I love bone-in chicken.  It is so much more flavorful than its boneless and skinless cousin.  Not that the latter doesn’t have its place, but for putting on the barbie, bone-in rocks.  And that’s what we had tonight.  With corn-on-the-cob, roasted potatoes, and baked beans.  Perfect almost-officially-Summer fare.

I used the Wegmans Memphis BBQ Sauce which, I’m beginning to think after several uses, is merely okay.  I like the fact that it has clean ingredients – no high fructose corn syrup and the like – but I’m thinking I want something a bit bolder.  Memphis-style (at least out of a bottle) just isn’t strong enough for my tastes.  It gets lost on the grill.  I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Memphis in person – other than the airport, that is.  I’m sure that I’d be swooning over any number of BBQ joints, in person, but simply coming out of a bottle has me wanting to reach for something to doctor it up a bit.

Which actually leads me to another thought.  I am increasingly realizing that I have absolutely no brand-loyalty anymore.   Sorry, all you brands out there who are spending bazillions of dollars trying to convince me that your product is better, is for “people like me”, or who honestly think I will pay more for the privileged of letting other people see me with your product(s) in my shopping cart.  I don’t think so!

Once upon a time, I only bought Best Foods Mayonnaise.  I paid more money for it. It’s good.  It has decent ingredients.  I tasted a few others and realized there wasn’t any reason for me to be paying a premium for Best Foods when there were others out there that also had decent ingredients and tasted good.  I still buy it, occasionally, but it’s no longer the only one in the cabinet.   I always bought B&M Baked Beans.  Until I read their ingredient label and noticed their “Original” recipe had high fructose corn syrup in it.  Funny…  I didn’t know B&M used high fructose corn syrup when they introduced their baked beans back in 1927.  Amazing.  And I don’t care how many commercials they come out with telling me how good high fructose corn syrup is.  I won’t buy it.  At all.  Period.

It really seems that the more I started reading labels, the more I started switching products.  And the more I stopped buying national brands.  I think at some point I realized that the food manufacturers had no loyalty towards me as a person – if they did, they’d be using quality ingredients in the first place – and it was asinine for me to continue to support companies that are selling garbage as food.

That is not to say that I don’t have my favorite products.  I definitely do.  But the odds of me buying something merely because it is made by (Fill In The Blank) are between slim and none.  I think the odds of me not buying something because it’s made by (Fill In The Blank) are much better.

As a consumer, there are some serious benefits to not being chained to specific brands and products.  First off, you’ll probably be eating healthier.  And second, it opens up a whole new world of tastes and flavors and fun foods.  It’s almost amazing how much better ketchup made with sugar tastes compared to ketchup made with high fructose corn syrup.  And that’s but one little condiment.

And then switch from factory-farmed national-brand chicken to either organic or locally produced.  All of a sudden chicken has flavor again!

Which brings me full-circle back to dinner tonight.

Bone-in chicken on the barbie.  Gas.  Not charcoal.  Oh well.  Nobody’s perfect.