The Village Kitchen Thai Coconut Chicken 860g, $17.95 Available in gourmet & specialty food stores in Ontario For more information visit www.thevillagekitchen.ca When you think about it, products like these have to be good. The people who make frozen meals have their work cut out for them, because their competition is not necessarily homemade versions [...]

For Shelf Life, Thanksgiving is the less-is-more family holiday, and therefore our favourite. It offers fewer distractions than other banquet occasions, and as a result has won our hearts. Thanksgiving gives us less of the usual nuisances – eg. gift angst; wardrobe anxiety; commercial overkill; movie bloat; free-floating glitz – and more opportunity to find [...]

We’re doing it for the children. For years, Shelf Life has resisted the idea of taste testing packaged macaroni and cheese, not only because all neon-coloured meals make us nervous, but because the topic seems over-explored. Is there anything consumers don’t know about this stuff? We know that per capita, Canadians buy more of it [...]

Corn is our friend, but it has a dark side. Shelf Life wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of, say, an aggressive Niblet. Consider the evidence. First and most disturbing is the hegemony of Big Corn in our grocery stores, an unhealthy state of affairs in which thousands of everyday food products are [...]

Ines Rosales Sweet Olive Oil Tortas 6 Tortas, 180g, $7.99 available at fine and specialty food stores For more information visit www.inesrosales.com Shelf Life wonders if the product design is iconic in Spain – are these tortas as classic and familiar over there as, say, Old Dutch potato chips and McIntosh’s toffee are in Canada? [...]

Hark! Catch those snaps and snarls? The sounds you are hearing are howls of outrage coming from a pack of American hot dogs. Sara Lee, manufacturer of Ball Park franks, has filed a lawsuit against Kraft, maker of Oscar Mayer wieners. Among other things, Kraft is allegedly guilty of false advertising, because its ads proclaim [...]

Pete’s Tofu 2 go Sesame Ginger with jazzed ginger soy sauce 175g, $2.99 Available at health and fine foods stores. For more information visit; sunrise-soya.com Et tu, tofu? Shelf Life is wary of products that come with enclosed sauce; the dips and other add-ons hardly seem worth the effort, because they’re generally not very good. [...]

Let’s start with the pips. Yes, some people associate lemonade with old ladies’ porches and kids’ birthday parties; yes, it’s usually too sweet, or too watery; and yes, it’s not an obvious power drink (Shelf Life can’t imagine, say, Christian Bale as Terminator hero John Connor taking time out to glug down lemonade – come [...]

Ketchup! The classic. Culinarily speaking, all of human life is here. There’s almost nowhere ketchup can’t travel, almost nothing it can’t do, or become. It’s so ubiquitous, so protean, that even when it’s bad it’s somehow irresistible. A good ketchup is like New York City; sassy, shiny, iconic, beloved, and wonderfully accessible. A not-so-good ketchup [...]

Mother’s Day and tea parties go together beautifully, as naturally as Candy Spelling and shopping. On this year’s occasion, the Moms of Shelf Life will be raising their teacups to two important men in their lives. The first is a certain suave, intergalactic Englishman dressed in a form-fitting bodysuit, with a wonderful, knicker-flustering voice. According [...]