Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

My mom likes snacks and popcorn so for Mother's Day I got her a selection of Pop Art popcorn available from the natural foods aisle at Real Canadian Superstore. Just under $5 per pack and sadly lacklustre especially for the price. The Sweet & Salty Sparkles had light sweetness, barely any saltiness, and you have to look quite closely for the predominantly blue sparkles. I'd recommend just buying some caramel popcorn instead. The Cheddar Jalapeno with Avocado Oil  had a mild creeping heat from the jalapeno but otherwise tasted like bland unflavored popcorn. I suppose if you paid close attention you might get a bit of cheddar flavor. 2025-May-15 UPDATE: I also got to try  Rosemary Truffle with Olive Oil . If you smell a bowl of it there's mild olive oil aroma but the taste was predominantly rosemary although this seemed to be inconsistent if you eat a little at a time instead of large handfuls. In both aroma and taste, truffle flavor did not come through.

Apparently my mom forgot what happened the last time she bought Pringles  and bought a tube on discount. Sadly, the results were just as bad: Weak cheddar flavor, tastes more lie something salty but not clearly cheddar. Chips have no potato flavor. Bitter aftertaste -- highly suspicious! They only dusted about 2/3rds of each chip with the powder, although that is probably because the undusted portion is in some kind of holder while they move all the chips to be dusted, ensuring that all chips have some flavouring powder. Even if it's on discount you can probably do better with your money. Maybe buy an unprocessed snack, like a fruit.

When my Japanese friend's children were still young, she prepared tasty rice snacks to put on standby for the hungry kids. Basically you mix rice with something tasty , pat a handful into a nice shape, and wrap it in seaweed so people eating it don't have to deal with the same sticky mess you did. Looks like sushi! The reason I remembered this is because I'm currently living alone on a tight budget, and if I were hungry I didn't want to reach for chips or other "snacks". They are expensive, of dubious dietary impact, and of course not really filling. Which would be what I need in a snack to banish any sudden hunger before a proper time for lunch or dinner. But I didn't have fancy ingredients, and devoting time to squeezing rice into nice shapes was just too much work for someone lazy like me. I even considered borrowing a ice cream scoop to shortcut the rice-shaping process, but... nah. So instead, I devised something simpler: Making them by the tray. Pr...

My mom sometimes buys chips of flavours she hasn't tried before, and she's partial to the Pringles brand. Today she got Pringles Groovz and it was remarkably disappointing. Really weak spicing on each chip means I could basically not taste the "tangy southern BBQ flavour" at all. The chip itself didn't taste like potato or even a Pringles chip. I can't even believe I'm saying this but honestly the chips tasted literally like paper or cardboard. Slightly smaller, but thicker ribbed chip. This is okay and I suppose it helps with preventing the chips from shattering inside the tube. But I seem to remember once upon a time the chips fit the tube better so that there was less movement and therefore less likely they would shatter. Overall, extremely disappointed. But maybe more shocked than anything at the remarkable lack of quality here. What happened to this brand? View this post on Instagram Barely...