Well here we are snacklings, three weeks into my summer vacation.  I hope you all are well.  I am relaxed, tanned, exercised and haven’t spoken to a single child that isn’t related to me.  I’ve been catching up on some reading, watching a bunch of old TV shows and movies, and have been experimenting with some new writing projects.  It’s been glorious.

There have been some minor wrinkles.  My apartment complex decided to replace the roofs on all of our buildings.  I’m not exactly sure what roofing entails, but it seems to consist of a lot of forceful pounding on the spot located precisely over where I am sitting in my home at any given time.

Tropical Storm Debby also blew around causing a bit of a disturbance.  We managed to survive with only a small leak in the ceiling.  What’s that?  You thought I got a new roof?  No silly, the storm passed through in the week between when the roofers stripped the roof and replaced it.  It’s not like you can see storms coming for days or anything.

The roofers also managed to give my wife a panic attack, as the poor dear decided to weather the relentless pounding by watching Requiem for a Dream, a movie that is one long, increasingly intense crescendo which builds to a frantic, hyper-edited climax.

Thankfully they finished a few days ago and the peace and quiet has returned.  And what better way to enjoy the peace and quiet of summer then with some cool, refreshing salami.  Just saying the word recalls the olden days when people would pass the hours on a front porch swing watching fireflies, a watermelon slice in one hand and a shaft of salami in the other.

Now you can recapture that nostalgia with these Salami Doritos, one of the two latest limited edition offerings from Frito-Lay Japan’s amazingly inventive Gourmet Doritos line.  I mentioned this before but it bears repeating.  The phrase “Gourmet Doritos” is awesome.

Just to refresh, Japanese Doritos have a much stronger corn chip flavor, the chips are denser than their American counterparts, and the chip points have been rounded (for safety reasons, I’d assume).  They come in a thicker bag as well.

And that bag looks great.  Sleek and sexy as any corn chip product can be, just beckoning you to crack open a beer and enjoy this snack based on a cured meat.

The nosegrope upon opening the bag is indeed meaty.  Not sure I could identify it as salami.  Blind smelling might have yielded a guess of beef jerky, but at least that’s in the tubular meat ball park.

The flavor of the chips did call to mind salami.  It’s not an exact reproduction, but it is fairly accurate.  Japanese Doritos are not caked in powder like the bags you may be used to.  That’s a good thing as I think an inundation of this kind of meat flavor would be overwhelming.  The flavor has a long peppery finish that lingers on the tongue a while.  And the stronger corn chip flavor is present and pushy throughout.

All in all, this is a decent showing.  They don’t quite reach the heights of my beloved Clam Chowder Doritos, but they are interesting and taste pretty good.

So keep enjoying the season everyone.  Stay dry and carve off a sexy slice of salami for me.  I leave you with this trivia factoid.  The “jasmine” in the song “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts was originally supposed to be “salami,” but was changed at the last minute when focus groups found the original video too offensive.

Summer.

Chips

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July 6, 2012

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