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Food Food & Drink

In search of the best potato chips on Torontos Just Chips podcast

Potato chips are arguably one of the tastiest, most versatile food groups ever created. Drinking wine or beer? Buy chips! Getting a snack-attack at 2 am? Eat chips! Cant decide if youre craving sweet or salty? Make rice crispy squares with chips! (Try it, you wont be mad about it.)

But for two Toronto BFFs, their chip obsession runs much deeper. Sophia LePage and Zoe Robertson are the voices behind Just Chips Dot Com, a locally produced potato-chip themed podcast. In each half-hour episode, LePage and Robertson critique two flavours of chips while riffing on pop culture, Canadiana and whatever else comes to mind.

In one episode, theyre munching on crab chips with Chesapeake Bay Seasoning, which leads to calling up a marine scientist friend and talking about pirates. In another, theyre eating pizza-flavoured chips from Greenland while discussing memes and teens. Its the kind of lighthearted but oddly contemplative conversations you expect to have with your own girlfriends over a bag of chips. By the end of a few episodes, Im hooked and I want to hang out and eat chips with these girls.

So who are these chip queens of TO? LePage and Robertson are both 26 and have been friends their entire lives. Neither of them had previous experience podcasting, but after Robertson received a Zoom recorder for documentary filmmaking, they decided to test out its audio production capabilities, and a podcast was born.

Initially, we thought that a podcast about boy bands would be fun, but chips are more…timeless, LePage explains.

You can talk about chips with almost anyone, Robertson adds. They’re a great conversation starter, believe it or not.

This, of course, is completely true. Everyone has a favourite flavour of chips. For me, its Calbee barbeque flavoured chips and Miss Vickies lime and black pepper (I know, Im an odd duck). For LePage and Robertson, its Hawkins Cheezies (a classic choice) and Covered Bridge creamy dill pickle. But despite their preferences, they swear they critique chips completely without bias and with open minds. Theyre particularly interested in trying chips from outside of North America.

We just got a box of about 10 bags of chips in the mail from our friend traveling in Japan. It intriguingly features Eggs Benedict flavour, LePage says. There’s so many flavours out there. We thought the subject matter would be kind of never-ending.

Theyre not alone in their chip adoration either. One episode features musician Alan Doyle, a self-described chip connoisseur (who knew?!), while the most recent episode has Nirvanna the Band the Show creators Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol joining LePage and Robertson in the studio.

People have very strong opinions about chips, Robertson adds.

Their dream guests on the podcast include the likes of Rihanna, Celine Dion, Dwayne Johnson, the entire original cast of Lord of the Rings and, interestingly enough, Keanu Reeves.

We talk about Keanu fairly regularly, Robertson says. Wed love to chip-chat with him.

Listen on iTunes.

michelled@nowtoronto.com | @michdas

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