When it comes to potato chips, I’m not that huge of a fan. I mean, I like chips as much as the next guy, but I’m more of a “roasted peanuts” kind of guy when it comes to snacking. I buy maybe 5 to 10 bags of chips a year, at home. At work, I can usually be seen chomping down on whatever I can find at the vending machine, which has a rather poor selection of bland products.
See, when it comes to potato chips, I have learned the following: The big brands (Lay’s, Doritos, Pringles, Sabritas and Barcel in Mexico, etc.) are usually mediocre. They’re typically not bad, per se, but I’m always complaining about their lack of flavoring. But when it comes to smaller brands, there’s two kinds: Some are bad, and some are awesome. Why, the other day I bought a bag of Herr’s Ketchup flavoured chips for 99 cents, and it kicked ass. So much flavouring. While for 2.99 I could have bought a bag of bland flavourless Ruffles.

That brings us to my birthday, a little over a week ago. My sister comes over, and hands me a bag of chips: Uncle Ray’s Hot (Piquante, because EVERYTHING has to be in French as well) Potato Chips. She tells me she’s tried them before, and that they’re really good. A week later, I see the bag and decide it’s time to give them a try.
The first thing I notice is the simplicity in the product’s name. “Hot Potato Chips”. I decide I prefer simplicity over finding bullshitty adjectives all over the packaging, such as SIZZLIN’!, FIERY!, or INFERNAL!. There’s no pictures of chili peppers, either. Hey! no clichés! Oh wait – there’s flames surrounding the word “HOT”. Damn.

unclerays

Not my actual bag. It's easier to Google than to scan a bag of chips.

I stop contemplating the bag, and proceed to get my fingers dirty, so to speak. I open the bag, and take a sample of the aroma. “Hmmm…”, I say. “This doesn’t smell too bad at all!”.
I take one chip, and place it in my mouth. I press the chip between my tongue and my palate, and suck the flavour out. I repeat the process a few more times, convincing myself more and more each time that these could very well be the best damn chips I’ve had in a while.
I start taking small handfuls at a time, trying to increase the taste experience. It works. And then, when the chips were done, it was time for my favorite potato chip eating ritual: Moistening the tip of my index finger and running it all across the bottom of the bag, gathering all the little specks of flavouring that lie there. And man, did I enjoy doing that!
I placed the bag aside, and continued whatever it was that I was doing. A while later, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed this on the top corner of the bag: CHAPTER 30 – STORY ON BACK. I said “huh?”, and took a look.

“Uncle Ray” has a fucking blog on the back of his potato chips! Is that awesome, or what? In this case, he tells us about the time he jumped a fence to steal some peaches, and later regretted it. He starts telling morals about controlling impulses and whatnot, and basically gets all PREACHY (get it? because the title of this chapter is JUST PEACHY? HA! HA!).

I don’t have a rating system, because I don’t believe in them, but overall I’d say Uncle Ray’s Hot Potato Chips are awesome, and you’d be better off buying these, instead of your typical chips. As for them actually being, um, you know, HOT, I’ll leave that up to you. I’m quite tolerant of spicy flavours, but you might find them SIZZLIN’, FIERY, or even INFERNAL.

The Iceberg.