Review: New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves, The Nosh Show, Ep. 20, & Rooting for Your Rival / BCS Predictions
Junk Food Nation, tonight No. 1 Florida State takes on No. 2 Auburn in the East West GoDaddy.com Capital One Sponsored by Michelin Tires Justin Timberlake Discount Doublecheck HingleMcCringleberry BCS Championship Game. This is the final college football game for the season, and it’s a good one – the high powered Florida State offense led by Famous Jameis vs. the SEC-battle-tested Auburn Tigers. Question: who do you think Alabama fans are rooting for?
It’s an age-old question, and one addressed in a previous post: when your team is knocked out, who do you root for? The two options:
(1) Root for the team that knocked you out. That way if they win it all, you can eventually say, “Hey, at least we lost to the eventual champions.” So, Alabama rooting FOR Auburn. OR…
(2) Root against the team that knocked you out. Hell hath no fury like a college football fan scorned.
If I WAS an Alabama fan, I’d be all in on Florida State – screw Auburn. I’m not rooting for my cross-state rival just because they are also SEC. Red Sox fans are never rooting for the Yankees, But that’s me. Who would YOU root for? Tell me in the comments below.
Also, my pick for tonight: I think Florida State takes Auburn. Florida State had not faced a defense like Auburn, but Auburn has also not faced an offense like Florida State’s. I’m giving the edge to FSU, just because.
Meanwhile, THE NOSH SHOW EPISODE 20 IS OUT TODAY:
The Nosh Show!
This week, “In this episode, we talk about Red Velvet M&M’s, Baskin-Robbins Movie Theater Popcorn Ice Cream, White Castle soup, our most-liked products of 2013, and much more.“
You can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, or, if you want to listen in the podcast player of your choice, subscribe to the show’s feed. We’re also available on the Swell Radio app. If you enjoy the show and subscribe to it on iTunes or Stitcher, we would greatly appreciate it if you took the time to rate us. OR just listen to it, embedded above!
Today’s junk food: New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves!
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves: The Money Shot
Junk Food Nation, you love Cheez-Its. I love Cheez-Its. WE ALL LOVE CHEEZ-ITS. And I’ve reviewed plenty on this website. What’s not to love? Cheesy crackers. Yummy.
These New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves are the next in the line of Cheez-It product releases, and appears to be Cheez-It’s foray into the world of cracker chips! Move over, Special K.
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves: 100% real cheese
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves are “thin and crsipy” and are a chip and cracker in one, apparently. I’m betting that the shape of this cracker has nothing to do with it’s general crispiness. Cheez-It probably made this cracker chip, and the marketing peeps thought, “Well, we can’t just call these Cheez-It Chips…we need something else to distinguish it!” So, they rippled the surface. OOOOO.
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves: 140 cal per serving
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves: How is butter the LAST ingredient!?
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves contain both cheddar AND white cheddar. Now THAT’S dedication.
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves: Ripply ripply.
When I opened the box of these New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves, almost NO crackers were broken – almost all of them were pristine, flat squares with a nice ripple to them. They were THINNER than normal Cheez-Its, and I could tell they weren’t flaky like normal Cheez-Its.
Smelled sort of like cheese, but not really. Time to crunch:
New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves: VERY light
HOLY S. These New Cheez-It Sharp White Cheddar Grooves are effing tasty. Sorry for working blue, folks…but these were very good cracker chips.
The texture of these Cheez-Its was definitely different than normal Cheez-Its – gone is the cracker-like flakiness, the way that cracker dough would get stuck in the crook of your mouth. Instead, these were light, crispy/crunchy … so light I almost thought these were a rice cracker (they aren’t). Did they feel like “chips”? I mean, not really – they didn’t feel like Pop Chips or anything. They did, however, crunch loudly like chips.
The flavor? SPOT ON, but that’s no surprise – STRONG white cheddar flavor, just like normal White Cheddar Cheez-Its have. The lightness of the cracker actually made it, I think, a tad more difficult to taste the white cheddar flavor in the cracker itself, but Cheez-It more than made up for it by making the cheese powder on the outside more prevalent. I licked the surface of one of these Grooves and my brain exploded with white cheddar taste. REALLY good.
All in all, I loved these. Truthfully, it’s not THAT innovative – lighter texture, good cheese powder. And I already love Cheez-Its anyways. Still, I think these were a winner.
PURCHASED AT: Walmart
COST: $2.88 on sale
Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 20 Comments
I would NEVER root for the rival. For example,the Packers winning doesn’t make me feel better – da Bearz still lost & the season is over. It doesn’t give me any satisfaction if the NFC North wins playoff games or the Super Bowl. I don’t do that division/conference pride stuff. The small divisions & horrible seeding in the NFL playoffs bothers me a lot. No way should the Eagles or Packers have hosted home games with inferior records. Arizona should have been in the playoffs. It’s a system that will reward or punish you at any year & punishes good teams in tough divisions & rewards weak divisions. I just want a system that’s fair for all.
@MP: I hear you. It looks like they are considering doing the re-seeding, or at least talks have begun. Since the Junk Food Gal is more of a Niners fan than anything else, that’s who I’ve hitched my wagon to this playoff season.
Re: Re-seeding, even as dysfunctional as the NBA is, at least they’ve tried to be progressive with their playoff seeding:
“The NBA announced the current revised playoff seeding system on August 3, 2006. Following the NBA regular season, eight teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs and are seeded one to eight.
The team that has the best record in each of the three divisions in each conference is declared division champion. The three division champions, and another team in the conference with the best record, are seeded one through four by their records. This guarantees the division champions no worse than the fourth seed, and also guarantees the conference’s two best teams (by record) will be the top two seeds even if the second-best team doesn’t win its division. Of the remaining eleven conference teams, the four with the best records are seeded fifth through eighth based on their record.”
I bet they did that because of this: 2005-06 the Denver Nuggets had the 7th best WC record yet were seeded #3 because they won the Northwest division.
If it were up to me, every league would go conference/league standings so the teams with the most wins would go to the playoffs. In the NFL you can still schedule home-and-away old division rivals even without divisions.
I was so disappointed (surprise) when Bud Selig said they wouldn’t scrap divisions but instead added another Wild Card. I don’t like the idea of an inferior team possibly being allowed into the playoffs. The 1-game playoff is ridiculous & just a ruse to keep interest & selling tickets in September.
@MP: Ah, the days when a pennant race WAS a pennant race.
@junkfoodguy
Well that would 1968, a bit before our time 😛 But I’m thinking 1993 – National League. Wow! I’m not even a N.L. guy but that was the last truly great division race & I was totally stoked about it. A 103-win Giants team & they don’t even go to the playoffs! Since 1994, it was so weird to think of a 2nd place team in the playoffs, now we’ve had a 3rd place team. Just scrap divisions, put Houston back in the N.L.,get rid of Interleague Play, go back to a balanced schedule, take the top 4 teams for the playoffs, schedule a few Summer doubleheaders so the season isn’t starting/ending so early/late, get rid of the D.H. & it’ll be golden. Oh and more training & accountability for the umpires – this is MLB, not a video game!
@MP: Oh wait…I think I was more thinking of the pre-1994 days, when there were only 2 divisions per league, so the pennant race aspect was still MORE intact.
I agree with most of your wishes for how baseball should change back, but it’s clear this is what we’re stuck with. I still think interleague could be done away with, though
It depends on the level of the rivalry. For example, I’m a Packers fan and would never ever root for the Bears under any circumstances and I think Alabama fans feel the same way about Auburn. But sometimes I will root for the team that knocked my team out if there is no real animosity. I rooted for the Giants in 2007 when they beat the Pack in the NFC title game because I disliked the Patriots much more. But I rooted against the Giants when they knocked us out two years ago because I was tired of losing to the Giants at home in the playoffs. Now I will be rooting hard against the 49ers for the same reason. Plus, how could anyone root for Jim Harbaugh? The guy is a grade A douche.
@Justin: Yes, I can see your point. As a Yanks fan, I’m not rooting for the Red Sox EVER…but if NYY was knocked out by, say, Oakland, and then Oakland went on to play the Giants in the WS, I don’t have the same level of vitriol.
But yes, Alabama fans are probably donning FSU gear as we speak.
Why oh why are you doing this to me?? I had hoped you would say that (somehow!) these would be bad… but now that I know that they really are good, and I’m going to have to try them. And my self control around cheez-its (especially white cheddar) is literally nonexistent… I will eat the entire box in two days… Thank goodness I’m training for a half marathon!
Also, I LOVE this blog!
@Ryan: Thanks for reading! And yes, these were very very good – sorry! 😛
Good luck on the half marathon!
Growing up in Boston, you learn at a very young age, that while you can respect your team’s rivals, you can never root for them. As such, I can never root for the Lakers or Yankees. However, I did like that Shaq and Kobe teams so while I couldn’t root for them, I didn’t root against them.
@Eric: Boston, huh? But how did you feel about OTHER rivals growing up, like…the Dolphins? Or…the Orioles?
Pardon me for squealing like a 12 year old, but OMG! I bought a box of these from a Giant (on sale, 2 for $6) and was not disappointed. The perfect pairing of the cheesy deliciousness that is the Cheez-it and the crispness of … well … a crisp. Love love love.
@Steve: GOOD! Glad my endorsement was correct 🙂
I’m not usually a cracker person but holy shit, these crackers are amazing! They were 50% off at Target and I ended up buying 4 boxes and have consumed them all in the matter of a couple of weeks.
I’m actually eating some right now…
@Laurie: Oh yes – everyone I know who has tried these have been OBSESSED
This is the same recipe as the Keebler Munch ‘Ems from the mid 1990’s. Delicious.
@Jocko: I USED TO LOVE MUNCH EMS
Somebody knows if this product is baked or fried ?? Please let me know. Thanks
Just tried the Cheez-it ridged cheddar crackers that you rave about and they’re horrible. Actual Cheez-its I love. These have a cloying, almost acrid fake cheese taste to them, and no, they haven’t expired.