President's Choice Diet Litchi Soda

Well, I am a sucker for Superstore. I remember when they first came into being and it was a gigantic uproar - small grocery stores would go out of business! Safeway would be run into the ground! Dogs and cats - living together! Mass hysteria! Sure, it's a gigantic store, but the things they have crammed on those shelves...it boggles the brain. My shopping trips would take two hours on average. On average. I found lutefisk crammed away between the freezer shelves somewhere between a whole frozen milkfish and sheep intestines. I found Dutch syrup waffle cookies on top of pfeffernusse. But President's Choice is a product line that stays right on top of consumer tastes. And they batted it out of the park with Diet Litchi Soda. At first, I was confused. How could they make litchis...diet? But once I cracked open a can and tasted it, I realized that they had captured a fresh, light, tropical taste of sparkling, not too sweet canned litchis (not fresh - that flavour is just too darn ephemeral). Just try it with some spicy grilled meat, chili paste and a small salad with some mango and cucumber hacked in. It's tropical summer in a can.

Ketchup Chips Part 2

Just a quick note since I came back from a trip home, where I crammed a bag of ketchup chips in my mouth as I stepped off the plane: Hostess chips are gone, bought out by Lay's. I cannot recommend Lay's chips except as a vehicle for dill pickle dip, and they are make a sad sort of ketchup chip. The chips are reddish brown, versus the bright red #3 of Old Dutch chips, which I always feel lends a more ketchupy flavour mentally. As well, they skimp on the flavour powder. Sweet, sweet flavour powder. Most importantly, however, Old Dutch chips taste deeply and honestly of potatoes, whereas Lay's chips are soft, crumbly and greasy. Any potato flavour has long since left the building when you pop open a bag of Lay's ketchup chips.