Catching Up on Food and Drink Stuff I Checked Out (But Due to This or That)… Well, You Know

I have a confession to make: I have been eating without filing the proper paperwork.

For months, I have tried new snacks, opened suspicious beverages, ordered things with names that sounded better than they tasted, and occasionally discovered something so good that I genuinely intended to tell everybody about it. I took pictures. I saved receipts. I made little notes in my phone like “great crunch, weird aftertaste” and “possibly life-changing when drunk at 1:13 a.m.” I did everything except sit down and turn those scattered observations into an actual post.

Due to this or that, as the title says.

You know how it goes. Life does not usually collapse in one dramatic cinematic moment. It just keeps handing you small errands until your free time has been pecked to death by ducks. You answer an email, make a phone call, look for the charger that was in your hand six minutes ago, and suddenly three weeks have passed. Meanwhile, the limited-edition cookie you planned to review has disappeared from stores, been resurrected under a slightly different name, and developed a passionate online following full of people who will accuse you of eating it incorrectly.

So this is my attempt to catch up. It is less of a polished tasting journal and more of an archaeological dig through my camera roll, kitchen cabinets, and questionable short-term memory. Some of these things are still available. Some may have vanished into the same mysterious dimension where fast-food menu items go when customers start liking them too much. Either way, I tried them, I had opinions, and those opinions have been sitting around long enough.

The Fancy Potato Chips That Needed to Calm Down

Let us begin with a bag of “chef-inspired” potato chips, because apparently regular potato chips were suffering from a lack of leadership.

The bag was matte black, which is how food packaging tells you the contents have attended graduate school. The flavor was something along the lines of smoked sea salt, caramelized onion, black pepper, and a distant memory of truffle. There may have been another adjective in there. Artisanal, perhaps. Handcrafted. Emotionally available. Whatever it was, the package promised an experience so sophisticated that I briefly wondered whether I should change clothes before opening it.

I will give the chips credit: they were good. They had a sturdy crunch, a proper amount of salt, and enough onion flavor to make me reconsider speaking directly into anyone’s face for the rest of the evening. The problem was the truffle seasoning. Truffle flavor is the guest who arrives late, speaks louder than everyone else, and somehow leaves its coat in every room. A little can make something taste earthy and luxurious. Too much makes it taste as if a mushroom has taken control of the building.

These chips came dangerously close to a fungal occupation.

I kept eating them, of course. This is an important point in food criticism: disapproval and continued consumption are perfectly capable of coexisting. I can complain about a snack for twenty minutes while steadily emptying the bag. Human beings contain multitudes, and some of those multitudes have greasy fingers.

Would I buy them again? Maybe, but only if they were on sale. At full price, I expect a chip to do more than taste good. I expect it to offer financial guidance or at least help me carry groceries inside.

The Cereal Designed by People Who Hate the Roof of My Mouth

Next came a cereal based on a popular candy, cookie, or childhood dessert. I am being slightly vague because there are now so many dessert cereals that the breakfast aisle looks like an eight-year-old won a lawsuit.

The cereal smelled fantastic. The moment I opened the bag, I was hit with a cloud of artificial nostalgia. It did not smell like the actual dessert it was supposedly recreating. It smelled like the idea of that dessert after being focus-grouped, sweetened, and placed under fluorescent lighting. Still, I was optimistic.

Dry, it was crunchy enough to qualify as landscaping material. With milk, it entered a very narrow window of acceptability—roughly forty-five seconds—before transforming into sweet gravel suspended in beige water. I tried to eat quickly, but no one should have to approach breakfast with the urgency of a bomb technician.

The flavor was decent. Sugar did most of the work, while a faint chocolate-and-vanilla situation wandered around in the background looking for direction. By the end of the bowl, the cereal had scraped the roof of my mouth so thoroughly that I felt as if I had paid for a breakfast and a medical exfoliation.

And yet I understand the appeal. This cereal is not pretending to be nutritious. It is not wearing a little green leaf on the box or talking about ancient grains. It arrives with the moral clarity of a carnival ride. You know this will not improve you. You participate anyway.

I respected that honesty enough to finish the box, though I did so over several days and with the caution normally reserved for handling broken glass.

The Bottled Coffee That Tasted Like a Candle Had a Side Hustle

I am always vulnerable to bottled coffee. It combines caffeine, convenience, and the possibility that this time the vanilla flavor will taste like vanilla rather than melted furniture polish.

The bottle in question was a seasonal flavor involving brown sugar, cinnamon, and some vague suggestion of a cozy morning. The label featured warm colors and autumn leaves, even though I bought it during weather hot enough to make the steering wheel feel like a punishment. Seasonal marketing no longer follows the seasons. Pumpkin products arrive while mosquitoes are still active, and peppermint shows up before anyone has located their winter coat.

The first sip was promising. Cold, creamy, sweet. Then the cinnamon arrived wearing steel-toed boots.

It did not taste like cinnamon sprinkled over coffee. It tasted like a cinnamon-scented candle had become tired of merely influencing the atmosphere and decided to pursue a more direct role in my digestive system. There was also a waxy vanilla note that stayed on my tongue like an unwanted motivational speaker.

I drank half the bottle before admitting I did not like it. This was not because it improved. It was because caffeine creates its own form of diplomacy. I kept negotiating with the flavor because I wanted what it contained.

That is one of the stranger arrangements of modern life: sometimes the active ingredient and the enjoyable experience have stopped speaking to each other entirely. Energy drinks taste like electrified cough syrup. Protein bars taste like compressed insulation. Bottled coffee tastes like a craft store in October. We consume them because there is a task waiting, and the task does not care whether the beverage has dignity.

I would not buy this one again, but I would absolutely be fooled by a redesigned label next year.

The Frozen Pizza That Understood the Assignment

Not every food item in this overdue roundup disappointed me. One frozen pizza performed with the confidence and restraint of a product that knew exactly what it was.

It did not claim to be restaurant quality. It did not tell me about the scenic Italian village where its recipe was supposedly whispered into existence by somebody’s grandmother. It simply promised a crisp crust, cheese, sauce, and pepperoni. A humble platform. A manageable dream.

The crust crisped properly in the oven without turning into a ceramic tile. The sauce tasted like tomatoes instead of red sugar paste. The cheese melted across the top rather than forming several isolated dairy continents. Even the pepperoni curled slightly at the edges, creating those tiny cups of grease that no reasonable adult should find beautiful and yet absolutely does.

Was it the best pizza I have ever eaten? No. That would be an absurd standard. The best pizza I have ever eaten came from a place with a temperamental oven, a handwritten menu, and an employee who seemed personally offended that I had asked how long the order would take. Great pizza often comes with mild hostility. It is part of the seasoning.

But for something I pulled from a freezer while wearing clothes I would not answer the door in, this pizza was excellent. It asked very little of me and delivered exactly what it promised. There is a quiet nobility in that.

I added crushed red pepper and a little garlic powder because I am incapable of leaving frozen food emotionally unmodified. Then I ate more than I intended, burned the roof of my mouth on the first slice, and immediately repeated the mistake on the second. Tradition matters.

This one earned a permanent place in my freezer, which is the highest honor I can give a frozen product. Space in there is limited. Every new arrival must compete with ice trays, forgotten vegetables, and one unidentifiable container I am keeping because throwing it away would require me to learn what is inside.

The Limited-Edition Cookie That Was Mostly an Event

Limited-edition food operates on a very old psychological principle: if you imply that something is leaving, people suddenly care whether it stays.

The cookie I tried had a bright filling, a famous flavor collaboration, and enough social-media excitement around it to make me wonder if I was purchasing dessert or attending a cultural moment. People were posting freezer tests, microwave tests, dunk tests, and ranking charts. Someone had almost certainly created a twelve-minute video examining the filling ratio.

I ate one directly from the package, like an unsponsored civilian.

It was fine.

That sounds crueler than it is. “Fine” is a perfectly respectable outcome for a cookie. Fine goes well with milk. Fine can rescue a dull afternoon. Fine has accompanied humanity through meetings, breakups, school lunches, and the realization that the movie we rented is two hours and forty minutes long.

The trouble was that the surrounding excitement had inflated the cookie into a historical figure. By the time I tried it, I expected a revelation. What I got was a familiar crunchy cookie with a filling that tasted vaguely like the collaboration printed on the package. The flavor was recognizable in the way a celebrity impersonator is recognizable: close enough from across the room, less convincing once it starts talking.

I ate three.

Again, criticism is not a hunger strike.

The filling was sweeter than necessary, but sweetness has never been known for respecting boundaries. The texture improved after a short trip to the freezer, though I reject the idea that every snack should require a treatment protocol. If a cookie needs freezing, microwaving, dunking, and a twenty-minute rest at room temperature to become enjoyable, I have not purchased a cookie. I have adopted a project.

I am glad I tried it. I do not miss it. That may be the ideal relationship with a limited-edition product.

The Sparkling Water That Whispered the Name of a Fruit

I have had tap water with a stronger personality than some sparkling waters.

I bought a variety pack because the box showed slices of fruit exploding through bubbles. Based on the artwork, I expected every can to contain a small tropical emergency. Instead, the first flavor tasted like someone had eaten a peach in the same room several hours earlier.

Sparkling water people will tell you that subtlety is the point. They say this while holding a can labeled “mango passionfruit thunderstorm,” which tastes like television static and the concept of yellow.

I do not need sparkling water to become soda. I understand the appeal of something crisp, unsweetened, and refreshing. But there is a difference between subtle flavor and flavor protected by witness relocation. If I have to close my eyes, tilt my head, and consult the ingredients to determine whether I am tasting lime, the lime has failed its assignment.

The berry flavor was better. It had an actual aroma and a faint tartness that survived the carbonation. The grapefruit version was the best of the group, possibly because grapefruit already tastes like a fruit holding a grudge. Its natural bitterness gave the bubbles something to do.

By the end of the pack, I had developed a strange fondness for all of them. Not love, exactly. More like the bond formed between coworkers who survive a badly managed project. I knew their weaknesses. They knew I would keep drinking them because they were cold.

Would I buy the pack again? Probably. This is less an endorsement than an acknowledgment of who I have become.

The Fast-Food Sandwich Built for a Press Release

At some point, every fast-food chain releases a sandwich so overloaded that the menu description needs punctuation.

This one had two sauces, fried onions, cheese, bacon, pickles, and a bun polished to the shine of a showroom vehicle. The promotional photo made it look tall, symmetrical, and structurally sound. The sandwich I received looked as if it had been questioned by authorities.

One side of the bun had slid almost completely off. The sauce had gathered in a corner. Three fried onions had escaped into the wrapper, where they remained technically present but spiritually unavailable. The bacon was arranged with the careless optimism of someone packing for a trip five minutes before leaving.

Still, the first bite was delicious.

Salt, smoke, crunch, acid, fat—every loud flavor arrived at once and began competing for custody of my attention. It was excessive, but excess was the entire business model. This was not a sandwich for contemplation. It was a sandwich designed to interrupt whatever you had been thinking about.

Halfway through, the balance fell apart. The sauce became too sweet, the bacon too salty, and the fried onions softened into little pieces of seasoned rope. The sandwich had made an impressive entrance but had no plan for the rest of the evening.

I finished it while sitting in my car because dignity becomes highly negotiable around hot food. Then I looked at the empty wrapper and experienced the familiar fast-food sequence: satisfaction, heaviness, reflection, and the quiet promise to make different choices next time.

That promise lasted until I saw an advertisement for the next limited-time sandwich.

The Nonalcoholic Drink That Finally Stopped Apologizing

One of the most pleasant surprises was a nonalcoholic canned drink with citrus, herbs, and a little bitterness. Many alcohol-free drinks seem embarrassed by their own existence. They try to imitate beer, wine, or cocktails so closely that every sip becomes a comparison they are destined to lose.

This one did something smarter. It tasted like itself.

There was grapefruit, rosemary, and perhaps ginger. The flavors were sharp without becoming medicinal, and the bitterness gave the drink enough structure to feel deliberate. It was not juice in formal clothing. It was not sparkling water that had briefly passed a lemon on the highway. It had an actual beginning, middle, and finish.

I poured it over ice with a slice of orange and immediately became the kind of person who uses the phrase “a slice of orange.” That is the danger of a good adult beverage: it can convince you that your kitchen is a small private lounge, even when there are unopened envelopes on the counter and the ice maker has been making a noise that suggests a mechanical haunting.

The drink paired beautifully with salty food and with the general desire to have something interesting in my hand without turning the evening into a negotiation with tomorrow morning. I would buy it again, although the price was slightly ambitious. Nonalcoholic beverages sometimes charge as though the missing alcohol has been carefully removed by hand.

Still, it was good enough that I did not feel deprived or virtuous. I was simply drinking something I liked. That should be the goal.

The Protein Snack That Made Me Question the Meaning of “Brownie”

Food companies have become very relaxed about the word “brownie.”

A brownie should be dense, rich, chocolatey, and capable of making a bad day briefly less convincing. The protein snack I tried was a rectangular brown object, so perhaps the legal department decided that was close enough.

The wrapper promised twenty grams of protein and showed chunks of chocolate scattered across the top. My actual bar contained two visible chips, one of which may have been printed on the wrapper and transferred over during manufacturing.

The texture was chewy in the way weather stripping is chewy. Each bite required commitment. The chocolate flavor arrived late and left early, while a powerful artificial sweetness remained behind to turn off the lights. I could taste the nutritional engineering: every ingredient seemed to be covering for another ingredient.

And yet, in the narrow context of protein snacks, it was not terrible. That category grades on a curve so generous it has become a circle. We accept things from protein bars that would get ordinary desserts escorted from the building. A regular brownie could never taste like this and retain its title. Add twenty grams of protein, however, and suddenly we are encouraged to focus on its potential.

I ate the whole thing because I had just exercised and was vulnerable to the idea that suffering should continue.

Would I buy it again? Only if I needed convenient protein and the other choices included tuna in a public setting. As a brownie, it was a scandal. As a portable nutritional brick, it performed adequately.

The Restaurant Dessert I Nearly Skipped

The best thing I tried during this scattered stretch was a dessert I almost did not order.

I was full. The responsible part of my brain had already delivered closing arguments. We had eaten enough. The meal had been good. Coffee would be sufficient. Then the server described a warm butter cake with caramelized edges, vanilla ice cream, and seasonal fruit.

“We can share it,” someone said, which is the traditional phrase used immediately before everyone begins privately calculating fair spoon access.

The cake arrived warm enough to soften the ice cream into a slow white river. The edges were crisp and buttery, the center tender, and the fruit added just enough acidity to let us pretend balance had entered the conversation. It was simple, familiar, and better than several desserts I have eaten that arrived inside smoke, under glass, or beside a decorative smear of sauce.

That dessert reminded me why I keep checking out new food in the first place. It is not just novelty. I do not need every chip to reinvent the potato or every beverage to disrupt hydration. What I am chasing, if I am honest, is that occasional moment when something exceeds the small expectation I placed on it.

Most things are fine. Some are disappointing. A few are so aggressively marketed that eating them feels like fact-checking. But every now and then, I take a bite and become completely present. I stop thinking about my phone, my schedule, the next thing, the unfinished thing, and the thing I forgot to do yesterday. For a few seconds, there is only taste.

That is worth looking for.

Why This Post Took So Long

I could tell you that I delayed writing this because I wanted to give every item thoughtful consideration. That would sound professional. It would also be nonsense.

I delayed it because life became crowded. Because I was tired on days when I technically had time. Because writing about a cookie felt frivolous while serious things were happening, and then I remembered that serious things are always happening. If I wait for the world to become calm before discussing potato chips, the chips and I will both expire.

I also delayed it because unfinished work develops weight. The longer a draft sits untouched, the more important it begins to feel. A simple roundup becomes “the food post I really need to finish,” then “the big catch-up post,” and eventually a haunted property in the back of my mind. Opening the document starts to feel like entering a room where someone has been waiting months to ask where I have been.

The funny part is that once I finally sat down, I remembered how much I enjoy this. Food is ordinary, but our experiences with it rarely are. We bring mood, memory, price, expectation, hunger, company, and timing to every bite. The same frozen pizza can be disappointing on a good afternoon and magnificent after a terrible day. A mediocre cup of coffee can become unforgettable if you drank it somewhere that mattered.

That does not mean taste is meaningless. Some products are genuinely better than others, and some should be required to appear before a panel and explain their pricing. But reviewing food as if I am a laboratory instrument misses half the story. I am not measuring flavor from outside my own life. I am encountering it in the middle of everything else.

That “everything else” is why this roundup arrived late.

It is also what made the roundup worth writing.

Final Crumbs

So there it is: the overdue report from my highly unregulated department of eating and drinking.

The fancy chips were tasty but dramatically overqualified. The cereal fought my mouth and nearly won. The bottled coffee turned autumn décor into a flavor. The frozen pizza earned freezer citizenship. The limited-edition cookie proved that scarcity is often the strongest ingredient. The sparkling water hinted that fruit may have existed once. The fast-food sandwich delivered a thrilling opening statement and then lost the jury. The alcohol-free drink behaved like a complete beverage. The protein “brownie” committed identity theft. And the warm butter cake made me glad I ignored my better judgment.

I wish I could promise that future reviews will arrive promptly. I could also promise to organize the freezer, answer every message immediately, and stop buying products simply because the package says “new.” We all deserve honesty.

The truth is that I will keep trying things. I will keep photographing them from three angles while they get cold. I will keep typing mysterious notes that make perfect sense in the moment and read like intercepted transmissions a month later. I will keep discovering half-finished drafts with titles such as “That Weird Soda,” “Chips??,” and “Good But Why So Wet.”

Eventually, I will catch up again.

Or I will write another post explaining why I did not.

Due to this or that.

Well, you know.