Alright, we have taken on soda pop and candy bars so it makes perfect sense that we would tackle the greatest potato chip favours the world has ever seen. To do this correctly, we have to establish what a potato chip is and what is not. Doritos are not. Corn chips are not. Popcorn chips are not. I will accept other kinds of potato, like sweet potato, as potato chips. Baked or fried, the all count. Let’s not get any delusions here about what makes the potato chip the world’s best salty snack item.

The next debate is on what constitutes a flavour and how many combinations of flavour make it a truly great chip. As the Earth has lost its mind further and ups the ante monthly with the craziest new flavour, we sometimes need to assess whether less is more. I’m willing to accept any flavour that has made it through the marketing departments of these companies. If they thought it was smart to have “sweat sock” chips on the racks at the supermarket, I can accept that. I can also accept all brands, from around the world. If they can make chips with better potato than the ones from Idaho who am I to argue. With that, let’s establish my Mount Rushmore or potato chips in no particular order:

1. Hawaiian Kettle Style Potato Chips – Sweet Maui Onion

Predominantly found on the Hawaiian islands, these chips are the gold standard of kettle style chips and their flavours represent the region accurately. Mango habanero are amazing along with luau BBQ but the go to flavour is sweet onion. They are the perfect mix of sweet and salty and the kettle cooked style are better than the kinds we see in Canada. You can find them around as they have become a popular import from Hawaii and certainly need to be put in your plans to bring back along with the almighty Macadamia nut.

2. Ruffles All-Dressed chips

If you are a Canadian chip connoisseur, there is no way a list can be complete without the might All-dressed flavour. The flavour consists of a combination of BBQ, ketchup, salt & vinegar and sour cream & onion. Two Quebec brothers created the first iteration of this magic formula in 1978 and they changed the chip world. Americans would come to Canada simply to bring back the holy grail of flavours and now they are available in some brands south of the border. The key: ripple chips to better hold the flavour and really kick you in the jaw when you eat them. Our friends at Ruffles have created the best (and greasiest) version of the ripple chip and the combination is lethal. I dare you, compare them against other All-dressed and you will get it.

3. Old Dutch Dill Pickle chips

I will fight you if you try to argue that Lays chips are better than Old Dutch! There is no chance that the Americans make a better overall chip than our friends from Winnipeg ever have. Try the taste test and confirm for yourself and better yet try the sample of Dill Pickle chips while you do it. Dill and chips were just made for each other. Like PB & Jam, Oil & vinegar and Abbott and Costello, some tandems are just better together than they are apart. The dill flavouring on the Old Dutch brand are incredible and they leave a great after taste after to crunch a bag. Dill is a common flavour across North America but we have a great version in our backyard. The only way they could be better is if they came in the classic Old Dutch boxes we all grew up with.

4. Jalapeno Pringles

Pringles truly are the perfect potato chip. They mastered the art of making the chip more important than the damn flavour and once they stepped outside of the core 4 flavours (original, BBQ, sour cream and salt/vinegar) and put their creative hats on they took the product to the next stratosphere. We gladly will pay premium prices for a tube, that has half the volume of a bag of chips. The damn tube alone was an amazing marketing ploy and will have the product live on forever. You can’t go wrong with many of their flavours really, but Jalapeño chips are an art that should not be abused. Here’s the skinny on their Jalapeño. It’s the perfect combo of sweet and heat. The pressure of the heat builds up on you after you inevitably eat 2/3 of the tube and at that point you realize that you have a Pringles problem and that you are prepared to lie, cheat and steal to keep the tube away from anyone who wants what you have. Really you can’t go wrong with any of the flavours but Jalapeño is a tremendous addition to the gang. Damn you Pringles for ruining chips for the rest of the world.

Based on the comments from the last few posts, I’m sure you will have an opinion on where I made a fatal mis-step in this top 4. Comment along and share in the fun around chips. Times are tough out there but at least we can always argue about the important things in the world, like chips.

Who doesn’t love candy bars? Not only are they one of the most contested debates on what the greatest ones are, you have the crazy variance in brands from country to country. Those territorial differences force you to to sample the bars from where you are and eventually you find something that you have never tasted before and convinces you that you should hunt said bar down every time you come back.

Most of us in Canada are partial to some of the exclusive-Canadian chocolate bars that you can’t find elsewhere. Crunchie, Coffee Crisp, Mirage and Mr.Big are examples of bars that aren’t found outside of Canada. Canadians take that stuff serious and are almost offended when you consider a non-Canadian chocolate bar better than our home grown supply. The truth is that there are good bars in other parts of the world too and I have tried many of them. In the tradition of the Mount Rushmore monument, here are my top four candy bars of all-time.

1. Crispy Crunch – Cadbury Canada

You can’t be Canadian and have never tried one of these bad boys. Originally made by chocolate counterpart Neilson, this bar hit the landscape in the 70’s and it’s mixture of peanut butter and a crispy flake mixed with a milk chocolate coating. The signature taste of that glorious flaky peanut better centre is unmatched by anything else I have tried. Go down to the corner store right now and grab one of these glorious buggers. The only thing better than Crispy Crunch is someone else’s!

2. Peanut Butter Oh Henry – Hershey Canada

Oh Henry! is a great bar in it’s own right but add in the magic of Reese and you have a chocolate bar that will change your life. The original version started in the 1920’s with its combination of peanuts, caramel and fudge has been a Canadian staple since that point. You don’t see the PB version of the bar nearly as often as the original yellow bar but chase one down and tell me it isn’t the best thing you have ever had. On top of it all, they created Canadian commercial lore with their memorable “Big chunk of fudddddggggggeeeeee”

3. Baby Ruth – Nestle USA

As a sports fan, this was the one bar that I always wanted to have as a kid but couldn’t get as it was only available in the USA. It took me several years before I could try it and although it resembles the aforementioned Oh Henry bar, it is very different. A couple of factoids around Baby Ruth’s history:

• The original manufacturer was located on the same street as Wrigley Field in Chicago and it has always had a strong baseball them since then.
• The bar is not named after the baseball player BABE RUTH but actually claims to be named after the daughter of former President Grover Alexander.
• The bar is featured prominently in the movie “Caddyshack” as the floating chocolate bar in the pool scene. Obviously they didn’t think it was a chocolate bar…

4. Kit Kat – Nestle Canada

It’s one of my vice’s at Halloween time. I used to say to the kids that when they would bring their bags home they had to immediately “pay the tax man”. They have always remembered that term in life but never really realized what the tax was. Mini Kit Kats. There is something about the way the chocolate tastes against the wafer and how it melts in your mouth. Just amazing stuff and there is something equally satisfying about snapping off a stick and chowing down. Great bar.

Where did I go wrong here? There are some great bars that didn’t make my list that may have made yours. Have some fun with it and let me know what bar you have to have on your list.

Here we go again with another Mount Rushmore of my top 4 carbonated soda choices. As the world knows, our neighbours to the south are the geniuses behind the explosion of soda choices in the world. They are so much more creative than we are in the art of mashing something into an existing product and making it better. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s we saw a large influx of “pop” enter the stores and we have never been shy of choice since then. There are thousands of choices you could make here but here is by spin at the best tasting of all-time.

1. Sierra Mist – PepsiCo USA

This brand of beverage has never come to Canada and is a must find if you are the USA. It’s a simple lemon/lime soda, much like 7up and Sprite but is has a crisp taste that is not too high in sweetness and sugar. It ws born in 1999 as companies went looking for variations on the lemon/lime taste and they stumbled across gold. It has endured some formula evolution over the decades largely staying true to the original success, replacing fructose with sucrose and eventually adding stevia as the sweetener. Pick up a case when you are down south next time.

2. Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale – Dr. Pepper Corp

Good ole’ Canada Dry is an institution in this country and in the last 50 years, throughout the world. It may be one of the most recognizable Canadian brands ever and has always been a premium product across the globe. Ginger Ale was it’s most impactful product dating back to 1904 and really took off during prohibition where is was deemed the best liquid to properly mask the smell of liquor. A pretty steep history! Since then, they have tried to find ways to re-invent the wheel and the best combination is their mix of ginger ale and cranberry which is tremendous by itself and even better in a mixed drink.

3. Tahiti Treat

Anyone born in the 70’s or sooner will remember the classic Tahiti Treat beverage. The greatest part of Tahiti Treat is the way it vanishes from store shelves for 10 years and suddenly it’s back and it’s like it never left your life. It combines the fizzy goodness of pop with the sweetness of juice punch. Like a fizzy Kool-are drink that delivers more than the sum of its parts. It’s weaker cousins C-Plus and Hawaiian Punch can’t hold a candle to this monster. It’s so popular that Drake chases the product down in obscure places throughout Canada and it has become the holy grail of summer drinks. You are a true pop aficionado if you drink the Tahitian Treat with any regularity.

4. Old Jamaica Ginger Beer

Ginger Beer is an acquired taste and the varying brands range from difficult to swallow to literally nostril burning. Not my old friend from Jamaica, Old Jamaica Ginger Beer. It’s one of the few that you can crack in a can, pour over ice with a lime garnish or when feeling sporting, mix in some dark run for arguably the greatest cocktail known to man, the Dark & Stormy. There is a tale to be told of a warm night pounding Dark’s in the Jamaican heat that warms my heart. OJGB has the right combination of spice and sweet to make anything go. I have tried them all and might be a connoisseur of the beverage but if you haven’t tried ginger beer, you are missing one of the great hidden gems in the beverage category.

That’s my top 4 and I challenge you to do better. What have I missed here and what is your argument as to why it’s in your Mount Rushmore? Compel me to try something new!

These are always some of my favourite topics and the ones that create the most controversy on the web. No matter who you are and what you do, we love to rank things in our lives. There are hundreds of categories of things that we keep track of and are continually deciding whether the next item is memorable enough to get into our “top 10”. Selecting 10 of anything in a category is tricky but when you boil it down there can only be and handful of “hall of fame” selections in the category. I have aptly named these my Mount Rushmore, in deference to the incredible US monument.

The fascinating part of that monument is not the marvel that led to sculptors carving massive faces of President’s Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln into the South Dakota mountainside . It’s the fact that they were able to narrow the best US leaders down to 4 only and because they are literally carved in stone, there is no altering the faces and no addition of the greats that came afterwards. Our Mount Rushmore can be flexible, exchangeable and arguable to the point where you will have your own top 4. The other point is that when you get down to the best 4 ever, there is no need to rank them. They are all great and all deserve to be in the pantheon of their realm. Today we look at boxed cereal. Let the fight begin.

1. Raisin Bran – Kelloggs

Raisin Bran has been around for ever and unlike other legacy cereals, the formula has not changed much over the years. The bran starts crunchy and eventually soaks up the milk. The raisins stay firm throughout and have just the right amount of sugar frosting to make them something just short of candy. You can go away from the cereal for years, pick up a box and launch back in like you have never left its comforting grip. Try it again, it’s worth the reminder of what makes it great.

2. Honey Bunches of Oats -Post

Your dad can have its predecessor Corn Flakes but you should be diving into a box of Honey Bunches of Oats. Whether it’s the wide variety of additional flavours and toppings (strawberry, almond, vanilla etc) stick with the classic honey roasted. The chunks of granola mixed with bran and corn flakes lightly frosted are divine. It’s one of those cereals that you have a bowl and then two more and you realize you should have bought the family size box. an amazing combination of goodness. You can settle for its brother cereal, Vector but HBOO is the only correct answer.

3. Honeycomb – Post

Maybe the king of junk cereal, Honeycomb is an amazing cereal experience. This is the one cereal where your selection of milk really matters. The science of the cereal design literally traps the milk in the combs and is the most glorious part of each bite you take. The frosting provides a respectable force field against the milk making the bowl soggy and re-using the milk from your inaugural bowl only makes the second and third bowls more magnificent. Ask your kids, they know a great junk cereal when they see one and the beacon of red coming from the oversized box sucks them in every time. Amazing.

4. Crispix – Kelloggs

One of the greatest things about cereal is its versatility. Rice Krispies are boring as a cereal but great in baking. Mini Wheats are tough to eat in a bowl with milk, but you can eat them as a snack. Crispix is top tier in its versatility to be a simple but tasty combination of a corn flake and rice when mixed with milk OR the key ingredient in your munchie mix snack combo. Throw this into a bowl with some peanuts, pretzels, bugles, and spice and you have Super Bowl Sunday. The drawback is that you need to be ninja quick when you mix into milk to eat it before the milk disintegrates the cereal fibres into cream of wheat.

There are others that could be on the Honourable Mention list but there is now statue of Obama in the Mount Rushmore parking lot so there will be no participation ribbons here. Add your comments here and let me know what your favourite cereals are. Happy binging!