Junk Food Nation, it’s 5/4, and I’m exhausted with all the Star Wars Day jokes out there already. Yes yes, May the Fourth be with you too.

MONDAY QUESTION TIME/OPINION POLL FOR YOU, JUNK FOOD NATION: Do you like burnt Cheez-Its? You know, that darkened Cheez-It cracker with burnt edges that you find in various boxes? If you’re a Cheez-It fan, like me (I can go through a box in one day), then you know what I’m talking about. Because I LOVE THOSE – it’s the same reason we like the burnt edges of brownies and the slightly burnt rice in the bottom of a paella pot. Extra toasted = extra delicious.

Well, on this week’s Nosh Show (below), we discussed something coming soon in the Cheez-It world: EXTRA TOASTY CHEEZ-ITS. Via its Vine account, Cheez-It debuted this new snack which is “a box of nothing but wonderfully overcooked Cheez-Its.”

According to this article: “Fun fact,” said Dick Podiak, senior director of Cheez-It marketing, “the most requested new flavor from people who call into our customer hotline is to add an ‘extra toasty’ flavor. We know that people literally dig through the box to get to the extra toasty ones. People have requested we make ‘extra toasty’ a flavor for almost 10 years, so, we added it to our Cheez-It family.”

YES. I would be one of those people loving this. The other dudes on the Nosh Show (1) never heard of such a thing as burnt Cheez-Its, and (2) couldn’t imagine wanting a box of them. They acted like *I* was the weird one! This, of course, following 2 of 4 show hosts never hearing of putting bread butter on cold sandwiches, and one host thinking that Cheetos were the puff-version, not the crunchy-version, by default. You can hear their doubts in today’s Nosh Show.

SO, I put it to YOU, Junk Food Nation: Burnt Cheez-Its. Yay or nay? Am I on an island here? I can’t be the only Cheez-It lover who knows about / wants a box full of these darkened crackers. OR AM I? Let me know in the comments below.

ALSO, I have Round 2 NBA Predictions up! They are after the review, for you sports fans.

Meanwhile, EPISODE 54 OF THE NOSH SHOW IS HERE!

For the uninitiated, The Nosh Show is a podcast started by Marvo from The Impulsive Buy, featuring Ryan from GrubGrade, Dubba from On Second Scoop, and, of course, me, your friendly neighborhood Junk Food Guy.  And today marks the release of The Nosh Show, Episode 53: Extra Toasty.

This week, “we talk about Limited Edition Brownie Batter Oreo, Pepperidge Farm Cheeseburger Goldfish Crackers, Brach’s Peanut Butter Cup Candy Corn, Taco Bell Potato Crisp Nachos, and much more.”  You can listen embedded here:

You can subscribe to The Nosh Show using various services: iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, RSS, or, you can also download the episode.

Today’s junk food: Limited Time Only Doritos Roulette!!

I learned that these Limited Time Only Doritos Roulette were available first in Canada, then The Impulsive Buy spotlighted that they were released here in the US! So I HAD to have them, the Dorito lover that I am. The concept is simple: In a bag of seemingly normal Nacho Cheese-looking Doritos, there will be a super spicy ones hidden throughout; therefore, eating them will be like Russian Roulette! Is this one spicy, or isn’t it??  OOOO FUN FACTOR.

Roulette is one of those games at casinos that, while you’re playing it, you’re thinking WHY AM I PLAYING THIS. You lay out a scattershot 15 chips over a bunch of numbers and corners, and when one hits, you’re like, “Oh, ok, that wasn’t so hard.” When your number doesn’t hit and they sweep all your chips into that big sinkhole in the corner, you wanna flip the table over. Finally, you’re down to your last, like, ten chips, and then one hits again. STOP TOYING WITH ME, ROULETTE WHEEL. Staring at a ball go round and round? It’s the dumbest way to lose $200 over the course of an hour.

My first thoughts when heading into this bag of Limited Time Only Doritos Roulette: (1) SURELY I’ll be able to tell which ones are hot and which ones are not, right? The hot ones will be, like, super red, and the not hot ones will be pale. And (2) How hot could these chips really be? Often times chips claim to be INFERNO (I’m looking at you, Takis), when they aren’t THAT spicy at all. Is this gonna be a letdown, Doritos?

Hmmmmm…..I don’t see any jalapenos, habaneros, ghost peppers, or just gobs of capcaisin listed in the ingredients of these Limited Time Only Doritos Roulette. Suspicious.

Smelling this open bag of Limited Time Only Doritos Roulette, the Junk Food Gal agreed – it just smelled like a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. The chips themselves looked like Nacho Cheese Doritos. I thought I could spot the hot chips – “These have little red flecks on them!” When I realized that they ALL had little red flecks on them. “These are…darker? More powder?” There was no rhyme or reason. I couldn’t take it anymore, and popped one in my mouth.

OMG FIRE. Ok, well, Doritos answered one question: YES, these are very hot. Even fore me. The first chip I got was spicy, and I thought, “Ok, that’s not that bad…wait, what…WHAT IS HAPPENING!?” The burn grew and grew until I had to cough a little. The spice factor on the “hot” chip was significant; definitely more spicy than other self-proclaimed “hot” chips. I guess I forgot that Doritos had a previous line of “Third Degree Burn,” etc., chips so they KNOW how to make things hot. WOW. Was not expecting that.

Flavor wise, the hot chip didn’t taste that different from the regular Doritos which I ate two or three of after the hot chip. The regular chips were just that – normal Nacho Cheese Doritos. No spice. Creamy flavor. The hot chips were just that two, and then a fireball emerged. No truly “different” taste, like an extra cayenne kick or tang or anything. Just SPICY SPICY SPICY on top of the cheese flavor.

See the picture above? Left one was the spicy one. The right one was not. THEY LOOKED EXACTLY THE SAME. WTF, DORITOS. YOU ARE EVIL.

But, I loved these. What a great idea! Fun factor all the way. One note: After a few normal chips, and a few hot chips, EVERYTHING just tasted like a spicy Doritos. Because my mouth was consistently tingling, it was hard to tell eventually which ones were spicy and which weren’t. So that was a weird side-effect.

But all in all, THUMBS UP! Not for those with weak tongues.

PURCHASED AT: Walmart, Germantown, MD

COST: $2.50

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Ah, you stuck around junk food & sports fans! Thanks. Let’s recap my Round 1 Predictions:

JFG: Hawks over Nets in 6. Actual: Hawks over Nets in 6! WINNER!

JFG: Cavs over Celts in 5. Actual: Cavs over Celts in 4. Would’ve been 5 if Olynyk had ripped out Kevin Love’s arm earlier.

JFG: Bulls over Bucks in 5. Actual: Bulls over Bucks in 6. That was my biggest Round 1 takeaway – Milwaukee actually DOES have talent. If they had had Jabari Parker? Oof. This is team with an up-pointing arrow next year.

JFG: Wizards over Raptors in 7. Actual: WIZ SWEEP THE RAPTORS. BOOM. CHRIS PRATT ON A MOTORCYCLE WITH VELOCIRAPTORS. Sorry, I got lost in the moment there. Didn’t expect the sweep at all.

JFG: Warriors over Pelicans in 6. Actual: Warriors sweep. Despite no real size threat, Golden State owned the birds. Anthony Davis needs a second star there….and it ain’t Tyreke Evans.

JFG: Mavericks over Rockets in 7. Actual: Rockets over Mavs in 5. OMG, Rajon Rondo what have you done? Single handedly submarined this team. My friend Mike informed me that the players on the Mavs voted to NOT give Rondo his playoff share. That’s how dysfunctional the team ended up. I was really wrong. Houston looked really good. Blah. Moving on.

JFG: Spurs over Clippers in 6. Actual: Clips over Spurs in 7. The closest matchup, it took a Chris Paul legendary shot to put the Clips over the top. Rough one, San Antonio.

JFG: Grizzlies over Blazers in 5. Actual: Grizzlies over Blazers in 5! WINNER!

Not bad – 6 of 8 were winners, and nailed the number of games in two series. Let’s onto the NBA Round 2 Predictions!

HAWKS VS WIZARDS: Here’s the question that will appear in all these predictions: was Team A really that good in Round 1? Or was their opponent just that bad? Were the Wiz actually good, or were the Raptors that bad? It’s tough – in the Wiz situation, it’s a little of both. With Atlanta, though, it made no sense that they struggled at times against the lowly Nets. The Hawks really on consistent sets to get their long range shooters open… but when they miss there’s no backup plays. There’s no one who can take over. The Wizards rank Top 10 in the league on defense.  This will be a battle of a series, but I’m gonna give it to the Wizards over the Hawks in 6. (Injury caveat: If Bradley Beal is out for significant time, the swing goes back to Atlanta.)

CAVS VS BULLS: OOOOO tough call. The Bulls have been playing with a fire that is hard to stop. Once they woke up against Milwaukee, they destroyed them by 50 pts. The Cavs are without Kevin Love AND JR Smith. Cavs own the season series 3-1. Ack…I dunno. I picked Cleveland in my preseason predictions, but this is really a 50-50 ball for me. Lebron is going to have to shine if they want to pull it out. I actually think the Love injury doesn’t affect them THAT much. I hate it, but I’ll say Cavs over Bulls in 7.

WARRIORS VS GRIZZLIES: I’m sticking with the Warriors here, and it’s not just because they won yesterday handedly. While I knew Memphis had a balanced attack, it all turns on Mike Conley for me. Like I’ve mentioned before, he’s completely overlooked when it comes to top point guards, and you saw what happened to the Grizz when he was out – they looked POO POO. For every game he is out, the Grizz will lose. I think he’ll sit out the next game too (Grizz loss), will try to play at less than 100% in Game 3 (Grizz loss) and will be spent trying to survive in Game 4 (Grizz loss.) Yes, I am predicting a Golden State sweep. And it’s not Conley’s fault…he’s just injured.

ROCKETS VS CLIPPERS: During the last six weeks or something of the NBA season, the Clippers had the second best record in basketball. The first? The Spurs. You just saw two amazing teams battle it for seven games coming down to the final shot. Meanwhile, the Rockets beat the crap out of a Dallas team that had a loose cannon point guard and without Chandler Parsons. Is Houston that good or is Dallas that bad? The Spurs and Clippers looked broken against each other…but it was two heavyweights fighting. ESPN for the most part has chosen the Clippers to continue their run, but I’m going with Houston here. This is a hard one to choose, because I think the Clippers actually have a deeper team than Houston (which is crazy because I think the Clippers bench stinks). But I just figure James Harden is going to play every single minute of every game. The one x-factor is Dwight Howard – the Clippers have physical size in Griffin/Jordan, and if they dominate stupid Howard early, this could be tough. Still, I’ll give it to Houston in 7. But the Clips aren’t going to be a pushover.

Well, there you go. Enjoy this next round, JFNation!  And share with me YOUR Round 2 Predictions in the comments below!

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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