52 Foods: Pop Secret 1-Step White Cheddar Popcorn

52 Foods No Responses »
May 192005

This is the second 52 Foods entry (see my review of O-Ke-Doke Hot Stuff Cheese Popcorn) to focus on Cheese Popcorn. Yes, I like Cheese Popcorn. The best I’ve had have been from shops like Garrett’s (worth waiting in line for) and The Long Grove Popcorn Shoppe (worth putting up with the pretentious spelling of shop for). My hope is that I may one day enjoy popcorn shop quality popcorn in the convenience and cost-effective method of an over-the-counter product, available at grocers nationwide.

I had high hopes for this- Hey, it "Pops Up Cheesy!" as it says on the box. No pourable solutions, rubs, sprinkles or dusting powders required. This appeals both to my efficient and lazy sides- I don’t want to complicate the already tedious 4 minute popping process further by having to do something extra to make my microwave popcorn cheesy. Hey, I have blog entries to put off, I don’t have time to prepare complicated popcorn.

So yes, this is 1-step Cheese Popcorn. The taste? Less than thrilling. It tastes cheesy, but not super cheesy, which is maybe what I was hoping for. It smells a little like feet, which doesn’t help matters any. Perhaps if I bought the fluorescent orange variety of this product I would think it tasted cheesier, but I didn’t. I had to get all fancy and go white cheddar. I guess I thought I’d enjoy it in the back of my limo with my Grey Poupon.

I have some advice for some variations of this product for the good people at Pop Secret. Consider it a gift- repay me in free popcorn.

1) Pop Secret Obnoxiously Orange and Obnoxious Cheesy Zero-Step Cheese Popcorn: That’s right, ZERO step. I should be eating it already. Microwaves are so 20th Century. It should pop just by me thinking about it.

2) Pop Secret Two-Step Cheese Popcorn: For the Country Music fans.

3) Pop Secret 12-Step Cheese Popcorn: The first step is admitting that you want to have cheese popcorn…

Posted by Tim V at 2:18 am

Jackass Soda: The Sprite Remix Blind Taste Test

Jackass Soda No Responses »
May 102005

In my review of Sprite Remix- Aruba Jam, I mentioned that I thought Aruba Jam tasted like a less-sweet version of the Tropical which was out a couple of years ago. I read on BevNet, the soft drink discussion forum, that many thought the two soda were identical. In the comments to my Aruba Jam article, Hastypete, a big fan of Tropical, claimed that Aruba Jam was exactly the same thing and wondered if anyone had some old Tropical lying around to put it to the test.

I was that anyone. I had three cans of Tropical left. Into the fridge they went- a plan for a scientific taste test was hatched.

My lovely wife Debbie would administer the test. To make things more complex, I decided there should be three sample- two of one of the flavors and one of the other. I was confident I could tell which was which. Cathy, my sister in law ("The Awsom 1" ), was in town so she joined me in the tasting.

Glasses were labled A, B and C. Tasting began.

The results?

Cathy said A was different and B and C were the same.

Yours truly quickly and decisively said C was different than A and B- and that C was sweeter, and was therefore Tropical.

I was 100% correct.

The Tropical IS sweeter. It also smells sweeter, sickenenly so to Debbie. I like them both, but the Tropical ranks about a 6, where the Aruba Jam is at a 7.5 or so. Interestingly enough, the ingredient list is slightly different. There’s more sodium in Aruba Jam, and Citric Acid comes before Natural Flavors on the ingredient list. It makes sense- a little more salt and a little more acid = a little less sweet. Tropical and Aruba Jam are close- but if you are a jackass soda lover like me, with a discerning palate and a very deep soda closet, you can tell the difference.

Posted by Tim V at 2:25 am

If it was ever cool to have a blog...

Uncategorized No Responses »
May 042005

…it isn’t any more.

Click here to go to Tommy Lasorda’s blog, if you dare to be bored by tales of how great the Dodger organization is. This is part of the official Major League Baseball blog initiative, MLBlogs.com. You can have your very own baseball blog- for $50 a year. I wonder if MLB is going to chase down all the unauthorized baseball bloggers and make them pay- now that the whole steroids thing is well under control (cough)…

I did find a White Sox blog- the guy is a Sox fan/armchair psychic- he predicts the outgome to every game, it appears. He does back up his predictions with baseball analysis, which shows him to be wise. He also predicts the White Sox to win the World Series, which I hope is one prediction he doesn’t get wrong…

MLBlogs needs to have a way to find a blog by the team the blogger roots for-there doesn’t seem to be a complete listing. I found the Sox blog above through the site’s "Look Who’s Blogging" Top 20. Or maybe they only have 20 blogs in this first week of their existence…

I’m thinking of adding a Baseball category to this here blog- good idea? Bad idea? Feel free to vote in the comments…

Posted by Tim V at 9:36 am
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