Classy Delites

Classy Delites is a family based business based in Austin, Texas. All of their products combine quality ingredients to create unforgettable offerings.

We first met them at the San Francisco Fancy Foods Show several years back and were hooked by their unique and delicious offerings. Since then we have featured several of their items - mostly for our Chips and Salsa of the Month Club.

Their Aztec Salsa combines black beans with roasted corn to make one of our favorite bean based salsas. In fact, once opened, a jar usually has a 15-20 minute lifespan. Brandon in the warehouse loves this stuff so much that we have to hide it when it comes in so that we have enough for our customers.

Their Mango Salsa has loads of sunny mangos, zesty jalapenos, fresh garlic, sweet onions, and roma tomatoes highlighted with fresh ginger, fresh cilantro, and aged Balsamic vinegar – great with chips or as an accompaniment to grilled chicken.

Their Jamaican Salsa is the most unique of their salsas (and probably one of the more unique ones we have ever featured). It combines the spices of Jamaica with fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, onions, lots of carrots, fire roasted red chile peppers, fresh serranos, smoky chipotles, and roasted garlic.

They also have a Tortilla Chip that is as exceptional as it is unique. They call them Tweeds and they are made out of corn, flax seed and sesame seed. They also make an even more unique version with coconut.

Potato Chips from Europe!

We first ran into LantChips at the Winter Fancy Foods Show in San Francisco several years ago. The folks in the booth had literally just flown in from Sweden just to do the show. Due to a shipping issue, their booth was make shift and they only had their Original and Sour Cream and Onion to sample. But that was all we needed to be interested in this chip.

So we decided we wanted to feature this chip. The only problem was that it wasn't available in the US yet. In fact quite a few international vendors attend these food shows to identify distributors and/or producers and this was the case with them. We kept in touch and they eventually set up a production and distribution arrangement with Utah Chips and we were able to feature them. The only places we have seen these pop up in the US since are online at Amazon or at Ikea stores.

They also own US distribution rights to another unique chip maker based in England called Jonathan Crisps. In the US, however, they are marketed as Imperial Crisps. They even sent us a sample of these from Sweden before they were even being produced for the US. The flavors are truly unique: Black Pepper & Ginger, Black Olive & Garlic, Mature Cheddar & Red Onion, Sundried Tomato & Basil, Horseradish & Sour Cream, Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar, Parsnip Crisps and Parsnip, Beetroot & Sweet Potato. You can also find some of these varieties online at Amazon.

Also from the UK, we just recently featured Tyrrells chips. These chips were all the rage at last Summer's New York Fancy Foods Show. We saw these at several distributors over the span of several days. And if you think the Jonathan Crisps flavors were unique, check these out: Worcester Sauce with Sun Dried Tomatoes, Spicy Jalapeno Chile & Lemon, Mature Cheddar & Chives, Thai Curry & Coriander, Cider Vinegar & Sea Salt and Ludlow Sausage with Wholegrain Mustard (pictured). The only place that I have seen these available online in the US is at Chelsea Market Baskets.

For our Potato Chip of the Month Club recently, we shipped an assortment with nine different varieties from these three companies.

Tony Packo’s

The son of Hungarian immigrants, Tony Packo was a native East Toledoan. Tony was born in 1908, just a stone's throw from Consaul and Genesee streets. Tony Packo started out as a factory worker. That all changed when, in 1932, he and his wife got a $100 loan from relatives. No small feat, mind you, for this was during the hardest of hard times, the first years of the Great Depression. That same year he opened a sandwich and ice cream shop just around the corner from the place he was born. Tony had learned the restaurant business working for his older brother John, who owned a place across Consaul Street in what is now Tony Packo's parking lot. There was no beer at Packo's that first year. Prohibition would not be lifted until 1933.

Because Tony was Hungarian-American and lived in a Hungarian neighborhood, Tony’s creation was called the Hungarian hot dog. Until Toledo-born Tony invented it, there was no such thing as a Hungarian hot dog, say those who know the Old Country's food.Packo's food was an instant hit in the neighborhood. Within months of opening, Tony and Rose knocked out a wall and expanded their first shop, in what is now called the Consaul Tavern. By 1935, success had taken them to the point where they could buy a building of their own. They purchased the wedge-shaped establishment at Front and Consaul. The building houses part of today's Tony Packo's, but with a few more additions. The restaurant is still run by the Packo family…Tony and Rose's children; Tony Jr. and Nancy, and Nancy's son, Robin.

Their biggest leap in fame came on Feb. 24, 1976 when Jamie Farr read the lines "If you're ever in Toledo, Ohio, on the Hungarian side of town, Tony Packo's got the greatest Hungarian hot dogs. Thirty-five cents..." on the television show M*A*S*H. The name appealed to the scriptwriters, who wrote Packo's into five subsequent episodes. In one show, the mobile hospital unit asked Packo's to send sausage casings to be used in a blood-filtering machine. Packo's was also mentioned in the two-and-a-half-hour final episode in 1983.

Of course the most important part of Packo's is the food! We have tried many of their retail offerings and they are all very good. But our hands down favorite is their Original Pickles & Peppers. They combine a very nice mix of sweet and spice to create a pickle that is out of this world. In fact, this pickle is so good that one of our friends who hates pickles actually asked us to get him a few jars (we almost had to force him to try one). You can get these delicious pickle regionally in some grocery stores, online at http://www.tonypackos.com/ or if you are a member of the Pickle of the Month Club (these are usually featured every year in the January-March time frame).

CHeRiTH VaLLeY

CHeRiTH VaLLeY gardens is a family owned and operated business located in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1986, Alan Werner was a principal in an independent oil company, which funded, drilled and operated gas and oil wells in West Texas . The stock market plunge of October 1987 precipitated the eventual collapse of the company. At that time Alan and his family began gardening in order to produce vegetables to feed the family. They prepared the soil, planted, watered, weeded, harvested and canned a garden's bounty for the year's consumption. After using their canned items as gifts, they were strongly encouraged to market their specialty products. All of the recipes for their product line have been developed from old as well as new family recipes. On May 8, 1993 , they officially produced the first CHeRiTH VaLLeY gardens product.

Their product line is varied and we have had the good fortune of sampling many of their offerings. Ultimately, we have featured a number of their products in several of our clubs. Here are a just a few of the stand outs:

• Mustard of the Month Club: if I had to estimate, we have featured over 50 different mustards from over thirty different companies. Of all of these, one has gotten the most favorable response from our customers. It is their Raspberry Wasabi Mustard. This is one you will always find in our refrigerator - I use it on everything, sandwiches, burgers, brats, as a pretzel dip - can't say enough about this mustard! (Note: you won't find this mustard on their website at this time, but you can order it from them via phone.)
• Pickle of the Month Club: they offer a nice variety of pickled veggies and we really enjoyed their pint size pickles that are made from their Grandmother's recipe. They have three sizes: pint, quart and half gallon. The two larger sizes are whole dills while the smaller pint size is sliced. This is the only size we have tried and they were gone in one sitting - slightly spicy, they are totally addictive!
• Salsa of the Month Club: they offer ten different salsas and we have sampled them all though we have not featured them yet. Why? Partly scheduling, but mostly because several of these salsas are just too unique for our customer base (we look for unique, but not so unique that some customers may be turned off). For instance - I love green olives whole, but not in my salsas. They have a Green Olive Salsa that I tried, but that was it - no way - not for me! We sampled their salsas at a group gathering several weeks ago. Top three: Mango Habanero, Raspberry Cilantro and Black Bean. Most unique: Green Olive, Roasted Pepper, Garlic, Mango Lime.
• Jelly of the Month Club: Last month we featured two of their jellies: their Mimosa Jelly is made with orange juice, oranges and champagne and their Margarita Jelly is made with fresh limes, tequila and all!
• We have also featured their products for our Olive of the Month Club and our BBQ Sauce of the Month Club.

Big John's Beef Jerky

Based in York, PA, Big John's Beef Jerky has been a regular on the Beef Jerky of the Month Club rotation for many years and is a personal favorite of mine. Big John is just a guy who knows how to make great tasting jerky. It was his daughter Renee and her husband Bill Lenzer that made it a business in the summer of 2000. Big John's job is product development and (of course) quality control while Renee and Bill run the business end of things.

All of their Beef Jerky is made in small batches by hand using Big John’s time-tested method -- without the use of big processing machines. They use only lean, top round beef that is hand sliced and marinated all day in a secret blend of spices. After making sure every piece is seasoned just right, they slow smoke it with real Hickory -- not liquid smoke or artificial flavors. It is then cut into easy to eat strips - something that makes them different from other jerkys we have tried - most make the cuts before they smoke rather then after - this seems to preserve the true meat/smoke flavor that tends to get covered up by the marinade or glaze in other jerkys.

They have four varieties: Original, Teriyaki, BBQ and Fiery Hot. I have tried them all and think they are all great - I like the spicy because it is a really nice heat - not too hot like some others on the market that drown the meat in spice so much that you can't even appreciate the meat.