Junk Food Nation, Happy Monday.  After the Polar Vortex last week, today DC is sunny as sunny can be. While still feeling like 37 degrees outside. DAMN YOU MID ATLANTIC WEATHER SYSTEMS.  Grrrr.

1. Nation, you have two days left to enter my MunchPak contest! An entire international/US snack box, sent to your door – Go here for the details. I’m getting MORE Twitter entries, but NOT ENOUGH.  Move that finger, click that pic, and start tweeting me!

2. The NFL Divisional Playoffs ended up the best way possible, unless you’re from San Diego, Carolina, New Orleans, and Indianapolis.  We’ll do predictions later this week, but this weekend will really feature two compelling but different story lines – the AFC featuring two HOF QB led offenses, and the NFC featuring smashmouth defenses and the new wave of young mobile QBs.  Whoever wins, the Super Bowl will be a little old school vs. new school.  Love it.

3. The Golden Globes were last night!  I was so distracted, I didn’t even remember.  Did people get snubbed?  Did you feel there was an injustice anywhere during the awards? How did Tina Fey and Amy Poehler do hosting? Let me know in the comments below.

4. Part of the reason I missed the Golden Globes last night was because I was too busy watching the 60 Minutes circus covering the A-Rod/Anthony Bosch relationship.  I’ll comment more about this tomorrow (probably), but a question for baseball folks out there: is it possible that A-Rod has now passed Barry Bonds for Baseball-PED-Using-Enemy-#1? I’m no historian, but I feel like the public sentiment towards A-Rod has been even more vitriolic than when Bonds was facing the heat.  It reminds me of how the public turned on Dwight Howard free agency fiasco even more than Lebron’s “Decision.” The only thing people hate more than a jerk…is a whiny jerk.  Let me know what you think below.

Today’s junk food: Snyder’s of Hanover Korn Krunchers!

Doctor Sis tipped me off to these Snyder’s of Hanover Korn Krunchers last week, and I finally had a chance to go to the Harris Teeter near me and pick them up.  Snyder’s, getting into the corn snack game? But, the pretzel game ain’t won yet, fools!  Take down Rold Gold and THEN move onto corn!  God, have you never played Risk before?  You just build up on Papua New Guinea and then take over the world!!

Well, whatever. These Korn Krunchers aren’t up on Snyder’s website yet, but they are on the parent company’s website, Snyder’s-Lance (press release is here).  I’m not sure – are these meant to compete with Corn Nuts? With Doritos, with Cheetos?  And why name them after a metal band from the early 90’s?

Time to taste – First up: Snyder’s of Hanover Barbeque Korn Krunchers!

First of all, let me say that of recent, I’ve been OFF BBQ-flavored snacks.  I don’t know why – I’d had so many of them, and so many had disappointed, that maybe I grew weary of BBQ flavoring, prferring to instead just eat real meat BBQ.  But these Snyder’s of Hanover Barbeque Korn Krunchers were pretty. Damn. Good. (If you like BBQ snacks).

The pieces themselves looked just like the traditional Snyder’s Pretzel pieces – large chunks of carbs, seared and doused with powder.  They were plenty crunching – not unlike pretzel pieces.  In fact, in looking at the ingredients, this was basically a MIX of both regular flour and corn meal – so these weren’t Cheeto-like at all.  They felt, and chewed, like pretzel chunks.

The barbeque flavor was good; very sweet, and VERY smoky.  That added smokiness must’ve been due to the Worcestershire sauce, which was an AWESOME addition.  Good smoke, and the flavor had a tiiiiny bit of heat at the end too.  In some ways, it tasted like the BBQ sauce that I dip McNuggets in at McDonald’s.

Best of all, there WAS a small sweet corn flavor that DID come through as I chewed.  Perhaps it was the sweetness of the BBQ sauce too, but the sweet corn flavor wasn’t hidden.  Really pretty tasty.  I liked these a lot.

Next up: Snyder’s of Hanover Nacho Grande Korn Krunchers!

Like the barbeque variety, these Snyder’s of Hanover Nacho Grande Korn Krunchers were very krunchy, and chewed like pretzel pieces, not like a Cheeto.  Since this flavor was not sweet, I didn’t get any corn flavor, unfortunately.

The first flavor I got was the nacho cheese flavor, immediately.  It had a combination of veggie and jalapeno spices in it that, honestly, sort of reminded me of Pizza-flavored Combos – no joke!  It was the combo of nacho cheese and tomato/chilis that definitely reminded me of typical ro-tel and Velvetta mixed together, to form the perfect gooey spicy nacho cheese dip. Other flavors I tasted: a cumin-y, almost taco-seasoning flavor.  Fit right in.

Then the jalapeno spice kicked in.  WOOO.  Slow at first, but then grew AND GREW.  These were pretty spicy!  I wasn’t chugging milk or anything, but the spice really lingered, and made my taste buds tingle for minutes after swallowing.  I had to stop eating them after a while, the spice afterburn starting to mask some of the flavor.  I didn’t like that part of it.

This Nacho Grande flavor was pretty good, but once the peppery taste started to overwhelm, I didn’t like them as much.  Between the two flavors, I enjoyed the Barbeque flavor more, so I’d opt to buy those first.  I’d give the BBQ flavor an A, the Nacho Grande flavor a B+.

PURCHASED AT: Harris Teeter

COST: Regular Price, $3.69, but with a sale plus coupon, I paid $1.50 a bag (woot woot!)

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