Junk Food Nation! Sorry for the late start on the day 🙂 I guess I was just tired since there was a football game STARTING AT 11:30PM EST LAST NIGHT.  I am, of course, referring to the Chargers-Raiders game that was played at 8:30pm last night on the West Coast, so that East Coast viewers had to tune in close to midnight to get all of their Philip Rivers man crushing worked out.  And I’ve said it many times on this blog before: I’m an old man.  I can barely stay awake when MNF starts at 9:00pm…but start a game at close to midnight?  I mean…………DID *ANYONE* WATCH THIS GAME?

Although I’m sure that the Niners playing at home on one side of the bay and the Raiders playing at home on the other side of the bay caused great distress to the media moguls in charge, worried about splitting audiences, the purported reason for the delay of the football game was: The Oakland A’s were playing on Saturday, and the field needed 24+ hours to recover…so the Raiders couldn’t play until Sunday night.  Oh, that’s right, you should know that Oakland is the LAST REMAINING CITY that still has their baseball and football teams share a stadium.  So they are the only city ever having to deal with this stadium issue. So that’s awesome…for no one.

Check out this fast motion video of the baseball field being converted to football over the weekend:

It’s pretty amazing, right? I’ve watched it five times now and have caught new things each time. Meanwhile, THE NOSH SHOW EPISODE 14 IS OUT:

This week, “we talk Halloween and candy with Cybele from Candy Blog, discuss Jack in the Box Munchie Meals, and express what we think about two new M&M’s varieties we won’t be able to taste until mid-2014. We also share our Noshes of the Week, Marvo and Dubba admit to having new addictions, Ryan apologizes to Target, and Eric gets sugar all over his hands.”

To stay on top of The Nosh Show, you can subscribe to The Nosh Show on iTunes. Or if you don’t use iTunes, you can use this link to subscribe using your podcast player of choice. You can also follow The Nosh Show on its own blog, Twitter, and Facebook page.  OR just listen to it, embedded above!

Today’s junk food: caramel sauces from Spoonable, Brooklyn’s Saucy Caramel!

Spoonable, Brooklyn’s Saucy Caramel, was a company I met / learned about at this year’s Fancy Food Show!   At the time, I described them as a Caramel Sauce company that got it RIGHT.  I have to admit, I don’t really any great uses for caramel sauce myself, other than eating it straight out of the jar.  I’m afraid that eating it on ice cream with tarnish its amazingly pure flavor, but maybe I’m just crazy.  Their website says to eat it on a variety of things, from crackers to brie to ice cream.

Me? I’m content to ladle spoonfuls of this sugary heaven in my mouth.  At the fancy food show, I didn’t know what to expect – I mean, I’ve had caramel sauce at ice cream joints before and didn’t really go gaga for it.  But after just one small stickful of this awesome sauce, my mind was BLOWN.  I managed to finagle myself a jar of their signature sauce, and convince the reps to give me three mini jars of other flavors.  Here we go.

Let’s start with Spoonable Salty Caramel!

Spoonable Salty Caramel is their signature sauce, and it is perfection in a jar.  Seriously – the sauce itself had a smooth consistency, and was very light in weight.  This was not dense like a spread, but not super watery like a syrup.  This caramel sauce was somewhere in between, flowing off my knife in beautiful fashion while still having enough thickness to coat whatever it touched.

The taste was equally heavenly – the most perfect burnt sugar flavor, with an epic amount of buttery flavor.  This could almost be mistaken for butterscotch if it wasn’t for the beautiful salty flavor it also had, providing the most perfect balance between salty and sweet.  As Junk Food Gal put it, sort of like a melted Werther’s Original but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better.  I agree.  This is currently my #1 caramel sauce. Hands down.  There is absolutely no way ANYONE doesn’t like this. It’s impossible.

Next up: Spoonable Chewy Sesame Caramel!

Spoonable Chewy Sesame Caramel had a deeper sugary flavor than the Salty Caramel, and wasn’t as salty.  Instead, the thicker sauce had bits of crispy sesame in it which helped pump some BIG sesame flavor into the product. I say “crispy” sesame because the sauce definitely has texture – these weren’t waterlogged bits of sesame.  The overall taste sort of reminded me of those Asian sesame chews, but with much more caramel flavor, obviously.  But that really strong sesame flavor was present, and very tasty.  Thumbs up.

Third up: Spoonable Flowery Lavender Caramel!

Spoonable Flowery Lavender Caramel was not the favorite of the Junk Food Gal, but I rather enjoyed it.  Upon opening the container and pressing my nose to the edge, there was definite smell of lavender.  Like, the flower.  Yeah.  It was strong.

Upon sampling this smooth caramel, it had an almost citrus-y tang that eventually dissolved into a strong flowery lavender flavor!  Very fragrant, both to the nose and to the tongue.  I didn’t mind it – I thought it taste like sweet caramel with a flowery aftertaste.  Junk Food Gal was….well, not a fan.  To each their own.

Lastly: Spoonable Spicy Chili Caramel!

Spoonable Spicy Chili Caramel did win over the Junk Food Gal, as the deep caramel taste here was accented with three types of chilies – cayenne, ancho, and pasilla chilies.  The bits of peppers littered this sauce, and gave the overall caramel an almost tamarind-raisin-y taste.  It was fascinating.  There was a tiny burn in my throat, but the backdrop flavor was still a luscious caramel.  Really REALLY good.

So there you have it!  My review of four types of Spoonable Sauce.  Hope you have a chance to taste it someday – and really, I CHALLENGE you to not just place big globs of this in your mouth with no other food.  IT’S DIFFICULT!

PURCHASED AT: Here’s where to buy Spoonable online 

COST: $8.50 per jar

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy