisps anyway? Would your Mum and Dad be proud if you came home one day and declared,

“I know what I’m going to do with my life! I’m going to make crisps!”

Umm, son, you can’t make crisps…you just buy them…from the shop. I mean, how do you bag them? Can you get a small independent run of crisps made (in packets) on the cheap? Bobby did. Credit to the lad.

Bobby’s, I’m sure they won’t mind me saying, are something of a budget brand. They usually sit a shelf or two lower than the bigger boys. But conversely the Bobby’s bags are substantially bigger than your so-called big boys. The price is small; you can usually pick up a packet for around the 35p mark. If the names “Spirals”, “Bacon Streaks” or “Onion Rings” mean anything to you then chances are you’ve been Bobbied. All fairly in your face stylistically and aromatically, Bobby’s doesn’t tread lightly in its trampling of ownerless folk crisp standards. The packaging is cheap and bold with the cover price practically exploding in your face. We’re happy to have the price point emblazoned, that way opportunistic corner shops can’t dick around with it like they do with Walkers and the like. My wallet has perhaps been more of a fan of Bobby’s than my mouth has over the years. Until now that is!

Crispy Fries, oh my god, Crispy Fries. Bobby has ramped up his game so hard and from where! The prior smart price spin-offs and tribute crisps did nothing to prepare me for this. Crispy Fries are actually French fries, as in chips. I don’t know how they’ve done it but they’ve done it. I’m not talking potato sticks, “French Fries” (the crisps), or whatever the imitation of a shoestring fry was before. Crispy Fries are the real deal. They look like McDonalds fries. They look like freeze-dried fries. They’re working with the same subject matter (potato) so it shouldn’t be that shocking that in 2013 this is achievable but god, it is. Even the packet is revolutionary; it’s side opening! SIDE opening. What! Like a bag of chips you might get from a chip shop I guess. It’s actually beautiful that it is, it encourages the over-zealous fistful. Your ham fist would get stuck in a regular top opener, you wouldn’t be able to fudge them in fast enough. The taste is divine, simply salted like their hot counterparts; they’re officially the most moreish crisps on the market. You seem to get so many but then they’re gone. But it isn’t an unsatisfactorily quick demise, you really pummel them and for a time they take it. I hesitate slightly to label Bobby’s previous entries as “dirty” but you did, or I did, feel a mite soiled in the past after shovelling a bag of Bacon Streaks. With Crispy Fries, the prior guilt associations have been sent flying; Crispy Fries are refined, they’re artisan. It’s like Bobby has discovered the golden potato and he’s been widdling each Crispy Fry with the world’s greatest precision. Crispy Fries are so good that they make all crisp experimentation throughout history seem null and void. Even the standard shape of a crisp, your slightly bubbled oval, seems abstract by comparison. You idiots. All Johnny Public has ever wanted is a crisp rendition of a chip, a fry. Crispy Fries are on an introductory offer at the moment, a reassuringly (?) high price (for Bobby’s) of 69p, but to be honest I would pay anything for a packet of these puritans. I endorse you all to tread forth and find a bag of Crispy Fries from your nearest stockist and help fund future Bobby’s developments. After this, who knows what they’re capable of? I kind of don’t want them to do anything ever again because they’ve already peaked so hard. They rule my face. They’ll rule your face. You’ll do anything to grab a bag.

I’m not often a crisp guy and I’m certainly not a brand loyalist or repeat purchaser on the crisp front but Crispy Fries have changed the game forever. I’m Bobby’s ‘til I die, I’m Crispy ‘til I Fry.

COCO ORANGE SHREDDIESWhoa, I just caught myself. I just sat outside of myself and saw myself for maybe the first time; I was in the kitchen (natch!) flitting back and forth between dolly mixtures and pork scratchings. You dirty dainty little big thing. What is wrong with you? I saw myself eating a dolly mixture and then I saw myself going in to the cupboard for a pork scratching. Why didn’t I say anything? That’s not what you do, that’s not what people do. Do they? Do you? I just watched an episode of “Celebrity Rehab” and now I’m watching “Toddlers and Tiaras”. It seems I take the rough with the smooth. Dolly mixtures and pork scratchings? That’s not what you do. Take a seat back inside yourself because it turns out that IS what you do…when you’ve just been to ALDI.ALDI is bad arse, it’s the Stars in their Eyes of supermarkets. Brand impersonation across the nation? Tote bags amazeballs! You see a familiar face, a chocolate digestive packet shining through the almost famous fog and what’s this…no it couldn’t be, 39p? But it isn’t McVitie’s…it’s MyVitriol’s, a McVitie’s tribute brand. Sure, they look like McVitie’s but do they sound like McVitie’s? Kinda don’t care because the packaging is so on point, it had me duped and lord knows it’s already singing to me from the shelf. Listen, I’m tote bags bagging it up. No diggity. ALDI is full of similar revelations. It seems more full in general than other supermarkets. Not necessarily full of things you *need,* on the contrary, it’s full of things you *don’t need*. It’s basically an eternal biscuit and crisp aisle. They break up the biscuits and crisps in the middle with weird shit like lawnmowers and mp3 turntables, then you’re back to your biscuits and crisps. Thank god. They’ve got some plastic vegetables in there somewhere but don’t worry they’re just for show. In the nuclear holocaust section they slash prices on 6p tins of mushy peas; WAS 6P NOW 4P! But what does a 4p tin of mushy peas taste like? I can tell you because I’ve been there. The taste becomes a tad irrelevant when you clock eyes on them…I say “them” but it appears that we’re dealing with an “it”; a single mass, a chunk. You know the way dog food slides out of the can in a gelatinous tin shaped relief? Well, if you like that kind of thing then you’re in for a treat! Not for the faint of heart mind; a toxic green slime cylinder face planting in your pan. You could probs count the number of actual peas on one hand, it’s fair to say that the 4p special focuses on more the mushy end of the bargain. Back to the biscuits and crisps you go with thy tail between thine legs. Midst the crisping and biscuit selection I happened upon the cereal section. One box by a known brand grabbed my eyes by the bootlaces! Regrettably the brand in question is widely abhorred for giving babbies cigs instead of breast milk or some such but you’ll have to allow me a moral pass because I really was juiced by the concept of the cereal. Check it. Coco Orange Shreddies. Fabulous, right? I…don’t…think…I’ve…ever…seen…that…before. I’m always there or thereabouts when someone drops chocolate cereal in to the mix but chocolate ORANGE cereal?? I think it’s a first. Maybe there’s a reason? Oranges and milk famously don’t get on. Orange curdles milk? You don’t get orange milkshakes but you do get chocolate orange ice cream and presumably milk is a fairly prominent ingredient in a chocolate orange. I’m confused. Maybe orange doesn’t curdle milk after all. Lemons do, I know that much. Does the orange fall far from the citrus tree? Props to Shreddies anyway for getting weird on this one. It’s playing against type, praise the old Nana knitters for going a bit Heston. I don’t even know if this is a mainstream release mind, it could be an Aldi-only prototype or it could have come out years ago and only just filtered down to my eye level. Maybe it was a one-off plant, a secret agent just for me. Get down to ALDI opposite the McVitie’s factory (not even kidding) if you want privvy to the scoop. But yeah, Shreddies have hardly wowed me in the past. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll have a bowlful or three if they’re on offer but it’s only ever trad Shreddies I plump for. Never been a big fan of the Frosted or straight Coco variants. I’ve not had either for so long that I can’t even remember why or who, I’ve just somehow achieved closure on the matter and now I’m tote bags zen chillaxballs. Coco Orange Shreddies though, phwoar, yes, I’m back in the game. It works, it really works. The potential citrus curdling is the only way in truth that it could not have worked. I bone Chocolate Oranges like wow so I’m hardly surprised. A bowl full of these brazen beauts gives me something to look forward to every morning, I rise and then I fall and I wait however many hours until it’s morning time again. Eating these once a day is my new job. I just zing zing zingin’ love a choccy hit in the morning. Forget my previous post a couple of posts ago about going through chocolate lulls, I am dead in the eye of a chocolate tornado at the moment; I’m chained to a fence but I’m willfully stretching my legs out into the storm and Momma like, Momma liiiike. Special note should be given to how quick and how deep these chocloranges turn the milk choclorangey. It’s nigh on instantaneous! The waters grow ever murkier on your journey to the bottom of the bowl, something about the “coco” and how dark these amazonian knitworks are painted. Sure, Shreddies are famously disappointing if taken straight from the packet in snack form but come on, who does that these days anyway. That kind of dry cereal snacking is the reserve of Toadfish Rebecchi and times since past. Shreddies need that deep fried cardboard dry state to prolong their in-milk durability, they’re no Weetos when it comes to endurance crunchability but you still have to admire the build quality. When the Shreddies are this munchable you need not worry about long standing soggy squares, you’ll be nomming Nana’s knitting whole before the milk has even penetrated the first ply. Famous!

COCO ORANGE SHREDDIES

Whoa, I just caught myself. I just sat outside of myself and saw myself for maybe the first time; I was in the kitchen (natch!) flitting back and forth between dolly mixtures and pork scratchings. You dirty dainty little big thing. What is wrong with you? I saw myself eating a dolly mixture and then I saw myself going in to the cupboard for a pork scratching. Why didn’t I say anything? That’s not what you do, that’s not what people do. Do they? Do you? I just watched an episode of “Celebrity Rehab” and now I’m watching “Toddlers and Tiaras”. It seems I take the rough with the smooth. Dolly mixtures and pork scratchings? That’s not what you do. Take a seat back inside yourself because it turns out that IS what you do…when you’ve just been to ALDI.

ALDI is bad arse, it’s the Stars in their Eyes of supermarkets. Brand impersonation across the nation? Tote bags amazeballs! You see a familiar face, a chocolate digestive packet shining through the almost famous fog and what’s this…no it couldn’t be, 39p? But it isn’t McVitie’s…it’s MyVitriol’s, a McVitie’s tribute brand. Sure, they look like McVitie’s but do they sound like McVitie’s? Kinda don’t care because the packaging is so on point, it had me duped and lord knows it’s already singing to me from the shelf. Listen, I’m tote bags bagging it up. No diggity. ALDI is full of similar revelations. It seems more full in general than other supermarkets. Not necessarily full of things you *need,* on the contrary, it’s full of things you *don’t need*. It’s basically an eternal biscuit and crisp aisle. They break up the biscuits and crisps in the middle with weird shit like lawnmowers and mp3 turntables, then you’re back to your biscuits and crisps. Thank god. They’ve got some plastic vegetables in there somewhere but don’t worry they’re just for show. In the nuclear holocaust section they slash prices on 6p tins of mushy peas; WAS 6P NOW 4P! But what does a 4p tin of mushy peas taste like? I can tell you because I’ve been there. The taste becomes a tad irrelevant when you clock eyes on them…I say “them” but it appears that we’re dealing with an “it”; a single mass, a chunk. You know the way dog food slides out of the can in a gelatinous tin shaped relief? Well, if you like that kind of thing then you’re in for a treat! Not for the faint of heart mind; a toxic green slime cylinder face planting in your pan. You could probs count the number of actual peas on one hand, it’s fair to say that the 4p special focuses on more the mushy end of the bargain. Back to the biscuits and crisps you go with thy tail between thine legs. 

Midst the crisping and biscuit selection I happened upon the cereal section. One box by a known brand grabbed my eyes by the bootlaces! Regrettably the brand in question is widely abhorred for giving babbies cigs instead of breast milk or some such but you’ll have to allow me a moral pass because I really was juiced by the concept of the cereal. Check it. Coco Orange Shreddies. Fabulous, right? I…don’t…think…I’ve…ever…seen…that…before. I’m always there or thereabouts when someone drops chocolate cereal in to the mix but chocolate ORANGE cereal?? I think it’s a first. Maybe there’s a reason? Oranges and milk famously don’t get on. Orange curdles milk? You don’t get orange milkshakes but you do get chocolate orange ice cream and presumably milk is a fairly prominent ingredient in a chocolate orange. I’m confused. Maybe orange doesn’t curdle milk after all. Lemons do, I know that much. Does the orange fall far from the citrus tree? Props to Shreddies anyway for getting weird on this one. It’s playing against type, praise the old Nana knitters for going a bit Heston. I don’t even know if this is a mainstream release mind, it could be an Aldi-only prototype or it could have come out years ago and only just filtered down to my eye level. Maybe it was a one-off plant, a secret agent just for me. Get down to ALDI opposite the McVitie’s factory (not even kidding) if you want privvy to the scoop. But yeah, Shreddies have hardly wowed me in the past. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll have a bowlful or three if they’re on offer but it’s only ever trad Shreddies I plump for. Never been a big fan of the Frosted or straight Coco variants. I’ve not had either for so long that I can’t even remember why or who, I’ve just somehow achieved closure on the matter and now I’m tote bags zen chillaxballs. Coco Orange Shreddies though, phwoar, yes, I’m back in the game. It works, it really works. The potential citrus curdling is the only way in truth that it could not have worked. I bone Chocolate Oranges like wow so I’m hardly surprised. A bowl full of these brazen beauts gives me something to look forward to every morning, I rise and then I fall and I wait however many hours until it’s morning time again. Eating these once a day is my new job. I just zing zing zingin’ love a choccy hit in the morning. Forget my previous post a couple of posts ago about going through chocolate lulls, I am dead in the eye of a chocolate tornado at the moment; I’m chained to a fence but I’m willfully stretching my legs out into the storm and Momma like, Momma liiiike. Special note should be given to how quick and how deep these chocloranges turn the milk choclorangey. It’s nigh on instantaneous! The waters grow ever murkier on your journey to the bottom of the bowl, something about the “coco” and how dark these amazonian knitworks are painted. Sure, Shreddies are famously disappointing if taken straight from the packet in snack form but come on, who does that these days anyway. That kind of dry cereal snacking is the reserve of Toadfish Rebecchi and times since past. Shreddies need that deep fried cardboard dry state to prolong their in-milk durability, they’re no Weetos when it comes to endurance crunchability but you still have to admire the build quality. When the Shreddies are this munchable you need not worry about long standing soggy squares, you’ll be nomming Nana’s knitting whole before the milk has even penetrated the first ply.

Famous!
DOMINO’S HOT DOG STUFFED CRUSTFats Domino’s (hello again) have followed Pizza Hut’s recent deviation in to the world of hot dog crust stuffing. Pisa Hut popped their crust bomb last year, I didn’t try it but I really wanted to don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I rarely feel closer to death than when I’m sat in the Pizza Hut. One of my friends thinks he might of had a heart attack in there. Hey, a lot of people’s friends have had a heart attack in there. Is a salad still a salad if it’s peppered with bacon bits? How many kernels of sweetcorn does a pasta need to qualify as a “pasta salad”? Three? Is a crust still a crust if it’s got a hot dog in it? Pizzy Hizzy have just released a new hot dog crust variation pizza where the crust is crimped with infacing mini-hot dogs or some shit. Make no bones about it…Pizza Hut are fat bastards. Eat all you can this, bacon bits your salad that. Pizza Hut is the only place in Europe where you can still contract potato salad. Domino’s two for Tuesday it weren’t, doesn’t have to be these days, they pump out so many voucher codes that it renders days and time meaningless. Me and lady legs opted for the spend £400 and get it for £200 cash back guarantee. This enabled us to purchase two large pizza pies and a portion of seven hot wings. Ain’t be hating on us, we stretched the slices to three days of eat-play; a new PB. The hot dog crust surgery adds an extra £2 on your pizza, we optimised this extra on just one of our pizzas. The thinking being that we had a traditional option to fall back on should it all end in tears. It’s not even bad value when you consider the inner tube style length of hot dog you’re getting. It does max the price of large pizza out to a whopping £18.99 mind. Fist full of vouchers tho kid. There’s something about the Domino’s box, that famous design. Domino’s the pizza brand is now more famous than dominoes the ancient game, how have they done that? Yeah it’s pleasing, that red and blue. It’s like the apple mac of pizzas, it costs more than other pizzas but you need it for work…or something. I read in the paper some interview with a design duo who were asked what their favourite piece of graphic design was and they said it was the Jif lemon (lol). Mine is the pot noodle. No, snot really. Maybe it’s Domino’s pizza box? Nah, snot. But it’s good right? It’s classic. Ok, shut up, the pizzas are here. One of the pizzas we ordered had the legend “AS SEEN ON THIS MORNING” emblazoned next to it on the menu. It seems a strange thing to shout about. You don’t think of monster brands like Domino’s needing reassurance from pithy breakfast TV. Check this out though, it’s pretty much Domino’s that talks about Domino’s. It doesn’t really get covered from other angles. It’s Domino’s that texts me every day, it’s Domino’s that blanket bombs my inbox. I’ve heard friends talking about Dom’s (well, maybe once) but no one has ever talked about it on the main stage…not even at Glasto! Bit weird still that they’re flexing “This Morning” credentials, what year is it? Who’s the president?  It worked to be fair. I’ll be damned if I know what the hell they chatted about this pizza because it’s bland as. It’s chicken and peppers with “Chimmachurra” (sp?) sauce. Sounds exciting, tastes like huh? Total dead air. I couldn’t even pick out the sauce, maybs they forgot to put it on. Still good though with all the cheese and bread and that. No hot dogs in the crust on this one. Ok, next! I got a half and half; half New Yorker (my fave Domino, look it up), half ham and pineapple. So rare right now. Get back on the ham and pineapple mule, it’s ready to kick! Hot dog surrounds the slices like an inverse meaty moat. You don’t see it on the surface but occasionally it bobs up from beneath its crust casing, you cannae tie ol’ Nessie down. I should add that there are two options for hot dog customisation, with or without French’s mustard. No contest! It changes your whole pizza perspective having a hot one in the crust. Usually when you’re approaching the crust you’re anticipating some rest bite, a pit stop, a virgin shore to gather your thoughts. Having a hot dog in there changes everything. I found myself almost dreading reaching the crust. It’s almost like the body of the pizza becomes the crust and the crust becomes the main event. Wild. The hot dog is as you’d expect; not quite the pork content of say your hertz vacuum packed dogs but a cut above your tinned franks. At first I thought I wasn’t enjoying it, too much action going on. I missed the calm of your trad crust, I missed the simple old timey fun of dipping said crust in Domino’s dip selection. You can still do that of course, Lady Legend got some ketchup involved for a classic condiment duo with the pre-piped mustard. Clever Trevor. If you like hot dogs then you’re in for a good time but if you don’t believe in stuffed crusts then you’re unlikely to be converted. Where do crust stuffers progress from here? They’ve hit a hot dog wall. It’s perfect because they slot in fairly organically but there has to be progression. Domino’s won’t stop at hot dogs. The next logical step, for my money, is probably something inedible like kiddies toys. Like a happy meal times ten; a toy in the crust of each slice! Imagine the look on their little faces. It’s either gonna be a Kinder style surprise or it could be something like vouchers in the crust, folded up fivers, maybe the promise of a golden ticket. Or it could go the “randoms” route, just odds and ends stuffed in…short lengths of telephone wire, payslips, ballet shoes, USB sticks etc. The crust would be so teaming with surprises that it would eclipse the inner pizza. It almost wouldn’t involve any eating, the edible surface would be in minority compared to the jumble sale bursting out of the crust. The edible frills would be tossed in the bin as superfluous. Crazy. I feel like it’s already happening. Is it? Did I? Is the hot dog continuous? I can’t be sure. It seemed like it was a 360 wheel. I didn’t come across any end pieces. How do they get it in there? If the next step is going to be edible then I reckon it’s gonna be baked beans. Hear me out. It’s going to be an all-day breakfast pizza with beans in the crust. Put a bet on it. I’ll put my hat on it. You can put your house on it. I’d never usually get a stuffed crust but this hot dog affair has made me question everything I once knew. Probs won’t get it again even, I think I’ve officially retired from Domino’s now. If you’ve been thinking about it then you will have to do it. You’ve got a choice but you don’t really. You almost entirely don’t have to because you can fully imagine it. It is what it is but you have to be there at least once, just to say you’ve done it. Jus do it. Oh hells syeah!

DOMINO’S HOT DOG STUFFED CRUST

Fats Domino’s (hello again) have followed Pizza Hut’s recent deviation in to the world of hot dog crust stuffing. Pisa Hut popped their crust bomb last year, I didn’t try it but I really wanted to don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I rarely feel closer to death than when I’m sat in the Pizza Hut. One of my friends thinks he might of had a heart attack in there. Hey, a lot of people’s friends have had a heart attack in there. Is a salad still a salad if it’s peppered with bacon bits? How many kernels of sweetcorn does a pasta need to qualify as a “pasta salad”? Three? Is a crust still a crust if it’s got a hot dog in it? Pizzy Hizzy have just released a new hot dog crust variation pizza where the crust is crimped with infacing mini-hot dogs or some shit. Make no bones about it…Pizza Hut are fat bastards. Eat all you can this, bacon bits your salad that. Pizza Hut is the only place in Europe where you can still contract potato salad.

Domino’s two for Tuesday it weren’t, doesn’t have to be these days, they pump out so many voucher codes that it renders days and time meaningless. Me and lady legs opted for the spend £400 and get it for £200 cash back guarantee. This enabled us to purchase two large pizza pies and a portion of seven hot wings. Ain’t be hating on us, we stretched the slices to three days of eat-play; a new PB. The hot dog crust surgery adds an extra £2 on your pizza, we optimised this extra on just one of our pizzas. The thinking being that we had a traditional option to fall back on should it all end in tears. It’s not even bad value when you consider the inner tube style length of hot dog you’re getting. It does max the price of large pizza out to a whopping £18.99 mind. Fist full of vouchers tho kid.

There’s something about the Domino’s box, that famous design. Domino’s the pizza brand is now more famous than dominoes the ancient game, how have they done that? Yeah it’s pleasing, that red and blue. It’s like the apple mac of pizzas, it costs more than other pizzas but you need it for work…or something. I read in the paper some interview with a design duo who were asked what their favourite piece of graphic design was and they said it was the Jif lemon (lol). Mine is the pot noodle. No, snot really. Maybe it’s Domino’s pizza box? Nah, snot. But it’s good right? It’s classic. Ok, shut up, the pizzas are here.

One of the pizzas we ordered had the legend “AS SEEN ON THIS MORNING” emblazoned next to it on the menu. It seems a strange thing to shout about. You don’t think of monster brands like Domino’s needing reassurance from pithy breakfast TV. Check this out though, it’s pretty much Domino’s that talks about Domino’s. It doesn’t really get covered from other angles. It’s Domino’s that texts me every day, it’s Domino’s that blanket bombs my inbox. I’ve heard friends talking about Dom’s (well, maybe once) but no one has ever talked about it on the main stage…not even at Glasto! Bit weird still that they’re flexing “This Morning” credentials, what year is it? Who’s the president?  It worked to be fair. I’ll be damned if I know what the hell they chatted about this pizza because it’s bland as. It’s chicken and peppers with “Chimmachurra” (sp?) sauce. Sounds exciting, tastes like huh? Total dead air. I couldn’t even pick out the sauce, maybs they forgot to put it on. Still good though with all the cheese and bread and that. No hot dogs in the crust on this one. Ok, next!

I got a half and half; half New Yorker (my fave Domino, look it up), half ham and pineapple. So rare right now. Get back on the ham and pineapple mule, it’s ready to kick! Hot dog surrounds the slices like an inverse meaty moat. You don’t see it on the surface but occasionally it bobs up from beneath its crust casing, you cannae tie ol’ Nessie down. I should add that there are two options for hot dog customisation, with or without French’s mustard. No contest! It changes your whole pizza perspective having a hot one in the crust. Usually when you’re approaching the crust you’re anticipating some rest bite, a pit stop, a virgin shore to gather your thoughts. Having a hot dog in there changes everything. I found myself almost dreading reaching the crust. It’s almost like the body of the pizza becomes the crust and the crust becomes the main event. Wild. The hot dog is as you’d expect; not quite the pork content of say your hertz vacuum packed dogs but a cut above your tinned franks. At first I thought I wasn’t enjoying it, too much action going on. I missed the calm of your trad crust, I missed the simple old timey fun of dipping said crust in Domino’s dip selection. You can still do that of course, Lady Legend got some ketchup involved for a classic condiment duo with the pre-piped mustard. Clever Trevor. If you like hot dogs then you’re in for a good time but if you don’t believe in stuffed crusts then you’re unlikely to be converted.

Where do crust stuffers progress from here? They’ve hit a hot dog wall. It’s perfect because they slot in fairly organically but there has to be progression. Domino’s won’t stop at hot dogs. The next logical step, for my money, is probably something inedible like kiddies toys. Like a happy meal times ten; a toy in the crust of each slice! Imagine the look on their little faces. It’s either gonna be a Kinder style surprise or it could be something like vouchers in the crust, folded up fivers, maybe the promise of a golden ticket. Or it could go the “randoms” route, just odds and ends stuffed in…short lengths of telephone wire, payslips, ballet shoes, USB sticks etc. The crust would be so teaming with surprises that it would eclipse the inner pizza. It almost wouldn’t involve any eating, the edible surface would be in minority compared to the jumble sale bursting out of the crust. The edible frills would be tossed in the bin as superfluous. Crazy. I feel like it’s already happening. Is it? Did I?

Is the hot dog continuous? I can’t be sure. It seemed like it was a 360 wheel. I didn’t come across any end pieces. How do they get it in there? If the next step is going to be edible then I reckon it’s gonna be baked beans. Hear me out. It’s going to be an all-day breakfast pizza with beans in the crust. Put a bet on it. I’ll put my hat on it. You can put your house on it. I’d never usually get a stuffed crust but this hot dog affair has made me question everything I once knew. Probs won’t get it again even, I think I’ve officially retired from Domino’s now. If you’ve been thinking about it then you will have to do it. You’ve got a choice but you don’t really. You almost entirely don’t have to because you can fully imagine it. It is what it is but you have to be there at least once, just to say you’ve done it.

Jus do it. Oh hells syeah!

HYPER WAFERThink I’ve gone off choc, man. I go through phases of late, sometimes I’m mad on it, at the minute I’m mad off it. It’s the breakfast of kings, you simply cannot deny a stray revel to start the day. (Your babylons look less big than they do on the telly but) I still definitely would. After a bit of a drought I got back in to it about three weeks ago, Lady Legend put a family size £1 special dairy milk in the shopping trolley. I say trolley but it was more of a basket. I say basket but it was more an embrace of beer cans. We’d eaten out and the Lady wanted a slab for pudding. It takes something as pure and simple as a dairy milk to get my cacoa nibs tingling again. What could be more honest, more true? I prefer it to any Green and Blacks or extra finest refined slablature. I popped a couple of chunks under my tongue come morning and I was set for the day. It set me off on a bit of a choccy kick. I followed it up in the coming days with a couple of key purchases in the shape of  ”Milka with Daim” bar and the “KitKat chunky choc fudge”. Despite general malaise about the enforced annual KitKat public vote, my imagination was half-speared by the promise of a fudge-centric newcomer. The long extinct “Fuse” bar is famously my favourite choclit bar of all time; you might have seen me at Glasto dressed as a banana waving a banner for it. Phwoar man, Fuse had it all. Well it had fudge, chocolate and I can’t really remember what else…some kind of crispy perhaps, possibly a peanut? Still, like all the greats, Fuse died aged 27 after burning it too bright at both ends. The Tupac hologram technology has given hope that it may yet grace the world’s stage once more but it’ll take a few more strategically placed bananas at Glastonbury to bring it back for an encore. The KitKat choc fudge definitely ain’t got the chops of it’s fudgey forefather that’s for certain. I find the format of the “chunky” so stale, it’s like that car that had the “I see you baby, shaking that ass” chiseled back-end on it. It’s a chunk, a concrete block. While everyone else was beveling edges, KitKat was packing on mass and going straight edge. I’m a fan of the original four-finger KitKat, something about the pencil thin girders pleases. The chunky though, it’s too blocktacular. As a feat of engineering, yeah, it holds up. One could imagine tens of ‘kats unwrapped, stacked up high like gold bars behind reinforced perspex  in some kind of hardware museum with a builder looking on saying “decent bit of kit that”. KitThat. Maybe that’s why it’s called KITkat because it’s a serious bit of kit. Shoulda been called KitBit. You can snap the original two or four-finger like you might snap a frail bone but it’s like breaking granite with the chunky. You can snap it (even you spaghetti arms) but the spectacle reads as a display of strength, any audience would expect you to follow up with putting your fist through a phonebook. It’s not a tidy snap neither like with the aforementioned original KitKats, it’s a dusty detritus trail of broken biscuits that belies the laser-cut precision of the angled bodywork. Maybe it doesn’t, maybe for such a chassis you’d expect a mushroom cloud of fiberglass mist and a few screws flying about the shop. Maybe you don’t even break bread and Jesus it up at your house, maybe you take it to the bathroom and lock the door. I ain’t judging a book merely by its binding, point is, it’s probs the best of the KitKat latest offerings and maybe it did demand repeat purchases but it simply wasn’t a Fuse. I’m a chocolate bar widower, you’ll never fill my gaping hole.Speaking of gaping holes, my letterbox swung wide last week to allow a tidy parcel to pass through. Turns out the postman really does deliver. My newly adopted bundle was addressed to “Food Legend”, immediately my eyes flashed the food equivalent of dollar signs and my mouth formed the word “kerching”. Readers may be shocked to learn that I don’t just sit in my ivory tower waiting for food morsels to pour through my letter flap, this is a world first. I say first, I’ve had one surprise delivery before, lest we forget the cock ‘n’ bull enchiladas story of yore. But this is the first by royal mail, the first  to be signed, sealed and delivered. I tear off the brown parcel paper like a young scamp might fudge emphatically at Christmas wrapping. It’s long but light, wide and stocky. It’s a bit like a brick but not heavy and a bit flat. It’s more an egg box than an Xbox. It feels like a chocolate bar but not one that I know…this is something different…something new. My! It…it’s a wafer bar, my very own chocolate wafer bar! The packaging reads,HYPERwafer for big peopleLol. It was made by the good people at “Prestige” too so you know it’s good. “For big people”, that’s reassuring to know that kind of tagline still exists. If it ever did in the first place. SAUSAGES : for fat people. Imagine that. It’d never fly, fat people would be up in arms about it. Bingo wings would be flapping like gizzards at a loose goose convention. I’m not sure what exactly the problem would be. My people don’t like the use of the word fat but we do like sausages, we’re angry but we can’t remember why. Nom.  A wafer for big people is good, you should get Hyper bars ready installed in the pockets of trousers at Tall Man shops. Suits you sir. You’re really big but you favour unfulfilling light snacks…snacks that are almost lighter than air. Where do you go for that? You go to Prestige and pick up a Hyper bar that’s what. If the KitKat is the steel girder of the wafer world then the Hyper is almost like some ancient Egyptian mud raft that they used to carry brick-shaped stones on. Imagine a brown crash mat or a layer of lawn with the grass plucked out. We’ve all seen the precision underbelly of a mars bar, that zigzagged pattern more intricate than the finest of rice grain art. Well, picture the opposite of that,  the blank canvas that a chocolatier begins with. It’s vaguely translucent, you can make out the shadow of the waver beneath, there’s little coating on the core. I break the bar, as I like to do, and it snaps precisely, there’s a little spray but nothing bad. I dig in. It…it’s a wafer bar. It’s good fun, what wafer isn’t? Pink wafers? Life and soul. I imagine wafer experts talk about the thrill of the bite, the filo-like layering of the structure or the placement of the air-holes. I just can’t get deep on the Hyper. It was a wafer, a bit like a wafer you might find in a biscuit barrel at Rocky Robin’s house. The consistency and flavour was halfway between polystyrene and styrofoam. It was big but I raced through it, it was moreish because I was trying to find more of an angle on it. Prestige, unfortunately, peaked at the packaging. They spent all their budget on hiring the finest graphic designer and copywriter in the land and forgot to get the tasty boys in. Credit to the Hyper lads, they know how to shock and awe from the shelves, they know how to spark a debate among “big people” as to whether they’re offended or not. We’ve not seen anything this big-centric on the snack scene in a while and to be fair, I don’t know if we will again. The world wasn’t ready for the light/big concept. It’s bigger than a bar but it’s a diet bar because it’s light like a wafer and that’s why it’s for big people? I’m always thinking fat when I think big but it’s likely it’s big as in tall. So that’s why Hyper is for big people because tall people need bigger chocolate bars because their hands/mouths/hearts are bigger? For sure we’ll never know Prestige’s true intention, the sands of time fall through our fingers clutching at straws. What is big? What is small? One man’s big is another man’s small. Biggie Smalls is all things to all men? Heather Smalls is just a letter change from Heather Smells, don’t pull that face because the wind might change, whispers on the wind, they brought back the Wispa didn’t they? Not sure, can’t remember now, keep nodding in and out. I took too big a dose, or too small, I don’t recall. I haven’t stood up in so long, I can’t remember if I’m tall.I’d suggest to pick up a Hyper and solve the riddle yourself but I don’t know where the hell you’d find one. When you’re big enough it comes to you I guess. P.S. Big thanks anonymous even though I know who you are, the workmanship of your brown paper wrap gave you away as did the choice of parcel tape. Not to mention your fondness for the Polski Sklep…

HYPER WAFER

Think I’ve gone off choc, man. I go through phases of late, sometimes I’m mad on it, at the minute I’m mad off it. It’s the breakfast of kings, you simply cannot deny a stray revel to start the day. (Your babylons look less big than they do on the telly but) I still definitely would. After a bit of a drought I got back in to it about three weeks ago, Lady Legend put a family size £1 special dairy milk in the shopping trolley. I say trolley but it was more of a basket. I say basket but it was more an embrace of beer cans. We’d eaten out and the Lady wanted a slab for pudding. It takes something as pure and simple as a dairy milk to get my cacoa nibs tingling again. What could be more honest, more true? I prefer it to any Green and Blacks or extra finest refined slablature. I popped a couple of chunks under my tongue come morning and I was set for the day. It set me off on a bit of a choccy kick. I followed it up in the coming days with a couple of key purchases in the shape of  ”Milka with Daim” bar and the “KitKat chunky choc fudge”. Despite general malaise about the enforced annual KitKat public vote, my imagination was half-speared by the promise of a fudge-centric newcomer. The long extinct “Fuse” bar is famously my favourite choclit bar of all time; you might have seen me at Glasto dressed as a banana waving a banner for it. Phwoar man, Fuse had it all. Well it had fudge, chocolate and I can’t really remember what else…some kind of crispy perhaps, possibly a peanut? Still, like all the greats, Fuse died aged 27 after burning it too bright at both ends. The Tupac hologram technology has given hope that it may yet grace the world’s stage once more but it’ll take a few more strategically placed bananas at Glastonbury to bring it back for an encore. The KitKat choc fudge definitely ain’t got the chops of it’s fudgey forefather that’s for certain. I find the format of the “chunky” so stale, it’s like that car that had the “I see you baby, shaking that ass” chiseled back-end on it. It’s a chunk, a concrete block. While everyone else was beveling edges, KitKat was packing on mass and going straight edge. I’m a fan of the original four-finger KitKat, something about the pencil thin girders pleases. The chunky though, it’s too blocktacular. As a feat of engineering, yeah, it holds up. One could imagine tens of ‘kats unwrapped, stacked up high like gold bars behind reinforced perspex  in some kind of hardware museum with a builder looking on saying “decent bit of kit that”. KitThat. Maybe that’s why it’s called KITkat because it’s a serious bit of kit. Shoulda been called KitBit. You can snap the original two or four-finger like you might snap a frail bone but it’s like breaking granite with the chunky. You can snap it (even you spaghetti arms) but the spectacle reads as a display of strength, any audience would expect you to follow up with putting your fist through a phonebook. It’s not a tidy snap neither like with the aforementioned original KitKats, it’s a dusty detritus trail of broken biscuits that belies the laser-cut precision of the angled bodywork. Maybe it doesn’t, maybe for such a chassis you’d expect a mushroom cloud of fiberglass mist and a few screws flying about the shop. Maybe you don’t even break bread and Jesus it up at your house, maybe you take it to the bathroom and lock the door. I ain’t judging a book merely by its binding, point is, it’s probs the best of the KitKat latest offerings and maybe it did demand repeat purchases but it simply wasn’t a Fuse. I’m a chocolate bar widower, you’ll never fill my gaping hole.

Speaking of gaping holes, my letterbox swung wide last week to allow a tidy parcel to pass through. Turns out the postman really does deliver. My newly adopted bundle was addressed to “Food Legend”, immediately my eyes flashed the food equivalent of dollar signs and my mouth formed the word “kerching”. Readers may be shocked to learn that I don’t just sit in my ivory tower waiting for food morsels to pour through my letter flap, this is a world first. I say first, I’ve had one surprise delivery before, lest we forget the cock ‘n’ bull enchiladas story of yore. But this is the first by royal mail, the first  to be signed, sealed and delivered. I tear off the brown parcel paper like a young scamp might fudge emphatically at Christmas wrapping. It’s long but light, wide and stocky. It’s a bit like a brick but not heavy and a bit flat. It’s more an egg box than an Xbox. It feels like a chocolate bar but not one that I know…this is something different…something new. My! It…it’s a wafer bar, my very own chocolate wafer bar! The packaging reads,

HYPER
wafer for big people

Lol. It was made by the good people at “Prestige” too so you know it’s good. “For big people”, that’s reassuring to know that kind of tagline still exists. If it ever did in the first place. SAUSAGES : for fat people. Imagine that. It’d never fly, fat people would be up in arms about it. Bingo wings would be flapping like gizzards at a loose goose convention. I’m not sure what exactly the problem would be. My people don’t like the use of the word fat but we do like sausages, we’re angry but we can’t remember why. Nom.  A wafer for big people is good, you should get Hyper bars ready installed in the pockets of trousers at Tall Man shops. Suits you sir. You’re really big but you favour unfulfilling light snacks…snacks that are almost lighter than air. Where do you go for that? You go to Prestige and pick up a Hyper bar that’s what. If the KitKat is the steel girder of the wafer world then the Hyper is almost like some ancient Egyptian mud raft that they used to carry brick-shaped stones on. Imagine a brown crash mat or a layer of lawn with the grass plucked out. We’ve all seen the precision underbelly of a mars bar, that zigzagged pattern more intricate than the finest of rice grain art. Well, picture the opposite of that,  the blank canvas that a chocolatier begins with. It’s vaguely translucent, you can make out the shadow of the waver beneath, there’s little coating on the core. I break the bar, as I like to do, and it snaps precisely, there’s a little spray but nothing bad. I dig in. It…it’s a wafer bar. It’s good fun, what wafer isn’t? Pink wafers? Life and soul. I imagine wafer experts talk about the thrill of the bite, the filo-like layering of the structure or the placement of the air-holes. I just can’t get deep on the Hyper. It was a wafer, a bit like a wafer you might find in a biscuit barrel at Rocky Robin’s house. The consistency and flavour was halfway between polystyrene and styrofoam. It was big but I raced through it, it was moreish because I was trying to find more of an angle on it. Prestige, unfortunately, peaked at the packaging. They spent all their budget on hiring the finest graphic designer and copywriter in the land and forgot to get the tasty boys in. Credit to the Hyper lads, they know how to shock and awe from the shelves, they know how to spark a debate among “big people” as to whether they’re offended or not. We’ve not seen anything this big-centric on the snack scene in a while and to be fair, I don’t know if we will again. The world wasn’t ready for the light/big concept. It’s bigger than a bar but it’s a diet bar because it’s light like a wafer and that’s why it’s for big people? I’m always thinking fat when I think big but it’s likely it’s big as in tall. So that’s why Hyper is for big people because tall people need bigger chocolate bars because their hands/mouths/hearts are bigger? For sure we’ll never know Prestige’s true intention, the sands of time fall through our fingers clutching at straws. What is big? What is small? One man’s big is another man’s small. Biggie Smalls is all things to all men? Heather Smalls is just a letter change from Heather Smells, don’t pull that face because the wind might change, whispers on the wind, they brought back the Wispa didn’t they? Not sure, can’t remember now, keep nodding in and out. I took too big a dose, or too small, I don’t recall. I haven’t stood up in so long, I can’t remember if I’m tall.

I’d suggest to pick up a Hyper and solve the riddle yourself but I don’t know where the hell you’d find one. When you’re big enough it comes to you I guess. 


P.S. Big thanks anonymous even though I know who you are, the workmanship of your brown paper wrap gave you away as did the choice of parcel tape. Not to mention your fondness for the Polski Sklep…

DOMINO’S LUNCHTIME MEAL DEAL I’ve often wondered who these guys carrying pizza boxes at 2pm are. Just getting the pizzas in for the office, a treat for the workers. Likewise I’ve often wondered who these sunshine revellers are who sit laughing and tilting in beer gardens of a late summer afternoon. Just having a few bevwahs, they let us out the office early because it was sunny. When I say I wonder, I mean I envy. Why am I always on the outside looking in? I see these pizza walkers while I’m non-pizza walking. I see these boisterous beer gardeners from the bus. Why always not me? What have I done not to deserve that? Hold the phone. It is me. I’m looking at myself now, not in the beer garden but look, there I am, toddling down the street with the world’s smallest pizza. Huzzah! There is a Domino’s on the walk to my local tesco of choice. For a year now I’ve scanned the offers in the window. Personal pizza this, medium carryout that. Enticing but no, I couldn’t. Could I? I did, finally. I’m on the inside, I’m doing it. One personal pizza please. I get to choose two toppings. I say pepperoni and then my mind goes blank. Shit. What’s another topping? I only learned pepperoni at school. I scan the room looking for answers. This has happened before, I was asked to describe myself in three words at a job interview before a panel of three interrogators. I forget the first two power words that tripped off my tongue…probably enthusiastic and something else untrue. As soon as the second word fell out of my gob I forgot all other words. I paused for a long time, months maybe. My palms ran a river, my brain put up the back in 5 minutes sign. And then suddenly I spoke, my mouth moved and out rolled “brave?”. Whoa, where did that come from? It definitely came out as a question. Brave? That’s a really weird thing to say I thought for the rest of the interview. I think they laughed. Did they? Did I? Don’t know, I got the job though bro! They called me Brave Dave forever more. Luckily I didn’t ask for brave on my pizza. I found a menu underneath my hand and scrolled through the pizza topping options, I pointed and clicked on jalapeños. Of course, what else. Drink? Coke obvs. That’s the deal, a personal pizza (I don’t wanna talk about it, it’s too personal) and a can for £2.99. So far, so fantastic transacted. But then the pizza man threw me a curveball. “Do you have a name?”. Whoa, what? I actually said what. Maybe more like w-w-what? Oh a name, yes, I do. Fast forward twenty seconds and there’s my name in lights on an upcoming pizzas feature on the Domino’s channel above my head. Coming soon! In ten minutes! Come on down Brave Dave, your number is up. Pizza Hut purists or Papa John preachers are probs wondering what the donkey’s dinner jacket a “personal pizza” is. Look, I told you, I don’t wanna talk about it. Fine, if you must know it’s a 7 inch. Not the kind you put on your record player though. That would be a pretty cool visual mind, someone has to have done that right? Whoa. I just got a text from Domino’s this very second. They text me, it’s weird, they seem to always know when I’m at my lowest ebb. I’m saying this pizza was a 7”, it may have been smaller, I forgot to measure it pre-consumption. I’ve got a thing about carrying really small pizza boxes, namely it makes me feel like a bit of a nork. It’s like carrying a teacup and saucer down the street. You’ve got to keep it horizontal, I’ve thrown one in my bag before and had to perform topping grafts when I got home due to monumental cheese drift. It’s just embarrassing carrying a postage stamp sized cardboard box like the Quince of Soho but sometimes you have to swallow your pride. If you’ve had Domino’s before you’ll know the story. Cheese meets savoury donut like crust and base. Sometimes you’re not sure if you enjoy it. Especially if you’re paying top dollar and your 12” pizza costs considerably more than a 12” album. This though, the personal, holds little regret. Sure I could’ve bought a 7” single for the same price as my 7” personal but I would have had to turn it over after each song. I’d say you could eat this pizza within a song so I’m not sure whether the hard or soft option offers better longevity. I mean, I’m not a DJ so either way, both options are deeply personal. 7” records are probably better because you can store them vertically and the songs don’t fall off. It would have to be a pretty meaty song to fill a hunger hole mind! I digress. The pizza is divided in to quadrants, think of the more famous Domino’s garlic bread and you’re basically looking at the blueprint. Each quarter has one pepperoni (pepperone?) on it. Bit stingey that Domino’s mate. The jalapeños are freely scattered to make up for it. The crust has the blisters and bruising typical of the pizza oven school. It’s a fun ride. The heat from the jalapeños soured it a bit, they made my coke taste weird. Sometimes I get scared that if a pizza doesn’t have a spice then it’s destined to be a dullard. With Domino’s I think a spiceless slice would be screaming savoury donut that little bit louder. The crust on this is crisped but soft, like a crispy glaze. A hard one to recreate at home. So it’s fun because it’s small but it’s not as fun as a bigger pizza because bigger is better. But you don’t want a big fatty for lunch because you’ll be a write off for the rest of the day. So in lunch terms, I’d say this is the most efficient fun you can have. Efficient fun? I’ll grab a “pizza” that action!

DOMINO’S LUNCHTIME MEAL DEAL

I’ve often wondered who these guys carrying pizza boxes at 2pm are. Just getting the pizzas in for the office, a treat for the workers. Likewise I’ve often wondered who these sunshine revellers are who sit laughing and tilting in beer gardens of a late summer afternoon. Just having a few bevwahs, they let us out the office early because it was sunny. When I say I wonder, I mean I envy. Why am I always on the outside looking in? I see these pizza walkers while I’m non-pizza walking. I see these boisterous beer gardeners from the bus. Why always not me? What have I done not to deserve that? Hold the phone. It is me. I’m looking at myself now, not in the beer garden but look, there I am, toddling down the street with the world’s smallest pizza. Huzzah!

There is a Domino’s on the walk to my local tesco of choice. For a year now I’ve scanned the offers in the window. Personal pizza this, medium carryout that. Enticing but no, I couldn’t. Could I? I did, finally. I’m on the inside, I’m doing it. One personal pizza please. I get to choose two toppings. I say pepperoni and then my mind goes blank. Shit. What’s another topping? I only learned pepperoni at school. I scan the room looking for answers. This has happened before, I was asked to describe myself in three words at a job interview before a panel of three interrogators. I forget the first two power words that tripped off my tongue…probably enthusiastic and something else untrue. As soon as the second word fell out of my gob I forgot all other words. I paused for a long time, months maybe. My palms ran a river, my brain put up the back in 5 minutes sign. And then suddenly I spoke, my mouth moved and out rolled “brave?”. Whoa, where did that come from? It definitely came out as a question. Brave? That’s a really weird thing to say I thought for the rest of the interview. I think they laughed. Did they? Did I? Don’t know, I got the job though bro! They called me Brave Dave forever more. Luckily I didn’t ask for brave on my pizza. I found a menu underneath my hand and scrolled through the pizza topping options, I pointed and clicked on jalapeños. Of course, what else. Drink? Coke obvs. That’s the deal, a personal pizza (I don’t wanna talk about it, it’s too personal) and a can for £2.99. So far, so fantastic transacted. But then the pizza man threw me a curveball. “Do you have a name?”. Whoa, what? I actually said what. Maybe more like w-w-what? Oh a name, yes, I do. Fast forward twenty seconds and there’s my name in lights on an upcoming pizzas feature on the Domino’s channel above my head. Coming soon! In ten minutes! Come on down Brave Dave, your number is up.

Pizza Hut purists or Papa John preachers are probs wondering what the donkey’s dinner jacket a “personal pizza” is. Look, I told you, I don’t wanna talk about it. Fine, if you must know it’s a 7 inch. Not the kind you put on your record player though. That would be a pretty cool visual mind, someone has to have done that right? Whoa. I just got a text from Domino’s this very second. They text me, it’s weird, they seem to always know when I’m at my lowest ebb. I’m saying this pizza was a 7”, it may have been smaller, I forgot to measure it pre-consumption. I’ve got a thing about carrying really small pizza boxes, namely it makes me feel like a bit of a nork. It’s like carrying a teacup and saucer down the street. You’ve got to keep it horizontal, I’ve thrown one in my bag before and had to perform topping grafts when I got home due to monumental cheese drift. It’s just embarrassing carrying a postage stamp sized cardboard box like the Quince of Soho but sometimes you have to swallow your pride.

If you’ve had Domino’s before you’ll know the story. Cheese meets savoury donut like crust and base. Sometimes you’re not sure if you enjoy it. Especially if you’re paying top dollar and your 12” pizza costs considerably more than a 12” album. This though, the personal, holds little regret. Sure I could’ve bought a 7” single for the same price as my 7” personal but I would have had to turn it over after each song. I’d say you could eat this pizza within a song so I’m not sure whether the hard or soft option offers better longevity. I mean, I’m not a DJ so either way, both options are deeply personal. 7” records are probably better because you can store them vertically and the songs don’t fall off. It would have to be a pretty meaty song to fill a hunger hole mind! I digress. The pizza is divided in to quadrants, think of the more famous Domino’s garlic bread and you’re basically looking at the blueprint. Each quarter has one pepperoni (pepperone?) on it. Bit stingey that Domino’s mate. The jalapeños are freely scattered to make up for it. The crust has the blisters and bruising typical of the pizza oven school. It’s a fun ride. The heat from the jalapeños soured it a bit, they made my coke taste weird. Sometimes I get scared that if a pizza doesn’t have a spice then it’s destined to be a dullard. With Domino’s I think a spiceless slice would be screaming savoury donut that little bit louder. The crust on this is crisped but soft, like a crispy glaze. A hard one to recreate at home. So it’s fun because it’s small but it’s not as fun as a bigger pizza because bigger is better. But you don’t want a big fatty for lunch because you’ll be a write off for the rest of the day. So in lunch terms, I’d say this is the most efficient fun you can have.

Efficient fun? I’ll grab a “pizza” that action!

YORKIE MAN SIZE BUTTONS Kiss my chudds yeah, just keep walking and kiss my chudds. Chuddies. I was going to review some sandwiches from my local experimental(ish) sandwich house but when I got there it was gone 2pm and there was only pre-made sangers available. I still bought the company of course but it just wasn’t the same hype as the specials board. I thought they were just ok, one was called “british bulldog” (miss him) and the other “chicken tikka with cheese”. Lady legend however was appalled. She called the sandwiches “dirty fat man” and “embarrassing fat bodies”. She then went on to slam the chicken tikka with cheese as “spicy cat food” and the BB (full Englishish with plantain btw) as “a baguette full of baby sick”. I was knocked off my box, I really thought they were just ok. I kinda smooshed (not in a jersey shore way bro) the sandwiches in transit. See I put them in my backpack en route to an ol’ milk and sponges run to tesco express. I made the age old mistake of piling my purchases in to said bag without first casing the landing pad. It dawned straight away what I’d done, I’d pestal and mortalled my big fat milk (a 2 litretron) in to my pre-made sandwiches. Smoosh! Nice one, Dad. One had to perform reconstructive surgery at the kitchen table on my return. Lady Legs doesn’t know, or least she didn’t. The pureed baby food one (british bulldog) was essentially walking on both sides of the street if youknowwhatimsayin. It was east and west. Moral of the story: don’t get cocky with your own bag at the self service, look then load. Where does YORKIE Big buttons come in to this you say? They was in said bag! Dun dun derrrr. What a twist. I’d sworn I wouldnee review the olde choccy feed bag market again, saturated as it is. Fatigued I was of the derivative range. They’re almost all good, what else is to be said? A new one comes out and you’re more “oh” than “oooooh”, sad times. I wasn’t even going to buy these big old buttons. They were an instinct purchase in the self-serve queue, I saw them and I almost had to have them. I think my hand wavered mid-stretch, they were unpriced and seemingly dumped. My kinda sweet. In truth, they had me at the word “giant”. Even though the word giant isn’t on there, it was presumably outlawed by Cadbury’s own “giant buttons”. Yorkie, still flying the flag for man-sized this and not for girls that. For shame. Yeah I used to buy your bars at school because you seemed so much bigger than the other chocs. Maybe I even did impressions of “it’s not for girls” from the adverts (same voiceover guy as wicks btw). But come on, it’s 2010 for fun’s sake, it’s you, Boost NRG drink and McCoy’s crisps in a sinking ship. It’s top gear on toast. You’re going down and you’re all kissing each other because you’ve been secretly gay all these years and THAT’S why you laid on so thick with the “man crisps”, the “not for girls” and the “do the dirty on your girlfriend with her mum and then don’t wash the dishes”. I don’t remember if it was even Boost that had a disgraceful ad campaign a year or so ago, I tried googlin it but I got bored. You know what I maybe mean though aiiiii? It was definitely an energy drink any road. Can I sub in pepperami instead? Or Rustlers? Truth said, I feel almost sorry for Yorkie. It’s an outmoded dinosaur, the Jeremy Clarkson of confectionary. It sits there, all chunky and buff wolf whistling all the girls who walk past, raising its metaphorical handbag at all the lads who pick up a kinder bueno instead. Think of the things Yorkie would do to a bueno, it would cave its face in through confusion and fear. The Yorkie logo is sad too, inspired as it is by the tonka truck (is it tonka? Truck? Is that a thing? Sounds about right) construction chic, Kickers jumpers and Timberland boots of yesteryear. Go home mate, you’ve had enough. It was confused when east 17 came out, it was like eh? Is this ok? They seem like lads but what’s this tunes? That’s not for lads. Lads that don’t make lads? Are you ladding me off? Can I get more lad in the monitor? Wait a minute, Brian ate HOW MANY baked potatoes? Then he ran HIMSELF over in his OWN car!? That’s ladlore legend, you are lads after all. ‘Ere over ‘ere lads, I got this five-chunk that makes dairy milk look like a fucking bell end. I almost cry when I see a Yorkie easter egg in the shop. It has replaced Snickers as the nations least eligible easter egg. I don’t even think builders buy Yorkie bars any more. Lady Legend reckons she offered a Yorkie to a tramp when she was a kid and he said “no”. Yorkie, you went all out, you nailed your colours to the mast. You didn’t predict the metrosexual, you didn’t see political correctness coming over the hill. You did, however, just release some cracking man-sized buttons! Buttons…buttens… butt ons. The word can revert you to a baby by dwelling on it for too long. Stick “man size” in front of it and you’re fogging my frontal lobe. That’s like STRONG STRONG soft. What the jeeps is a man sized button? When I think of buttons I think of leprechauns in little waistcoats, pinocchio or mickey mouse’s shorts (Yorkie is confused and getting ready to bash). I think of whimsy, fa la la’ing. I don’t think of men, big boring bastard men. That’s just my word break down though cousin, the buttons in this case don’t refer to the kind found in your mother’s (or YOUR, eat that Yorkie!) sewing box, of course not, the buttons they is talking are the choccy kind! Duh! Yorkie are piddling on Cadbury’s doormat AGAIN with these, they heard about Cadders’ “giant” attempts and sniggered, “baby bollocks” they sniped. Giant buttons came out yonks ago, five years at least, what took Yorkie so long to retort? They’ve been in the man lab that’s what, they’ve been clay pigeon shooting with these buttons. They’ve been cracking them like what those Greeks crack plates. It’s not quite science cos that’s soft, it’s graft. If you could bottle it, the sweat off Yorkie’s bollocks, then it’d be, and I think there’s only one word for it, epic. Or minging. You pick. Forget the history, the forging in the steel mills, the turning of cars in to cubes, let’s talk about these buttons. First off, I am a BIG (man sized) fan of actual size photographs on packaging. I’m a fan of misleading packaging too, don’t get me wrong. But yeah that button on the cover is actual sized, I placed one on it to see. The buttons are actually big. They’re so big that it’s fun. It’s like eating a dinner plate. I talked about the future of crisps being one giant crisp in a packet a few episodes back, Yorkie is closing in on it here from a sweets perspective. Each button is a meal. I just thought of something I didn’t do and I want to get out of bed and kick myself for it. I didn’t double up the buttons, I didn’t “burger bun” it. What the hell was I thinking? I can only think that the buttons are such a size that it wouldn’t occur to stack on up. Either that or I’ve gone soft. Maybe I was being precious, savouring each massive morsel on a countdown to completion. I do that you know. I used to do it with single cheese slices. I’d take one and fold it infinitely, making a tower of a thousand tiny squares. I’d then peel off each mini slice and savour it like a gilded truffle. I’d make a cheese slice last five hours. Give a man a fishing rod and he’ll feed his family forever but give a chubby lad a cheese slice and he’ll take the piss. We didn’t have xbox in my day bruv. So yeah, Yorkie buttons are actually mint. The over sizing is really on point and the choc itself is on a par with Dairy Milk (faint praise dab none). They’re better than buttons. There I said it. They’re bigger and better. Those man sized men at Yorkie towers have finally ironed their underpants and released something that lads, legs and lambs are proud to take home to their mums, dads, boyfs, girlfs, and who knows weird what else. And that you can quote me on.

YORKIE MAN SIZE BUTTONS

Kiss my chudds yeah, just keep walking and kiss my chudds. Chuddies. I was going to review some sandwiches from my local experimental(ish) sandwich house but when I got there it was gone 2pm and there was only pre-made sangers available. I still bought the company of course but it just wasn’t the same hype as the specials board. I thought they were just ok, one was called “british bulldog” (miss him) and the other “chicken tikka with cheese”. Lady legend however was appalled. She called the sandwiches “dirty fat man” and “embarrassing fat bodies”. She then went on to slam the chicken tikka with cheese as “spicy cat food” and the BB (full Englishish with plantain btw) as “a baguette full of baby sick”. I was knocked off my box, I really thought they were just ok. I kinda smooshed (not in a jersey shore way bro) the sandwiches in transit. See I put them in my backpack en route to an ol’ milk and sponges run to tesco express. I made the age old mistake of piling my purchases in to said bag without first casing the landing pad. It dawned straight away what I’d done, I’d pestal and mortalled my big fat milk (a 2 litretron) in to my pre-made sandwiches. Smoosh! Nice one, Dad. One had to perform reconstructive surgery at the kitchen table on my return. Lady Legs doesn’t know, or least she didn’t. The pureed baby food one (british bulldog) was essentially walking on both sides of the street if youknowwhatimsayin. It was east and west. Moral of the story: don’t get cocky with your own bag at the self service, look then load. Where does YORKIE Big buttons come in to this you say? They was in said bag! Dun dun derrrr. What a twist.

I’d sworn I wouldnee review the olde choccy feed bag market again, saturated as it is. Fatigued I was of the derivative range. They’re almost all good, what else is to be said? A new one comes out and you’re more “oh” than “oooooh”, sad times. I wasn’t even going to buy these big old buttons. They were an instinct purchase in the self-serve queue, I saw them and I almost had to have them. I think my hand wavered mid-stretch, they were unpriced and seemingly dumped. My kinda sweet. In truth, they had me at the word “giant”. Even though the word giant isn’t on there, it was presumably outlawed by Cadbury’s own “giant buttons”. Yorkie, still flying the flag for man-sized this and not for girls that. For shame. Yeah I used to buy your bars at school because you seemed so much bigger than the other chocs. Maybe I even did impressions of “it’s not for girls” from the adverts (same voiceover guy as wicks btw). But come on, it’s 2010 for fun’s sake, it’s you, Boost NRG drink and McCoy’s crisps in a sinking ship. It’s top gear on toast. You’re going down and you’re all kissing each other because you’ve been secretly gay all these years and THAT’S why you laid on so thick with the “man crisps”, the “not for girls” and the “do the dirty on your girlfriend with her mum and then don’t wash the dishes”. I don’t remember if it was even Boost that had a disgraceful ad campaign a year or so ago, I tried googlin it but I got bored. You know what I maybe mean though aiiiii? It was definitely an energy drink any road. Can I sub in pepperami instead? Or Rustlers? Truth said, I feel almost sorry for Yorkie. It’s an outmoded dinosaur, the Jeremy Clarkson of confectionary. It sits there, all chunky and buff wolf whistling all the girls who walk past, raising its metaphorical handbag at all the lads who pick up a kinder bueno instead. Think of the things Yorkie would do to a bueno, it would cave its face in through confusion and fear. The Yorkie logo is sad too, inspired as it is by the tonka truck (is it tonka? Truck? Is that a thing? Sounds about right) construction chic, Kickers jumpers and Timberland boots of yesteryear. Go home mate, you’ve had enough. It was confused when east 17 came out, it was like eh? Is this ok? They seem like lads but what’s this tunes? That’s not for lads. Lads that don’t make lads? Are you ladding me off? Can I get more lad in the monitor? Wait a minute, Brian ate HOW MANY baked potatoes? Then he ran HIMSELF over in his OWN car!? That’s ladlore legend, you are lads after all. ‘Ere over ‘ere lads, I got this five-chunk that makes dairy milk look like a fucking bell end. I almost cry when I see a Yorkie easter egg in the shop. It has replaced Snickers as the nations least eligible easter egg. I don’t even think builders buy Yorkie bars any more. Lady Legend reckons she offered a Yorkie to a tramp when she was a kid and he said “no”. Yorkie, you went all out, you nailed your colours to the mast. You didn’t predict the metrosexual, you didn’t see political correctness coming over the hill. You did, however, just release some cracking man-sized buttons!

Buttons…buttens… butt ons. The word can revert you to a baby by dwelling on it for too long. Stick “man size” in front of it and you’re fogging my frontal lobe. That’s like STRONG STRONG soft. What the jeeps is a man sized button? When I think of buttons I think of leprechauns in little waistcoats, pinocchio or mickey mouse’s shorts (Yorkie is confused and getting ready to bash). I think of whimsy, fa la la’ing. I don’t think of men, big boring bastard men. That’s just my word break down though cousin, the buttons in this case don’t refer to the kind found in your mother’s (or YOUR, eat that Yorkie!) sewing box, of course not, the buttons they is talking are the choccy kind! Duh! Yorkie are piddling on Cadbury’s doormat AGAIN with these, they heard about Cadders’ “giant” attempts and sniggered, “baby bollocks” they sniped. Giant buttons came out yonks ago, five years at least, what took Yorkie so long to retort? They’ve been in the man lab that’s what, they’ve been clay pigeon shooting with these buttons. They’ve been cracking them like what those Greeks crack plates. It’s not quite science cos that’s soft, it’s graft. If you could bottle it, the sweat off Yorkie’s bollocks, then it’d be, and I think there’s only one word for it, epic. Or minging. You pick. Forget the history, the forging in the steel mills, the turning of cars in to cubes, let’s talk about these buttons. First off, I am a BIG (man sized) fan of actual size photographs on packaging. I’m a fan of misleading packaging too, don’t get me wrong. But yeah that button on the cover is actual sized, I placed one on it to see. The buttons are actually big. They’re so big that it’s fun. It’s like eating a dinner plate. I talked about the future of crisps being one giant crisp in a packet a few episodes back, Yorkie is closing in on it here from a sweets perspective. Each button is a meal. I just thought of something I didn’t do and I want to get out of bed and kick myself for it. I didn’t double up the buttons, I didn’t “burger bun” it. What the hell was I thinking? I can only think that the buttons are such a size that it wouldn’t occur to stack on up. Either that or I’ve gone soft. Maybe I was being precious, savouring each massive morsel on a countdown to completion. I do that you know. I used to do it with single cheese slices. I’d take one and fold it infinitely, making a tower of a thousand tiny squares. I’d then peel off each mini slice and savour it like a gilded truffle. I’d make a cheese slice last five hours. Give a man a fishing rod and he’ll feed his family forever but give a chubby lad a cheese slice and he’ll take the piss. We didn’t have xbox in my day bruv.

So yeah, Yorkie buttons are actually mint. The over sizing is really on point and the choc itself is on a par with Dairy Milk (faint praise dab none). They’re better than buttons. There I said it. They’re bigger and better. Those man sized men at Yorkie towers have finally ironed their underpants and released something that lads, legs and lambs are proud to take home to their mums, dads, boyfs, girlfs, and who knows weird what else. And that you can quote me on.

A HISTORY OF JAMIE OLIVERJamie Oliver, if you don’t know him, is a celebrity chef. He first came out in 1991 with his cooking documentary, The Naked Chef. If you haven’t seen it, it was really good. He basically turned cooking on it’s head or something like it’s arse. Firstly, he was a young man. He wasn’t one of these older alcoholic cooking men who drive around Spain and throw their dog in the sea. Oliver was a young pup, a cheeky chappy, still wet behind his ears. Basically, he shouldn’t have been allowed in front of the camera. Hard to believe all these years later that when our Jamie first burst on our screens he was just eight years old! Really weird stuff. Anyway, it didn’t stop there. He’s been everywhere since, he’s the child star that kept on giving. He literally turned cooking on it’s arse. Imagine a slam dunk in basketball but the ball is an arse and the net is reality. He was that weird. Still is to be fair, every day since his debut he’s got weirder. Not surprising when he’s been on tv every day since he was eight! Last series he made was filmed entirely with Oliver lying down in his garden, completely rat faced. He only cooked what he could reach; it involved a lot of snails, grass and the occasional football when it came over the fence. Jamie was drunker and more stoned than he’s ever been. The reveal of the series came in the final episode when we found out that Oliver wasn’t beached in his own garden, he’d got confused after too many beef burgers and taken bed in a neighbour’s garden. Jools, his gorgeous mate, found him next door but one a couple of weeks after his disappearance. As usual Jamie was able to cheek his way out of it by smoothing a knob of butter under Jools’ chicken skin, metaphorically speaking.Me and Lady Lambchops are a bit obsessorized with him at the moment. It’s not that lately it’s dawned that he’s a bit of a godlike g-unit, it’s more like we’ve been worshiping at the alter for quite some time. We’ve even got a fun nickname for him; Jamie Olive Oil. I’m sure you get the joke but we call him that because he absolutely belts on the olive oil. I’ve been charting his rise to current devilled loose bird crazy status for some time. He ate something weird (peyote or similar) in a grocery in his America series and went full-on hay bails but truth be told he doesn’t need any such behaviour heightening technology, he just IS. Darling, he’s the living end! It’s worth checking out the “America” series to see Oliver’s patronage of the word “brother” being put into monumental hyper-drive. Punters often stop me in the street and ask me, “Food Legend, what’s your favourite Oliver recipe then?”. I usually freeze and file through my online memory banks for a good ten minutes and return the opposite of empty handed. Bizarrely one that returns to the fore in our kitchen time and time again is a recipe from J.Oliver but one that was hallegedly cooked up not by Jamie but by Jools! Jools, for the uninitiated, was Jamie’s “Weird Science” type project (e4+1) to create a female version of himself but something went wrong and he got lumbered with the gorgeous Jools. The Jools recipe I speak of is pasta with peas, pancetta and mint, and it’s a bit of alright. The Jamie-Jools alliance make it for their kids primarily but then they all get stuck in. Happy days. Jamie’s latest series is called fifteen minute meals. It’s a sequel to his thirty minute meals series. If you haven’t seen the first then don’t panic, they work as standalone entities. Will I get fifteen minutes? I’ve not seen thirty. Don’t worry, it’s absolutely fine. Even I haven’t seen all of Jamie’s output, you’d have to be a bit of a beast if you had. Like I say, he’s on every day and when would you cook? You’d have to fetch the kitchen in to the tv room. Fifteen minutes exists to train the viewer in to making a two, three, twelve course meal within a you-guessed-it time limit. Impossible you say! He’s gone too far! What’s next? Five minute meals? Meals on wheels? Meal or no meal? Well, truth be told he manages it. At least I think he does, the programme is longer than fifteen minutes and I don’t know if it’s live so it’s anyone’s guess. Needless to say, the food looks absolutely triffic, a real triumph. As is the Oliver way, he bishes and he boshes, the job is a good one. When might you need to makers a fifteen minute meal? When you’re drunk and about to pass out perhaps, or when you’re just about to die but you’re starving. Oh fuck off Jamie, I don’t have thirty minutes you fat clown, I’m a working mum! Sit yourself down with a glass of wine, darling treacle, I have just the show and companion cook book for you! Happy days. Bollocks on toast. Lady legend, remember her, follows Jamie Oliver on instagram and she tells me he spends the rest of his day (fifteen minutes of it are accounted for) posting photographs of “rude vegetables”. Credit to the lad, twenty years on and he’s still buzzing off being the naked chef. Lady Legend is really in to Oliver at the moment, she might have said that she actually wants to BE him. I wouldn’t go that far but he’s definitely turned from a caterpillar to a butty-fly over the years for me. I remember when he first came out, I used to frequent a site called “fat-tongue.com” or some such which featured bare photoshopped j-pizzles of Oliver having a fat(ter) tongue and crude drawings suggesting such. It was basically my favourite website, it might even have been the first website I ever went on. I went to Leeds fest around the time of Oliver’s debut and me and some friends were pitched near a J.O look-a-like, “NAKED CHEF!” we shouted at him from afar “BOLLOCKS!” style. He took it on the chin, as J.O himself might, but then after a couple of days of haranguing, he retorted with “FUCK OFF! I KNOW!”. Believe me, no-one at that time wanted to look like Jamie Oliver. How much mock could a mockney mock if a mockney could mock mock? Look at how far he’s come nowadays though! Sure, people still can’t stand him sometimes but I think he’s a bigger laugh than he’s ever been. He’s been through the rinser, he’s cooked for old big ears (Prince Charles), he’s shown kids how to make a chicken nugget, he’s tried to teach Americans to be less fat (good luck!), he cried because dunno, someone picked a battery hen on Take Me Out. Turkey bloody twizzlers! He’s lived the life of Reilly and the wildest thing is he’s still going! And I don’t even think he’s 40 yet? Or 50 at least. Well, he’s definitely not 60. If anything he’s getting younger! He’s the Benjamin Button of the celebrity cooking scene. All the rest have crashed and burned. Worrell-Thompson got caught with his pants down at the self-service, Gordon “effing” Ramsay ate his own heart after snogging a shark up the butt, Nigel Slater cringed to death watching himself on TV, Marco Pierre-White invented the electronic cigarette, Delia went to farmfoods and never returned. Oliver is the king. “He’s the most comfortable man to ever appear on camera” Lady Legend. He even makes great pop music songs like “Lamb Curry (you give it to me hot)”. You can call him a cabbage patch kid, you can call him a fat tongued fool but there he is…on your box, every day.It’s Oliver’s kitchen, we’re all just utensils in it. 

A HISTORY OF JAMIE OLIVER

Jamie Oliver, if you don’t know him, is a celebrity chef. He first came out in 1991 with his cooking documentary, The Naked Chef. If you haven’t seen it, it was really good. He basically turned cooking on it’s head or something like it’s arse. Firstly, he was a young man. He wasn’t one of these older alcoholic cooking men who drive around Spain and throw their dog in the sea. Oliver was a young pup, a cheeky chappy, still wet behind his ears. Basically, he shouldn’t have been allowed in front of the camera. Hard to believe all these years later that when our Jamie first burst on our screens he was just eight years old! Really weird stuff. Anyway, it didn’t stop there. He’s been everywhere since, he’s the child star that kept on giving. He literally turned cooking on it’s arse. Imagine a slam dunk in basketball but the ball is an arse and the net is reality. He was that weird. Still is to be fair, every day since his debut he’s got weirder. Not surprising when he’s been on tv every day since he was eight! Last series he made was filmed entirely with Oliver lying down in his garden, completely rat faced. He only cooked what he could reach; it involved a lot of snails, grass and the occasional football when it came over the fence. Jamie was drunker and more stoned than he’s ever been. The reveal of the series came in the final episode when we found out that Oliver wasn’t beached in his own garden, he’d got confused after too many beef burgers and taken bed in a neighbour’s garden. Jools, his gorgeous mate, found him next door but one a couple of weeks after his disappearance. As usual Jamie was able to cheek his way out of it by smoothing a knob of butter under Jools’ chicken skin, metaphorically speaking.

Me and Lady Lambchops are a bit obsessorized with him at the moment. It’s not that lately it’s dawned that he’s a bit of a godlike g-unit, it’s more like we’ve been worshiping at the alter for quite some time. We’ve even got a fun nickname for him; Jamie Olive Oil. I’m sure you get the joke but we call him that because he absolutely belts on the olive oil. I’ve been charting his rise to current devilled loose bird crazy status for some time. He ate something weird (peyote or similar) in a grocery in his America series and went full-on hay bails but truth be told he doesn’t need any such behaviour heightening technology, he just IS. Darling, he’s the living end! It’s worth checking out the “America” series to see Oliver’s patronage of the word “brother” being put into monumental hyper-drive. Punters often stop me in the street and ask me, “Food Legend, what’s your favourite Oliver recipe then?”. I usually freeze and file through my online memory banks for a good ten minutes and return the opposite of empty handed. Bizarrely one that returns to the fore in our kitchen time and time again is a recipe from J.Oliver but one that was hallegedly cooked up not by Jamie but by Jools! Jools, for the uninitiated, was Jamie’s “Weird Science” type project (e4+1) to create a female version of himself but something went wrong and he got lumbered with the gorgeous Jools. The Jools recipe I speak of is pasta with peas, pancetta and mint, and it’s a bit of alright. The Jamie-Jools alliance make it for their kids primarily but then they all get stuck in. Happy days.

Jamie’s latest series is called fifteen minute meals. It’s a sequel to his thirty minute meals series. If you haven’t seen the first then don’t panic, they work as standalone entities. Will I get fifteen minutes? I’ve not seen thirty. Don’t worry, it’s absolutely fine. Even I haven’t seen all of Jamie’s output, you’d have to be a bit of a beast if you had. Like I say, he’s on every day and when would you cook? You’d have to fetch the kitchen in to the tv room. Fifteen minutes exists to train the viewer in to making a two, three, twelve course meal within a you-guessed-it time limit. Impossible you say! He’s gone too far! What’s next? Five minute meals? Meals on wheels? Meal or no meal? Well, truth be told he manages it. At least I think he does, the programme is longer than fifteen minutes and I don’t know if it’s live so it’s anyone’s guess. Needless to say, the food looks absolutely triffic, a real triumph. As is the Oliver way, he bishes and he boshes, the job is a good one. When might you need to makers a fifteen minute meal? When you’re drunk and about to pass out perhaps, or when you’re just about to die but you’re starving. Oh fuck off Jamie, I don’t have thirty minutes you fat clown, I’m a working mum! Sit yourself down with a glass of wine, darling treacle, I have just the show and companion cook book for you! Happy days. Bollocks on toast.

Lady legend, remember her, follows Jamie Oliver on instagram and she tells me he spends the rest of his day (fifteen minutes of it are accounted for) posting photographs of “rude vegetables”. Credit to the lad, twenty years on and he’s still buzzing off being the naked chef. Lady Legend is really in to Oliver at the moment, she might have said that she actually wants to BE him. I wouldn’t go that far but he’s definitely turned from a caterpillar to a butty-fly over the years for me. I remember when he first came out, I used to frequent a site called “fat-tongue.com” or some such which featured bare photoshopped j-pizzles of Oliver having a fat(ter) tongue and crude drawings suggesting such. It was basically my favourite website, it might even have been the first website I ever went on. I went to Leeds fest around the time of Oliver’s debut and me and some friends were pitched near a J.O look-a-like, “NAKED CHEF!” we shouted at him from afar “BOLLOCKS!” style. He took it on the chin, as J.O himself might, but then after a couple of days of haranguing, he retorted with “FUCK OFF! I KNOW!”. Believe me, no-one at that time wanted to look like Jamie Oliver. How much mock could a mockney mock if a mockney could mock mock? Look at how far he’s come nowadays though! Sure, people still can’t stand him sometimes but I think he’s a bigger laugh than he’s ever been. He’s been through the rinser, he’s cooked for old big ears (Prince Charles), he’s shown kids how to make a chicken nugget, he’s tried to teach Americans to be less fat (good luck!), he cried because dunno, someone picked a battery hen on Take Me Out. Turkey bloody twizzlers! He’s lived the life of Reilly and the wildest thing is he’s still going! And I don’t even think he’s 40 yet? Or 50 at least. Well, he’s definitely not 60. If anything he’s getting younger! He’s the Benjamin Button of the celebrity cooking scene. All the rest have crashed and burned. Worrell-Thompson got caught with his pants down at the self-service, Gordon “effing” Ramsay ate his own heart after snogging a shark up the butt, Nigel Slater cringed to death watching himself on TV, Marco Pierre-White invented the electronic cigarette, Delia went to farmfoods and never returned. Oliver is the king. “He’s the most comfortable man to ever appear on camera” Lady Legend. He even makes great pop music songs like “Lamb Curry (you give it to me hot)”. You can call him a cabbage patch kid, you can call him a fat tongued fool but there he is…on your box, every day.

It’s Oliver’s kitchen, we’re all just utensils in it.