August 17, 2003
Walkers Sensations Oriental Crackers
Some of the cheapest entertainment we've found in London has been stopping in shops to just look at the products which aren't available in America. (The cheapest entertainment in England so far has been playing "nobody's really named that in your country, really?" with some of V.'s cousin's colleagues in Brighton.) Walkers is, I'm fairly sure, simply the British arm of Frito-Lay, so there's no real reason their "Walkers Sensations Oriental Crackers" couldn't be a successs in the United States; we're not talking prawn or mint and lamb crisps here. The flavor we tried, "Tangy Malaysian Chutney", was even fairly familiar, a bit like a slight variation on barbecue potato chips. (The flavor is somewhere between BBQ and sweet-and-sour sauce, in fact.) And the crackers themselves were quite good: puffed casavva chips that I'd have felt perfectly happy spooning tamarind sauce onto in a restaurant. They kind of dissolve on your tongue. The chief inspiration may in fact be the Aero chocolate bar, another good British snack food idea that hasn't made it back across the Atlantic. I won't be smuggling a carton of these home, but I'd happily pick them up at the next chemist's shop we visit in London.
April 30, 2003
Zingerman's cream cheese
For the second year in a row, V. has given me the gift of cheese. This year, I received Zingerman's spread of fresh cheeses, and holy cow, was the cream cheese good. You could make out the family resemblance to Philadelphia, but the texture seemed much more delicate and the taste was had a big whallop of dairy flavor. It made it clear why the stuff is called cream cheese, although it was much more tangy than cream (or fresh butter or unflavored ice cream). We had it on toast with strawberry jam and as a condiment on matzoh brei, and it was simply delectable.
(Also, just for Judith: unheimlich. That's the last one, I swear.)